Final Stray Thoughts and some Common Responses People always refer to the rally system in Bloodborne and praise it for enabling the player to be aggressive and have more fun. I don't think this playstyle is exclusive to bloodborne though, you can play this aggressive and absorb some hits as long as you level hp properly. The rally system only taught you to play aggro, it didn't unlock this playstyle. This is the distinction imo. Souls games have struggled in the past to teach the player how they should play, the game can give you all the tools in the world but most people just won’t use them unless they’re subtly forced to. Just look at shields being overly easy to crutch on in souls or the spirit emblems keeping players from experimenting with prosthetic combos more. Also Joseph complains that we don't have the resources to keep up with the faster enemies but neglects to mention that endurance regenerates faster than ever now, even turbo regening when you crouch or just click crouch for half a second. I would say you could make the arguement to defend waterfowl dance if you want to but yea it's definitely an insane and polarizing attack. I can guarantee most people will have a hell of a time ever trying to figure out a roll dodge for it and probably never will on their own. For me this meant crutching on bloodhound step on my blind playthrough, then seeing Ongbal dodge it with light roll and going "oh thats how you do it" and then doing the roll dodge ever since. Even when I go into boss fights strictly to observe and take notes there is a slim chance that I think I would've ever figured out the up close dodge on my own, even though bloodhound helped me figure out the direction I should be dodging. The thing is though, now that I know how to dodge waterfowl I fuckin love it, it's so satisfying to get the up close dodge and feels so baller when you space the first string and only use one single roll to dodge the whole combo and make it look effortless. My problem with waterfowl is that it's so fun to dodge, but learning how is an absolute bitch to figure out and usually will mean players reaching for a crutch and not getting that cool moment of figuring out a solution for the craziest attack they have ever seen. In this regard waterfowl is too hard, but I don't want them to change it now at this point. Just to further clarify my opinion on Malenia specifically I would argue she is fair but she is definitely far from the funnest boss in ER imo. My problem with her is the flow of the fight is weird with her just stringing together standalone attacks rather than having longer combos and flowcharts like Morgott for example. She was anecdotally my lightbulb moment for changing my mentality and approach to this game's combat though and I had all the days of footage of me fighting her so that's why she ended up being a focus of the video. Another idea for dungeon rewards after some heated drunk discord debates was that we could have themed dungeons so you know what type of reward you could expect. An example would be a crystal cave for a sorcery as the main reward. That way if you are making a mage build you know it will be worthwhile to do. The problem is that a strength build would have zero motivation to do it except for minor rewards and runes. Instead of theming the dungeons then, we could add questlines and rumors to the npcs so they could point you in the right direction. Sellen could give you some gossip or a treasure map that leads to a dungeon with a high level spell. This would also help fill out some more npc questlines in a refreshingly non-cryptic way. As long as we avoid the fetch quest trap. For the dungeon rewards being unique I could also mention that if you find a spell or weapon that you want to try you can easily re-spec to try it out and it's way easier than in ds3 and completely nonexistent in Bloodborne. Idk if there are just this many Dark Souls 1 boomers or what but it puzzles me as to why so many diehard Souls fans have such an aversion to actual rpg mechanics/systems, such as item crafting. Also wtf is this hand wringing about the hitless players. All these nerds who never bother to challenge run souls games, and have no idea what it's even like, whining that it needs to be fun while hitless so we should make it easier. Save the scrub sympathy and go try and hitless dark souls 3 right now and see just how miserable and janky it really is. Dark Soap pointed out to me that Great Runes don't carry over into ng+. Idk why this slipped my mind but yea. IF you want to do a lifesteal build then you could Blasphemous Blade, God Devourer Serpent Curved Sword, and Taker's Cameo, but this would only give hp on kills and not vs bosses. Godskin swaddling cloth talisman does give you hp on successive attacks though so there's that. Sucks but ah well. I'll reiterate that I wish there were more great runes like the Melania Rune that give playstyle altering properties. Again I still believe you can play like you might in bloodborne even without a rally system. Also I have yet to see footage but apparently elden stars and Radahn meteor can happen multiple times in one fight. I have yet to see this in ng+5 even after I stopped leveling at 125 so anecdotally I'm going to say for most people you will almost always see these attacks just once, and both are easy to dodge anyways if you know what to do (just Google the elden stars dodge already my god I even show it in the vid). Godskin nobles Belly Wog (Noble Prescence) seems to have been solved by hitless runners and you can run backwards out of it. Still unsure if its 100% consistent but check out a fellow challenge runner and ask them about it. There are some no roll runs of this boss out there. To the nerds who can only hyperfixate on one thing at a time yes, From tiptoeing the line between fair and unfair with a couple enemies out of hundreds in a game can be good game design. Stop pretending like they did it for every single boss and enemy. Yes I know many hitless runners have a laundry list of complaints about a few of the bosses, mostly Malenia since she is guilty of the most jank. For 99.5% of the playerbase they will not have their overall enjoyment of the entire game compromised because a few attack or hitboxes are not 100% perfectly clean, and I know this because it has existed in every souls game to date and people are now saying those were their favorites of all time, even when they too were unbalanced af on launch. I don't see people complaining that "malenias double swipe can be undodgeable into it in certain situations when you are on higher elevation," instead you see people saying Margit has undodgeable frame traps. Just because there are a handful of attacks that exist in this game out of hundreds that aren't cleanly perfect 100% of the time due to unintended bugs like projectiles getting hung up on terrain, doesn't mean that From suddenly shit their pants and forgot how to balance games. If you are a hitless runner than yes unfortunately you will have to play around bosses to mitigate certain moves because there is rng in the sense that an attack might bug out and end your run, but for the layman they will never even notice these issues most of the time. It's the same shit as when I showed Silverbullet getting killed by an invisible attack in his Lady Maria run while Joseph is there praising her balance while being able to sweep the jank under the rug. I am aware that hitless runs are not a great indicator of how good or fair a boss is, but it is instructive because majority of the complaints I see are just this attack or that attack is undodgeable when they are sorely mistaken and just need to learn how to dodge it. I can see why my desire to spotlight many of these under-watched creators came across as me using hitless runs as proof that bosses are perfectly fine the way they are already. There IS a myriad of legitimate problems with this game like all the rest, but once again the greater conversation about these games lost because scrubs are too busy spreading misinfo and muddying the water. There are still fucking redditors that to this very day claim that they forget to turn on poise in ds3. To the babbies saying I'm view hungry I started on this video when I had 50 subs and I just wanted to make it to share with my friends in the invader community so I wouldn't have to talk about the same shit over and over every single time we argued about Anderson's video on discord, with every person remembering what he said totally differently. I had to make my own timestamps for his video and takes notes over 5 watches just to even figure out his concrete stance on anything specific so I can understand how people end up misremembering and imprinting their own bias onto his analysis, given the wishy washy and perma-sidetracked nature of long form essays. Clip farming for ez gotcha's is one thing, but I really needed to make sure we are somewhat on the same page here at least. One last complaint about sekiro, who are all these guys coming out of the woodwork to say how much they love sekiro in order to then complain about Elden Ring. Where the fuck were all these fans when the game was getting lambasted for being an ultrahard, over-tuned, repetitive grind of L1 spam. Posers smh. I’ve noticed a huge wave of newcomers to sekiro lately and its been fantastic, but I think people forget just how much that game got shit on the year it released. I’m honestly shocked it got GOTY considering how many game journalists had to beat it with cheats. Lastly, to all the kind folks commenting things along the lines of "Good job on the video man but but I still agree with Joseph," thank you but please give yourself some credit. You can feel that Elden Ring isnt fun or fair enough and dislike it, you don't have to agree with either me or Joseph.
Souls fans don't really like it when they experiment. Look at the worst souls bosses. Or levels which have experiments in them such as the bell dudes in Undead Crypt in Ds2 or the Depths in Ds1. They don't really know what they want and when they can't experiment things will remain the same. It can become stagnant and people will get bored. If they do new things and it doesn't turn out well (look at most of the shit in Dark Souls 2 as an example) then people won't buy it because it's not the same thing. People have no idea what they want. Zelda fans are just like that as well because Nintendo wants to experiment. God people are so stupid sometimes.
I'm just curious, what are hitless runners saying about the bosses in Elden Ring? where can I find their thoughts? I would be curious to know what someone like Ongbal thinks about Elden Ring bosses, b/c I found his fights against them very entertaining
@@lucideclair6690 look thru this comment section and see Swagopagos, mrBorkD, and NathanSavageDamages comments. Also most hitless runners give their opinions on bosses the description of their videos where they do things like hitless and base level runs
One of the funniest things I heard early on about this game from Zero Punctuation was that jump attacks make the game infinitely more easy - I have to give him credit for realizing how profound a change it was
@@CODA96 after factoring in recovery times, no, jumping attack greatswords is nowhere near faster than R1, they are quite slower, leave you much more vulnerable for longer, and takes much more stamina to perform. the one thing elden ring taught me is that you should use all the attacks, ashes, heavys and lights, jumping heavys and lights etc etc for example, some of godfreys moves start too fast to heavy jump attack with a greatsword, but leaves you just enough time to dodge out if you use a light jumping attack, this applies to so many enemies factoring in so many weapon classes. ER as a whole is laughably more complex than past games barring sekiro.
@@jowoel5073 and you probably got abused right back more than you shouldve if you always spammed jumping, trick is to use all the attacks depending on the boss/enemy.
To be honest, that is how I felt with Malenia's waterfall dance, I was dodging everything else, but that thing would kill me half the time or waste one or two of my flasks, I only beat her because I got a good rng and she only used that move three times.
you get malenias greatrune extremely lategame and can only use it on like 4 main bosses and it doesnt carry over to ng+ so the being able to play like bloodborne point is not entirely true aside from that great video
Yea fair enough. I replay these games quite a lot so I don't mind if I use it in new game plus. But yea basically you aren't using it on your first playthrough Edit: oh wait it doesn't carry over wtf? That's lame af then. That's so bizarre like I definitely knew that but it just completely slipped my mind. I suppose you would have to do a blasphemous blade and God Devourer Serpent Curved Sword build with Takers Cameo then.
Well granted you can actually skip a lot of exploring and straight up kill Morgott, get to the Mountaintops and the two medallion halves and fight Malenia even before you fight Godrick but through natural progression and first playthrough no you won't be able to get until late game
@@aceoffires1032 I wonder if they could've made a really obscure questline to get to malenia early somehow so you could get the rune early if you are a God at her. Like beat Mohg and can use Miquella to teleport to haligtree depths
@@loopine that would be interesting, especially since people never use the gate to get to Mohgwyn in the first place and go through Varre's quest line, it would several hours earlier, it would work, least in theory
@@loopine you can do lot better great stars, godskin apostle cloth talismen first heals a tiny bit every hit other heal with consecutive hits, have icon shield and blessed dew tailsmen, plus takers cameo or better assassins crimson talismen since its a great hammer can do posie break easily . put bestial vitality and a have the heal over time physick and the heal with damage physick in the mix and can have one of the most annoying to kill builds ever. plus put wild strikes on the great stars .
Malenia clicked for me when I understood that she flinched super easy and I could even knock her out of combos. Basically: I lost respect and started bullying that woman
It makes it even more funny how Joseph had such trouble considering str builds are horrifically strong, especially against her. I was telling someone I had so much trouble with her my first kill and he said he simply used dual wield colossal weapons and just did jumping attacks, and didn't even know why I had so much trouble to begin with.
The main problem is still the water fowl dance but even still the way she gets staggered is completely random. She usually always stagger after she jumps to the left but there’s no consistency to how she is staggered out of an attack. Some times on the same move she’ll get staggered other times she’ll just poise through your attack. I felt like all the poise breaks and staggers you could do against bosses felt cheap and dumb throughout the game, they also feel super random especially because they for some reason didn’t add a stagger meter to bosses.
@@stephenm707 the way she flinches is not random, certain attacks give enemies hyperarmour where they have infinite poise. You can learn them. Staggering is also again not random, there is an invisible bar that depletes if youre not attacking. You can easily figure out how many attacks it takes to stagger with your weapon you dont need a fucking bar go play ubisoft shite. Waterfowl is also extremely easy to dodge, you literally just unlock and run backwards and she misses 95% of the attack. In general in souls games you can literally walk away and around bosses and attacks. Watch any player do no hit runs and youll understand.
56:46 Fun fact: Pontiff was originally supposed to be the final boss, and his arena was originally for a boss version of the Fire Witch (the tall guys that shoot fire earlier in the city). Given both his original intended placement and his importance in the lore/story, it makes sense that he has a complicated and difficult moveset.
Everyone says pontiff was hard. He's not. I thought Aldrich and dancer were loads harder but that's what's good about souls. We all can debate out hardest or easiest bosses
@@errorcringyname4044 Aldrich was a real ass. Dancer wasn't really so hard but much as I tried to telegraph her she still seemed to one up me lol. She's my most hated main Game boss. I literally did not like the fights. I enjoyed Aldrich tho although had me about to rage quit a couple times lol
I beat Mogh’s second phase yesterday with serpent bow and serpent arrows and kukri because I’m not great at dodging around the blood flame. I’m playing a character using as many of the mechanics in the game as I can making heavy use of crafting. It absolutely the most fun I’ve had with this game. Limitations are a fun challenge but if someone’s self imposed limitations are annoying them, then it’s not the game at fault.
the thing is, self imposed limitations can highlight glaring flaws or issues within the game that would have otherwise been an after thought because you have enough health to not care. things like the camera spazzing out when theres gigantic bosses having mobility equivalent to small ninjas. things like lockon remaining active when godskin noble is rolling in circles around pillars, then last second decides to toggle off at the last second and fuck up your positioning. in an effort to won up their previous games, the bosses get jammed all these different movesets that they were already redlining with in ds3 with the sister friede fight. valiant gargoyles is a boss that not only fucks with the camera alot so you have to free aim..but when u free aim you have to go back and forth between 2 of them. to add insult to injury they made it so the things spew poison mist that is barely readable in your peripherals because it blends in with the blue/greenish water. i still have alot of fun with the game but theres so many things where i felt they just decided to throw everything into a design but the kitchen sink.
@@Shad0wmoses I won’t argue you with you about Valiant Gargoyles, that fight is dogshit if you’re trying to beat them solo even when you’re levelled appropriately. The poison makes those two needlessly overtuned. That said, I broadly agree with the points made in the video. I’ll summon Bernahl for Godskin Duo and not think twice about it but if a player wants to strictly play through it solo, then have patience with the process, discover a better strategy and learn it or stop complaining because ultimately, the mechanics are there in game to use and you do it to yourself.
@moses " self imposed limitations can highlight glaring flaws or issues within the game" If those flaws are the result of self imposed limitations and something you wouldn't expect to see in otherwise normal gameplay, no. If the flaw is only an issue when you go out of your way to ignore game elements then its not some glaring issue as its already been addressed in the game. Valiant Gargoyles camera handling and readability are not a self imposed flaw, it happens as a result of normal gameplay even if you decide to summon, its a flaw in the game. Joseph not using tools or ashes of wars at all and complaining about his limited capability to act against bosses is a self imposed flaw, as having done so would have solved his issue (more poise to trade hits, more defense to trade at a better advantage, more acess to attacks that can interupt enemies and deal more poise damage).
This is the conclusion I came to and why I agree with the assessment that he's a scrub. Not only does he complain about everything under the sun rather than mechanics in the game itself. But then proceeds to say he will not use very legitimate strategies for beating the boss or interrupting annoying mechanics that he cant overcome. Like, what do you want? You said it was too hard with your build because you cant find attack windows - people give you explicit tips to make attack windows and you still complain calling it boring... Literally no pleasing these kinds of people. I'm just going to assume that he doesnt like souls games when he doesnt have a baby safe window. At that point, just use a sword and board if you want to play it safe.
@@rasmachris94 Yeah, I mean, I’ve been fighting Mohg all week and I used to really struggle against him but with the DLC due I’ve beaten him with three of my characters and I’ve been co-opping to help others too. He’s still tough, but now I understand where the openings are. So why not just use the mechanics available and then build up the challenge by removing them incrementally rather than going in cold and expecting to power through? It’s a bit mad to be honest.
The real annoying attack with Rykard is the delayed earthquake he does in phase 1. It looks like it could be jumpable but isn't, lasts a little too long to roll and is a little too wide to run through unless you're pre-running. You kinda have to just position so he doesn't use it.
The way to dodge that is also how you dodge melania's first flurry of waterfowl (even if you are close). You sprint away and then do a sprinting jump when the attack comes (for Rykard you run to the side). I also found an alternative dodge that involves jumping onto the corpse piles. ruclips.net/video/OaUQ_OUKmh8/видео.html Also, you can just block it, even at RL1 with an unupgraded Serpent Hunter and no armor. But yea, it's probably still the most f*cked attack in the game tbh besides maybe ancestral regal spirit roll.
The way some people describe the way they're going through the game, it's as if every single boss they're fighting is just an upscaled version of a Royal Revenant
True. I can understand hyperbole, but people are straight up lying. Like Sekiro and DS3 bosses didn't have a million moves, Elden Rings bosses just have delayed attacks and ask of you to walk and run during the fight, not just roll, plus jump when you need to. I don't wanna say it, but some people just need to get good... And that goes to the same people that would use that phrase to make fun of others, but are now in the same boat
@@Lord.alucarD One thing I have noticed is that especially after the DLC, many of the delayed attacks are designed to be strafed. they are made to be harder to dodge roll, which makes you dodge in a different way. think Margit's infamous staff swing, Godfrey's big swing, Messmer dragging his spear along the ground, etc
@@FinnishArsonist Exactly, the game also expects you to run around and not just spam dodge roll into normal attack... That formula got stale by this point, I don't understand how people can dislike the fact that bosses are different and expect you to play different... Literally in no other game would a player intentionally not use half the mechanics given to them and then complain the game is "hard", only in Elden Ring
I am very late but a minor thing I found while fighting Pontiff in DS3. If your playing pure mage, the invisibility spell hidden body will for some reason break agro completely as long as it's maintained... which will allow to spam long range spells and absolutely delete him without breaking a sweat. I haven't tried it on any other bosses but it was fucking hilarious. I only found out because I used hidden body to get passed the knights without having to roll. I got far away from Pontiff in the fight at one point and the dude just let me fuck his day up it was probably the funniest glitch/tech I've ever encountered in Dark Souls.
That's very interesting actually. I suspect it only works on Pontiff and it might be for a very specific reason: he stands there and only starts walking when you get closer. Maybe it has something to do with how that works. Generally, bosses in Souls games have infinite aggro range, apart from cases like this.
Dude, this video has made really interested in playing Elden Ring again because I know that I will be even better next time and have more fun. I always say that these games are about confidence and what From does really well is scare you as a new player in every game. The absolute biggest factor that determines boss difficulty for me is whether or not I have beaten it before, the biggest knowledge check is not what the boss is strong or weak to or its moveset. It is that it is beatable. It's not that I get better at the game, I just get more confident with the game and dare do things I otherwise wouldn't dare to do. I remember the first time I beat Kalameet. He was impossible to me, but then during a run something just clicked. He did a side swipe attack and it was just like I saw something I hadn't seen before, and I instantly knew that I would beat him. It was like I awoke my sharingan or something, and I knew that he was easy. Never had problems with him after that.
"what From does really well is scare you as a new player in every game" 100% When DS1 came out it was praised by some but many claimed it was "artificial difficulty", similarly when DS3 came out Midir and Nameless King were hailed as the hardest bosses in gaming, and hard for the sake of being hard. Same with Sekiro, being called a rhythm game that you just remember the same tricky timings that are unintuitive for difficultys sake. We know these are all untrue. Like you said Fromsoft is so good at truly instilling fear in the player, and making bosses that seem impossible. At first. But if you embrace losing, embrace death, you can keep trying to beat it, learning new tricks every attempt, seeing things you didnt see before, eventually it is beatable. I think the reason ERs claims of artificial difficulty have been so loud is because it had been so long since we got a new Fromsoft game, and players forgot what it is like to lose. Players got the idea in their heads that they were good at these games, that they were "Souls Vets" and shouldn't be scared of bosses, but more importantly they shoudnt be dying, again and again. When you let yourself fail, you unlock your true strengths.
@willharcus110 as a Souls vet his takes regarding Elden Ring’s are entirely right, the infinite stamina is straight bullshit and their movesets are over tuned as fuck, mainly with too many combos that seamlessly flow into the next leaving no opening, or combos have extended variants that are impossible to tell apart from their normal versions until it’s too late to take advantage of any opening that was created.
@@Slender_Man_186his takes about ER are far from entirely right. I really like Joseph, i think his videos are fun and provide an interesting view-point, and ER's video is not outside of that, but he also says blatantly wrong things, like ER bosses encouraging a pasive playstile. On the contrary, once you learn to strafe some attacks and use properly jump attacks you can be super aggressive with the bosses. Seriously, i started off agreeing with him since i didn't understand what the game wanted from me in my first playthough, but after replaying the game some more and experimenting with my kit... No, he was wrong on that. And yeah, I'm a souls vet too.
@@angelamengualcortinas3614 Exact same experience here. If I'd watched Joseph's video back when the game launched I would have totally agreed with him, but now after actually learning how the combat works in ER, not so much.
I think the issue most people have with Elden Ring's difficulty is that there isn't much of a middle ground in terms of challenge. Based on your build, certain bosses either require a ridiculous amount of effort to beat, or can be trivialized via summons and magic. Compared to previous games in the series, builds offer less of a skill curve, where people of low, adverage, and advanced skill can play through the game with suitable builds to their skill level. This results in people of adverage skill either getting frustrated with their build's high difficulty or getting board from playing an overpowered build because it's too easy, without a clear middle ground.
Yea i agree its more polarizing. It's likely a side effect of the arms race From finds itself in to keep make harder games each time they make a game similar to dark souls, since if they just made another batch of ds3 bosses I guarantee it would be a ds2 situation where everyone just complains that it's way too easy to the point where the devs say "Fuck you" and give us Scholar of the First Sin edition. I guess the compromise they decided they had to make bosses even harder but also introduce some new mechanics to help along the players that need it.
@@loopine i think their approach def is what made it so controversial. like in theory this idea of give players a ton of tools to make the game easier, and then more experienced players can simply not use those tools sounds amazing. Even in the previous games this is basically the point of sl1 runs, they remove the entire rpg part of the game basically to create a higher challenge. the difference is soul level 1 changes very little of the basics of the game. The overall experience is simply just, you do less damage, and can take less hits. Compare that to elden ring, what's the difference between using all the tools available, or sticking to a only rolling melee weapon build where you try to dodge every attack and get hits in when you can. Using spirit summons alone can trivialize fights, removing any need to really engage with a bosses full mechanics since they can just deaggro and focus your summon giving you tons of time to heal. There is some fun to be found playing with spirit summons esp if you find the game super hard without them, but unlike in previous games the normal way you're expected to play the game is one of the least fun ways to play the game. whereas the what i would consider most fun way to play the game feels like i'm doing a soul level 1 run even though i'm doing a normal run where i'm even a bit overleveled if anything. You could argue that spirit summons could be considered in the same tier as spellcasting from previous games, which can allow you to ignore engaging with bosses mechanics, but the difference is there's still a choice there and a "normal" difficulty if you will. What is elden rings "normal difficulty"? Not every boss was this way but man, bosses like malenia took me as long as it takes me to do a no-hit sl1 boss. I don't mind because i love SL 1 runs, but if i didn't man i would not like this game. It feels like there's no middle ground between what is basically a cheesing a boss, and getting shit stomped by them until you know them better than your own family. Overall though, i love elden ring and agree with most of your points. It's frustrated me that there's loads of youtubers complaining about bosses when the main bosses mostly felt great. The game has loads of flaws, but the main bosses imo are not one of them.
@@stolensentience that doesn't really mean anything, you're mad you had a hard time with the game and are making an excuse as to why. There is a proper learning curve in ER its just steeper.
All of their games are like this to an extent. Where a certain build can trivialize some bosses and make some tougher. It's been around since demons souls. ER just gives far more options. There doesn't need to be some vague "middleground" in these games because you can create your own "middleground" type of build, even in ER. It's just that many bosses are noticeably tougher. Anyone can play through elden ring with any build, at any skill level. It just takes patience. Fact.
A small problem that goes a long way is just rolling backwards away from attacks. Rolling into attacks and then using your roll as a way to position for a punish is a really important aspect of Elden Ring and especially slow strength weapons. Sure you might get hit but it’s okay to take risks, especially when the pros to playing aggressive are crazy good.
Yea I think most people know on some level that it is more fun and engaging to roll into bosses and be aggressive, and is more optimal. I think that in ER with combo mixups and the faster pace they were met with way more resistance to rolling in than ever before and were taken aback and just went back to rolling away. Def takes wayyy longer to truly learn a shardbearer boss in this game first time around
The problem with that is that so many bosses punish that behaviour by putting you in 50/50 mixups or just straight up punishing you for trying to be aggressive like with margits daggers.
@@huckmart2017 in my experience margit daggers werent undogeable with smaller weapons like longswords. I mean if you wanna carry heavier weapons then sure, it is expected that you need to play more carefully man
theres a huge difference between saying that elden ring in particular has apects to its bosses that make them less enjoyable than other Fromsoft games and saying they're terrible on the whole or they're all good, you just don't get it. There are parts of fights that I feel give cheap damage, but that doesn't sour my experience of the whole encounter. As an example, I hate Godrick's whirlwind because it can randomly punish you for properly punishing his own whiff (And I mean after only getting 1 hit on him. not being greedy). But on the whole, I still think the fight is fun and overall fair, its just that one bit I don't enjoy facing, even if it "makes sense" from certain game design perspectives. There's also shit like Margit's 7 decade long windup that feels weird and unnatural compared to literally any other game in existence. But that fight is still fun, and has plenty of moments I enjoy, so those problems only make up about 25% of my experience. Its important to realize that yeah, you can always adapt to what a boss is doing, but there can still be issues with a fight thats a good experience on the whole. Just because I know how to deal with Waterfowl, doesn't mean that I have to like that it was included and have no real issues with it
@@skdeathxlife I think this disagreement comes from what ppl enjoy in these games. I've always hated fighting big stuff. dragons, giants, giant blobs of hitbox. and once you get to fire giant almost all of the rest of the bosses are huge. and if you don't mind or enjoy those fights than it doesn't even matter. but to me or op here, that shit kinda stinky.
@@janefkrbtt I agree with op I'm talking to the guy who said the game is shit after the fire giant (Also hate the dragons the only good one was placidusax)
I find that Malenia’s first phase, she’s extremely passive and lore walks at you, watching you fully charge an R2 and get staggered, and the moment she senses fear in the player she becomes hyper aggressive and relentlessly attacks.
She's actually super passive in first phase period. She is one of the very few bosses that lets you just run away and heal, buff, swap weapons for as long as you want. She just defaults to this slow walk when you're not attacking. She mostly just retaliates, or becomes aggressive if you stick close to her. It's a fight where player 100% dictates the pace. You can disengage from her pretty easily, and she will very rarely chase you.
@@Quicksilver_CookieLorewise it shows how cocky she is in her absolute belief that you stand no chance against her she becomes hyper aggressive in her second phase because now she realizes you're basically another Radahn.
@@loopine dude idk how you play something like this while drinking that much. I become way too sloppy and then quit and go play DRG. either way, it was fucking hilarious and I need to catch a stream of yours.
@@Jakster840 I just did Fire giant, Commander Niall, Astel, and Godskin Noble with an unupgraded zweihander at RL1 with No Aux or Armor pretty hammered not too long ago lol I need some beers so I don't get bored on 30 minute attempts
Pretty good video, especially the editing, my main problem with alot of the attacks in ER is that figuring out how to avoid them is often unreasonable. Examples: inconsistancys with which attacks can be jumped over, delayed attacks(they arent that bad because often there is still a bit of a telegraph when the attck will come) and figuring out that you have to make a circle for waterfowl dance. The position based combo extensions are also never explained, so a lot of players will think its just random.
Truuue. I think souls games have always struggled to teach players how to play the game honestly. And yea I could not figure out hardly any attacks to jump in my first playthrough, I never started to experiment until second playthrough. There is a lot of inconsistency in the readability. The big moment for me was Maliketh's beast claw, the lingering hitbox is ridiculous if you roll but it's easy to jump even if the particle goes thru your legs (The way jumping works is it makes your lower half invincible).
@@dvamg I did learn the Maliketh fight hitless on my own for this video. Took like 3 hours. You can do it if you put your mind to it and learn the full fight, I just knew that is was worth the effort so I was motivated while most people just think Oh this is broken what's the point, guess I'll just hittrade with Jumping L1s. And yea totally, these games have always struggled to teach the player the way they are supposed to fight, like I say in my pinned comment. There are legitimate problems with the game and that's why it is sickening that we are talking about bullshit like this when we should be addressing things like input dropping. Oh and like I said the community effort thing I guess is subjective but looking at the challenge runner and invader communities that sprung up because of it, I am super grateful. Stos charity fundraiser that he put on for the tiny little twitch invader community raised in the top 10 of all events put on by that charity on twitch in 3 days and absolutely smashed their yearly goal with just our one event.
@@loopine i know that this essay vides they always seem misinformation most of the time about about the game like recently i watched neverknowbests who bring ranni quest as been difficult to do even though it the most easier to follow compared to other quest in the game i saw a couple peoples on the comments even point that out too or blaidd where he been only friendly if you buy an gesture from a merchant which kind untrue
@@dvamg why does anyone join the scrub camp? It's because it is easier to come up with an excuse and blame a mythical line of code and give up, rather than be realistic about your skill and knowledge level, accept it, and be open minded and learn to actually improve
In the souls games, I've always played more reactive, just act instinctively to what happens as opposed to learning the bosses moves, windows etc. The doggedness of the elden ring bosses, while sometimes being frustrating, makes this approach really fun and rewarding for me personally.
I believe Elden Ring lacks a bit of polish with its difficulty, mainly because damage ramps up to absolutely ridiculous degrees by the time you reach Mountaintops, and also some bosses because of various complaints, be it poor visual clarity because of the camera with Fortissax and Lansseax, ganks made of mobs that aren't specifically crafted to work as a gank because it increases the likelyhood of facing pattern overlap, which is still as frustrating as it was with Lud&Zallen in DS2, or other specific issues. However, I very much think the evolution of the combat was the right direction for Elden Ring. I've malded countless times during my 5 or 6 playthroughs, but the idea of shifting the "turn based combat" from the previous games into a semi-endless flurry of attacks you have to break apart to find exploitable gaps for counters, yes, I'm all about that, it adds a new layer of complexity to boss design that makes for a refreshing experience.
Agree 100% and I can’t even fault Fromsoft cause it’s the first time they attempted this change I feel like dlc or new games that attempt this kinda of Risk/Reward fighting will be better implemented
The problem is that this works when facing a single enemy, but lots of times there are more than one on screen, making it an endless flurry of attacks you cant do anything about, except run away and spam ranged attacks.
I think the big difference from Sekiro in terms of the flexibility of evasive options (i-frame rolls, jumping, low-profiling, walking) is that Sekiro communicates very clearly what to use in any given situation. You jump the sweeps, Mikiri the thrusts, jump and return the lightning, dodge the slams. And all of these attacks have a special telegraph in the form of a danger symbol, because you're supposed to just parry the other attacks without hesitation, since Hesitation is Defeat. When the ape throws a huge... boulder at you and you're bad at dodging you can just block it with your dinky katana, and the worst it will do is stagger you for a few seconds and deny you one punish opportunity. Elden Ring gives you all of the options, but none of the help. Since there's no general rule of "everything but these things can and should be parried" there's no universal callout for attacks that allow/require different evasion options, so even to somebody who has beat and enjoyed Sekiro it could become somewhat unclear how to evade certain attacks that shouldn't just be i-frame rolled. Just from this video, I wouldn't expect to jump Morgott's tail because it is so big, nor the Beast's AoE attack because it looks so tall, and low-profiling wouldn't even occur to me. Between this and the lack of an in-game explanation of posture breaking, Elden Ring has a lot of depth but doesn't communicate it very well. This complicates the problem of learning the bosses and gittin' gud, all while leaving a pile of "easy mode" options on the table. Basically, Sekiro adds a lot of options and guides a "bad player" through them. Elden Ring dumps the same options on you and expects you to figure out how to use them with no guidance and little indication they're there at all. All while having some of the strongest magic in all of FromSoft's games and the Spirit Ash system both presented much more prominently. Edit: also, the temptation argument leads to a diametrically opposite conclusion on the "easy mode" question for me. Because right now, the tools to make the game easy are all readily available to the point where scrubs may end up with takes like "is it all designed around me using this obvious stuff?" Shunting some of these features into a clearly labeled easy mode would make it more obvious: no, we designed the game to be beaten normally with these fundamental tools, git gud at using them. It would, if anything, reduce the temptation, because popping the Mimic wouldn't be as simple and immediately accessible as just equipping it in a slot and using it.
Marge should have been a blocker for the rest of the game and tuned for a +0 weapon, solo only, base level player like in DS3 Giving away all those overpowered ways of beating the game with exploration means people reach the endgame not having learned anything about the combat. Then, when even the overpowered shit isn't enough to steam roll everything there's an abyss between what the player is capable of and what the game asks of them Someone who did it "the hard way" is much more likely to have a smoother difficulty curve (even if the absolute values of the difficulty are higher) simply because they couldn't mindlessly roflstomp 95% of the game
I have to disagree, you have all the tools necessary to avoid damage or block/parry like you said (and some spells give even more defensive options), so the impetus is on the player to chose what tactic is best. Sure, some enemy attacks can be a little unclear at first glance, but this is an insignificant hurdle with one or two attempts to see what works. A huge problem that you (and most players) don’t realize, is that leveling up your Vigor as your most important stat, will give you these chances to learn and make mistakes. I roll my eyes when players get one-shot to almost any attack that isn’t some huge grab attack or massive explosion. You should always be able to recover and immediately heal, as I’ve realized that there are almost zero circumstances where and enemy will not give you enough time to reset and heal, especially attacks that knock you down, giving you even more i-frames,
@@BLK_MN You're coming at this from the perspective of a knowledgeable player and thus miss the point: the path from "noob" to "knowledgeable player" is the problem. To use the Beast's attack as a specific example, a player who knows well how each of their evasive options works would know to check if that attack is jumpable. A scrub who got along without jumping wouldn't, and the game does little to teach you about the lower body intangibility that makes jumping a better evasive option than it looks. It's absolutely a skill issue, but also a skill gain issue. And I get it that lots of people don't realize the one true meta that is Vigor (itself something of an issue), but I would note that I didn't in fact get one-shot by weak attacks. Oceiros had shotted me enough times in DS3 that I did learn the value of a healthy health bar. That doesn't change the nature of unknown unknowns: if you don't realize you have a tool that you can try, you won't try it and learn that it works. And to be clear, again, it's fine if the game is so obtuse that it's hard to learn how to learn it. It's much worse when the options to not learn it and still progress are all over the place and not properly segregated. A common take I've seen on Margit is that he teaches you to turn around, go explore the world, and come back when you're stronger. That's not a good thing in my opinion, it incentivizes scrubs (like myself) not learning the game properly and just bulldozing it with all the power given to them in the name of "accessibility".
@@BLK_MN Thank you. When you don't know the game of course you're gonna make mistakes. Sekiro fans can't say the nailed every stealth encounters nor the spirits bossfights on the first go (the less we talk about Ape's screaming or Demon of Hatred, the better).
@@illusive-mike I’d again argue that you’re looking at it from an overly critical “noob” perspective. The reason why leveling Vigor is so important, is because you WILL get hit a lot. If you level nothing but Vigor, and run straight to Margit, you could reliably beat him without having to go back first and explore. It’s all about having enough health to mitigate mistakes.
Sekiro got me addicted to "NO HESITATION!" and staying up in the boss's face at all times, it was hard to go back to this style of play. Not necessarily worse just different.
Staying in the bosses face and being aggressive is exactly what you want to do in Elden Ring. A lot of the boss moves reward you for rolling into them with openings and safety from follow ups while rolling away gets punished. This is especially true for Malenia and the Fire Giant.
I'm a game dev currently working on a souls-like project, and i program these types of AI every day. They are running on behavior trees, which are basically flowcharts of tons of little decisions. At each point it looks at the current state of the game, such as its own HP & stamina, and things like the distance and angle to the player, whether the player is currently attacking, rolling, blocking, jumping etc. You can get a lot of unexpected "emergent" behavior from these, meaning you are going to see a lot of variety from bosses. Their main priority is going to be to attack. So you sometimes end up with these kind of "perfect storm" situations where all the variables line up to give the boss a brutal attack window to just go berserk. And not every player is going to encounter all the same behaviors as all the other players. It entirely depends on the way the player moves around and interacts with the AI.
I wish developers would spend a little more time explaining these types of things so that people would understand it more. I am also a developer working on a hollow knight / souls like type game, and I understand dude. Honestly, I wouldn’t want my bosses either way. Lol punish these plebs.
After a lot of of attempts. The first phase of Malenia's fight definitely became one of my favorite fights in the game. Though I do think one of the main problems with her is how inconsistent she is, with her being able to do things like canceling her stagger animations to dodge/block your attack. And while I did use a greatshield to block the first part of the waterfowl I think the main problem with the circle around dodge is that it's something you can't really figure out on your own, as opposed to her other attacks that are hard to dodge, but can be figured out by trial and error.
Yeah. If she was consistent and Waterfowl had more time to run away, then a lot of people would have her as their favorite boss. You'd be ultra aggressive. Constantly trying to stagger her and use the fact that she is a humanoid with limited mass and poise. Or, she could have just been Lady Tomoe in the DLC that they scrapped and still be a loved boss in a game where the player can addapt to her inconsistency. Maybe make her even crazier and have even more animation cancel.
The ONLY boss I vehemently hate in Elden Ring is the Godskin Duo. Fighting either of them 1v1 can be pretty fun and rewarding, but the Godskin Duo feels like they were thrown together without making any changes to synergies their movesets. The biggest issue is the arena size and Noble’s rolly polly move in his second phase. The roll itself seems easy enough to understand however sometimes he can roll over the broken pillars which should be able to shield you and, as many people have posted videos of, can literally animation cancel mid roll to attack and in the next few frames start rolling again. The past 3-4 times I’ve fought them Noble has has killed me because of the animation cancel. The Apostle is not too bad in the Duo fight though if only because he’s somewhat more passive than the Noble.
I beat them first try, with a light build, using Malenia’s Blade. It was my first playthrough, so I was a bit overleveled, but still, not that challenging. What helped is that I’ve done dozens of summons for them where you fight one or the other, or even the actual Duo fight. It’s really nothing compared to say Ornstein and Smough, or the Throne Watcher and Defender, or even Ariamis and Sister Friede.
One of my favourite things about Elden Ring combat is the way that enemies don't just let you hit them in a pseudo turn based fashion. Elden Ring was my first Souls game, and it was insanely tough for me first playthrough, but everytime I beat a boss I felt triumph because it felt like the bosses genuinely wanted to stop me. When I fought Radagon and Elden Beast, it genuinely felt like they wanted to defeat me and stop me from becoming Elden Lord. They didn't pull any punches or wait for 3 hours so I could hit them. They just fought me, desperately doing everything in their power to stop the Tarnished from becoming Elden Lord, to keep that triumph from me. So when I did prevail, it felt like more of a victory, because I really felt like the bosses were giving it their all and I had to win not by taking advantage of specific openings, but by outsmarting them and creating my own openings. And even though I'm a lot better at the game now, I still get that feeling each playthrough.
Yep exactly, going back to DS3 or earlier games it feels so jarring having a massive knight or monster fighting to the death just sitting there just long enough for the player to get an attack in before going back to moving just as they were. Furthermore to your point the bosses really have a sense of desperation to them, my personal favorite being Morgott with his never ending combo's, and especially his Phase 2.5 combo. Fun stuff.
Yes!! I finished the game a few days ago, it was so good. The only boss I didn't beat was Malenia, and I'm trying now. Is so hard, I died so many times. But I'm feeling good now, I'm at a point where I've learned all of her phase one, now it's more about mechanical consistency. When you get in the rhythm of the fight it feels so awesome, is like a dance. You feel really, really powerful when you start to hit more than she hits you. The sensation of learning how to defeat a boss is something really special.
One of the boss which emphasizes this "not letting you win" the most, I think, is the crucible knight. If you attack them they will have their shield to protect themselves and will counterattack, and most of the time their attacks just don't f*** stop. It's even more relevant in phase 2. When you think you can attack they surprise you with their tails. They are very hard but I love these bosses. (Parrying them with a shield is something even funnier)
Another one I thought of is the godskin, the slim one. Whenever you're far and want to heal he'll throw a fireball at you. That's maybe "not fair" but concretely it makes far more sense.
Pretty good points and video but I think it’s pretty safe to say with the astel boss fight… come on. It may not have ruined it for you but for many players including myself, the one in the cave completely ruined the sanctity of the first one. The entire trek to get to that fight is just building up more and more what happened to the land underneath the lands between having you wonder what possibly could have wrecked this place and made it look like an underworld version of space. With the turnout/payoff being a cosmic horror something looking like it came straight out of bloodborne, with a super unique fight, boss arena, and lore behind it. The other astel is in a cave near an area associated with frenzy just… because? It’s really insulting imo and I guess this argument is pretty subjective but I think there’s cases where reused content is good such as the night’s cavalry, or the godskins but I really feel like if there is no established reason why fromsoft should reuse content then it feels like they are just putting it in to fill gaps in content based upon how much content they had to fill because they created to big of a map. I’m not complaining the map is too big but it really feels like fromsoft bit off more than they could chew. I’ll accept three versions of asylum demon because one was optional but a pretty damn important part of elden ring is fighting the tree asylum demons and there’s so many it doesn’t feel like an engaging boss fight anymore, it feels like a chore.
Interesting to hear people bring this up point about Astel up so much, because it's a non-issue in my own experience. I personally see the Consecrated Snowfield as an endgame area that you should be doing last anyways. There are two realistic possibilities following this logic: 1) You've already progressed through Ranni's questline and accessed the first Astel through Lake of Rot 2) You're already at an endgame level that would melt the first Astel fight and you're not backtracking to it. You either find the first proper Astel fight when you should fight it or you don't. The second Astel fight is a re-match, and if not then you already missed out on the real initial encounter. I don't necessarily want to say this is the player's fault for routing badly, as Elden Ring encourages you to tackle objectives in a player-determined order, but it seems odd to critique the game for reusing an encounter that it's somewhat reliably assuming you've already done. Perhaps one way to improve this would be by outright requiring some kind of item from dropped from the first time you encounter the boss, ensuring you don't play in the "wrong order." Also before anybody calls me a Fromsoft dick rider, I think the Concentrated Snowfield is a trash area anyways. Additionally, yeah the reuse of Astel is fucking lazy from a lore perspective imo. That and the Godrick reskin are the only two times that I think the game goes slightly overboard with the boss recycling. However, within the context of the game's huge boss pool, these seem like super trivial gripes.
@@earic2499 I think that’s a pretty reasonable response, I never even considered looking at it from a gameplay perspective because like you said your pretty much set up for the fight and it’s just a rematch. I always was just outright offended at the reuse of him because he’s a cool established boss and the entirety of the boss fight and everything surrounding it feels earned. It’s like if Oceiros from ds3 was just in the game at a later optional point for filler. Like I know it’s not a perfect example but you can understand what I’m trying to get at. It just takes away from the original fight and makes him feel like less of an established character. I feel like the less pushback we give to fromsoft the more they will do it too. It could get to a point where main bosses would be repeated(which before you think, yes I understand godrick is, it’s just some would say no because his copy is hard to find and he’s TECHNICALLY not a required boss to beat the game). Like how much impact would the abyss watchers have if you just kept seeing them? Not in any different interesting ways, it’s just the same boss fight and MAYBE a slight cosmetic change or they add a few more different options in they’re movesets. It eventually crumbles the original feelings and moments you have when playing these games at least in my opinion. I agree that from the lore perspective it’s bad and from a gameplay perspective it can be good, but what l’m asking is if you take it all away and just think about what your feeling in the moment I think most people would probably agree it sucks.
As it was said previously, only godrick fight (didn't understand what I was fighting at the moment for the 1st time) And for the Astel fight in the snowfield cave, I knew He was somewhere thete but I was like "Oh well idc, it's just a rematch" but when I found him it was very "mehhhh It would have been better to have only one astel" For the tree avatar I don't see the problem (some of them have new moves) because in a lore perspective it's logic to have one in front of each trees
You make a lot of good points, but I will never accept the close range Waterfowl Dance dodge to be a good argument in defense of the move. Running in a circle under Malenia and switching direction at the last frame of her start up animation IS NOT an intended mechanic, it's counterintuitive and most certainly not a dodge. You're just confusing her AI targeting to miss you in a way which isn't intended. Waterfowl Dance IS MEANT to never miss you in close range, and just because speed/challenge runners found a stupid way to glitch it, doesn't mean it's a well thought out or designed move. The intended design for the move is to force players to run away, and sure enough if you have enough space it's not that hard to survive, but this still creates moments where she can bust the move out while you're recovering from an animation or approaching her, and that means playing outside of the move's range is preferable, and that makes it boring and extremely passive. It would have been good if you could stagger her out of the move using a jumping R2; the window is already narrow as it is and this way the player has to make the correct call quickly, run towards her and stagger or run away and dodge. That is an engaging way to do it which encourages aggression and rewards player experimentation with the mechanics of the game. But no, WFD is left in its current state as the stupidest least intuitive move to deal with in the entire Soulsborne subgenre.
I've seen this argument a lot and I don't get it at all tbh. IMO they obviously knew about the close range dodge, they tested so many variations of this move and redesigned it and clearly and insane amount of dev time went into just this one move. Why would they want to force you to run away when its clearly not possible in all situations?
@@loopine No way to know why they would want anything but the only alternative to running away is an exploit that messes with her AI targeting to make her miss you. This is not a game mechanic or technique which is introduced in Elden Ring or taught to the player. Running under Malenia in a circle is not something that builds on or compliments any gameplay mechanics or systems that are introduced or explained to the player. It's literally just a an AI targeting trick. It's the kind of thing you should reasonably only expect challenge and speed runners (the people whose job is to break the game) to know. Since the end goal is surviving the attack and winning this is "fine" but it still stands to reason to say: WFD's intended design seems to encourage passivity. Players just found a silly way around it.
@@loopine I don’t see how you can say From knew about the close range dodge, it’s so random it’s like something that was discovered during a Tool Assisted Speedrun.
I still stand by the notion that Malenia's Waterfowl Dance is too unfair in how it's executed and that it makes her boss fight so stress-inducing in the worst way that I never feel satisfied when I do manage to beat her. Im honestly fine with all the other boss fights in Elden Ring that piss people off: Mohg, Maliketh, Fire Giant, Radagon, even Elden Beast, but Malenia is just too much for my wee little goblin brain.
It's definitely not unfair considering it's dodgable, luckily melania is optional so if you don't want to put in the time to improve then you don't have to
@@bubalfred260 yeah its dodgable, but barely. In my first playthrough I died well over 150 times to her. And it's not like I was underleveled or had bad gear. I was RL 135 with a maxed out Blasphemous Blade rocking 40 str 35 dex and 50 faith as well as 40 vigor and decent armor. I didn't want to use the mimic tear because it would make the fight easy af (I eventually ended up using it just to finally put her behind me, but I didn't enjoy the fight as much) I got good with fight too, using jump attacks, posture breaking, healing off the Blasphemous Blade and spamming the special attack to knock her down, but her Waterfowl dance always ended up killing me or nearly killing me. It has a very short wind-up, and unless you've practiced like LMSH then dodging her attack (flawlessly) is VERY difficult. I don't have a problem with waterfowl itself or even her healing mechanic. It's the fact she has both that pisses me off. If either one of those were taken out of the boss fight it would make her much more fair. I don't even know if there's a good lore reason as to why she's even able to heal on hit, like, that's never explained.
@@thegreycrusader If you don't like her or think she's a shitty boss that's fine, everybody has bosses in the souls series they don't like, but if your saying the boss is "unfair" because you couldn't beat her or you didn't have fun then that's just straight up false lol. She is extremely difficult, that's why she's optional, if you feel fighting her is ruining your enjoyment of the game then you don't have to fight her at all, that's completely fine. But the fact remains that every single one of her attacks are dodgable and avoidable if you put the time and effort into learning it, so she's not unfair at all
I have never played a single soulsborne games before elden ring, and my husband was really sure i would drop the game before godrick. but here i am. 200 hours in on my first playthrough, exploring as much ad i can, powerleveling whenever needed, learning through the experiences of the community. I am running a strength + faith build and i have been enjoying myself immensely. I like the specificity of buiilding because i can only focus on what i can really use. I got slapped around by bosses, including Mohg, but each death I learned and got bolder. This has been the best gaming experience i have had so far and it was totally worth what i paid for, it gave back to me in spades.
Yeah! Go for it! You should always level as much as you can your first playthrough of anything. You have no frame of reference for how hard or easy certain things should be, so there’s no reason to not try just plowing through, and maybe noting where certain areas are maybe meant to be played earlier or later for another round with another character. I was like level 250 when I finished the game and I could have easily gone higher. I know now I can reliably beat the game at a lower level, but that’s just hindsight. So don’t listen to others saying you should play the game this way or that way, because they could be dead wrong until you personally know for yourself.
Similar here, first souls game, loving it, have a hard time reading move sets though so I tend to just ham my way through most of the time after dying a few dozen times... Hah
@@BLK_MN definitely taking my time with this one. I try to discover as much locations, get gear that would work well with my build, etc. I'm at 195 now and I'm sure i can make a victory lap to the end but there's so much more given that I haven't completed the mountaintops area. I'm just adventuring through it 😊
The most fun I have had with Elden Rings bosses has been the times I had learned to be more aggressive rather than passive. Some of the more annoying bosses had become my favorites from the feeling I got from not only learning their fight but aggressively winning it.
Same, I was shocked when I a 10 minute long malenia fight became a 60 second phase 1 when I threw caution to the wind and went ham on her going for posture breaks
I remember when I finally experienced this feeling during Champion Gundyr fight that this little space in his combos is a great opportunity to deal 1 hit and thus deal damage to the boss more consistently. He immediately became one of my favourite bosses just because he was the first one who kinda leveled up my souls game in terms of aggresivness during a fight. In Elden Ring this shit of WAITING just runied so much fun for me, especially with these skiils like Godric's winds that he casts without any preparation, Rykard's explosive floor (actually A LOT of enemies in the game have this explosive floor ability), etc. I believe they could've do so much more with all of the fights and we know it because of how DS 3 bosses were great and stil distinctive from each other. In Elden Ring it feels more like a step back than forward. Trying to make bosses less predictive with delayed attacks and 15 attacks in row definitely isn't the best way to make a fight harder
Agree 100%. Bosses in ER rewards positioning and aggressiveness. Malekith now takes me less than 5 min, and he used to be my Malenia. Nowdays, barely any boss/mini boss presets any harm.
People will say that the bosses just won't stop comboing when they are always dodging away from the boss trying to avoid taking damage. Take Morgott for example, if you stay close to him and actually decides to engage the boss, he'll be forced to do other things instead of infinitely comboing you. This is even better with a heavier weapon because you can posture break him much more frequently so instead of him not giving you time to breathe, it's now the other way around. It's designed to make you actually fight the boss
I’m late to this video but the point about turn based combat really gave me perspective into why I struggle with some fights in elden ring. Really gotta try and work on that
Hearing that point made me completely re-evaluate how I played the game and made it so much more fun for me. Just hearing that I cannot wait around for my opening caused my third eye to open and make me actually kick the bosses ass in
the whole positioning thing was taught to me by kingdom hearts 2 where it's pretty obvious and extremely helpful to bait out easily punishable attacks. i remember after playing ds1 for a while realizing that wille glacialy slow it does have plenty of similarities to kingdom hearts of all games
Regarding the "get-off me bro" attacks, I know for a fact The Old demon King from DS3 has like three or four moves that he will spam in close range that are really hard to react to, despite that the boss is arguably one of the easiest from that game
@@TheKillaShow no that's just the one that I remembered immediately off the top of my head he mentions more in the video, so please do not try to strawman my observation into an argument against his points
@@danielantony1882 what do you mean it's not true? He has the hammer slam attack where he slams The Hammer down directly under his feet and the combustion move where he makes a magma ball and explodes it right in front of him. Both of these attacks he will only use if you are under his feet because that is where he is weakest.
Some bosses and enemies do have anti-spam attacks/moves to keep you in your toes in previous games, but ER is the only one so far were even the most basic of mooks have frame 12 wakeups like they were fighting game characters. I find it infuriating that enemies get those sort of moves, designed specifically for you to lure them out (wait) or play passive against them to prevent damage (more waiting). Does it lead to deaths, significant drain of resources or even some sort of threatening situation? Not really no, its just aggravating for the sake of being so. Maybe the game isn't intended to be played without sitting at a bonfire throughout a whole legacy dungeon anymore, but I can't say I'm happy with that.
Elden Rang is actually one of the easier fromsoft games with all the tools they give you. But it can absolutely be the hardest if you make it that way.
After my first playthrough with no summons and a strength/faith build, I can confirm that Elden Ring is definitely the hardest game in the series when played this way. However, bring out the summons and some bleed and the game is a cakewalk.
21:30 lucky?! Lucky enough to find it?! It’s in a church! You know? The things with sacred tears in them!? The things you can see from the map?! The thing that is easily found, accessed and a thing you’re given reason to go to?! wtf does Joseph mean by lucky?!
And It's literally right along a main road. The only ways you can miss it is if you weren't exploring at all, or you chickened out of the Elenora fight.
11:40 Little note on the stagger cancels, it's not actually that she "can" cancel her stagger, it's that she will *always* cancel her stagger with a block after too many hits in a row. This is perfectly consistent every time, and is probably supposed to be encouraging you to learn to pace yourself and stay back (you know, the thing you're supposed to do to be able to avoid the first part of waterfowl dance). As it is a 100% consistent I don't believe this should never be considered an unfair mechanic, even if no one else does it.
I'm pretty sure when you use a rune arc before Godrick, it functions just like an ember. And I think the the rune arc tutorial message is referring to getting the benefit of a great rune as opposed to the straight health boost you get when one isn't equipped.
Favorite thing about these bosses is how you have to free form, and it feels like hip hop which is a great vibe. Main reason why hourax loux is such a favorite of mine. He does do these resting things but in my experience it’s almost like he’s baiting you into attacking so he can Chuck you across the arena
Feels like you're missing the point. Even if there are ways to eventually figure out how to deal with things like double dagger, beast double swipe and water foul, the steps you have to take to learn it isn't reasonable or fun. Same with not knowing which attacks you can jump over and not. I too realized that I needed to play hyper aggressive, but unlike in say sekiro where every attack is able to be parried and learned and the type of dodge you need to make is telegraphed so the learning process is fun and feels fair, in elden ring it often just felt like I was sloppily trading and rushing through the boss and winning when they happened not to use their harder attacks through rng. It wasn't a feeling of mastery. So to repeat the point, there are ways to avoid the problematic attacks, but is it he road to lesrning thst reasonable? There's a reason the water foul is so infamous, because so many people were insble to figure out how to avoid it on their own, and that simply doesn't indicate good design.
You know, the attack RNG actually makes sense why some fights go well while others end up with you eating dirt. Against the tail swipe Crucible Knight, I had the 'easiest' time when he failed to judge his swipe's range and didn't spam the ground shattering stomp whenever I was trying to find an opening to get in a hit, forcing me to give up on the window or take damage. By the time I beat him, he failed two tail swipes because I'd backed up (he has no real telegraphing on that attack so if you're caught in an attack animation, you're screwed), and only used the ground shatter stomp once, which I dodged. Besides that, he used his normal combos and failed to hit me with any of his wing dashes. Against Renalla, Queen of the Moon, I've lost a lot of health when I'm dodging her beam on top of her homing shot spam because there is no ability to NOT take damage if you're forced to dodge sideways out of the beam's path. I've tried rolling multiple times and I get hit because they all line up and I come out of the roll just in time to take a few hits in the head. Plus I lose any window of opportunity if she decides to either throw her staff or use the scatter spell when I finally get in close range and she leaps back, forcing me to heal or die to the next spell spam. Made worse when she decides to pull the explosive moon spell before I'm even allowed to approach because I don't know how to attack around that and have to deal with the homing spam or the throwing staff again now that I'm forced to go around or suffer. The RNG of these moves can make stupid combos that make it near impossible for me to do anything at times but take damage and die.
@@TheStraightestWhitest the issue is RNG moves can result in false equivalence between players. Some have an easy enough time to enjoy the fight while others get beaten into the dirt despite their skill because they are trained by the game to punish the enemy during windows of opportunity. But because of the RNG design, some people find themselves burning out fast because the combo is done multiple times, extending the battle time beyond what their brains can handle just looking for an opening. I myself burned out on Renalla, Queen of the Moon because she kept performing the moon spell, staff throw, or crystal scatter as soon as I approach, pushing me back with no time to get in a hit without losing chunks of health in the process. Then she would use the homing shots quickly followed by a beam so I had no chance to avoid damage as the homing shots would come together on my path trying to avoid the beam and some would hit me anyway. My brain was burning out as a result of the fight. Made worse that there wasn’t a Stake of Merika nearby, leaving me to deal with more and more burnout until I lost all ability to concentrate. When it feels like I’m playing a Dark Souls character in a game of Bloodborne or Sekiro, the balance stretched to the risk of breaking every time the RNG fails to ease off.
@@TheStraightestWhitest The issue is less a skill check and more burnout because i was tired of everything. I’ve beaten her before but trying things with a new character just leaves me in a bad state. I’m too tired of dealing with the game to care for it anymore. It’s not fun to me dealing with so many enemies I despise rather than enjoy fighting.
Pretty sure Malikeths parry tool doesnt even require any quest line - I never did the manor quest on my first playthrough and still got invaded + got the tool afterwards. Great video!
The question, "Do you understand how fucking good I am at this fight and I've never beaten it?!" is such a mood for every goddamn first playthrough I've had of every FS game so far lol
Happened to me at the DLC final boss so hard... I was able to get to phase two so consistently fast and damageless that I felt similar to when you fight Genichiro in Sekiro final boss... But that phase two... God damn, took me so much
13:25 From what I've heard, Joseph played all through Armored Core 6 with one build and _refused_ to switch his build, despite hating the game for it. His chat even told him to switch and he still refused. Joseph truly just doesn't want to learn how to play games, but still thinks he's justified in complaining about it.
That's pretty much it, ER and AC6 both fundementally are about exploring the game's mechanical variety. This is why ER gives so much build tools as a reward, its asking you to consider them. Refusing to engage with that to any extent (especially in AC6 where its much much more prevelant than in ER) is fundementally no different than trying a challenge run on your first playthrough only to complain about the challenge itself.
@@theresnothinghere1745 It's kind of the same situation as duels and honor invasions: From didn't make the game with the idea that players would use invasions for anything other than to practically cosplay patches, but players decided to do them anyways; and From didn't give the player a massive amount of weapons, items, and spells with the idea that players would pick a "build" and play with just that for the whole game. "Build? What's a build? I just gave players tools to win fights." Because of how long the game is, I changed up my build after each area to try everything, since every area felt like it was basically an entire game, so it felt natural to change my build against certain bosses. For example, I used the Mist Raven skill for most of the game after I got it, but had to change it for bosses like Malenia that use combos that are bad for the single attack dodge ability.
I know Joseph isn't dumb enough to play through the entire game using just the starter AC, but if he starts making shit up about Armored Core, he better be ready for the pushback from people who actually think
I can understand getting upset about elden ring kinda forcing you to change between rock paper scissor builds, because respeccing is done with a finite resource. But in the AC series, the game is made to be played with different mechs between some missions. It forces you to diversify and have different builds for different missions. Don't hate the game for making you throw out scissor and paper when all you wanna do is throw rock out and you get punished for it.
I fall into that category for ER as a Soulsborne veteren. I've played through each game of the series (yet to properly play DS2 but I will) with the mindset of "I am building a strength character" or "I am building a dex character." As those games are generally psuedo-open world and more linear, you get finite resources and you can't respec your stats or your weapons stats once you commit to upgrading them (as far as I am aware). I like the high risk high reward fast paced aggressive playstyle that Bloodborne taught me and I carry that through all of the games. I found the weapon I wanted to use as my build main for my playthrough in ER like 5 hours in (Grafted Blade Greatsword cause I'm an ASOIAF fan) and I built my character around that fantasy I had built in my head with that weapon. Playing as a pure strength build with that weapon in ER was a nightmare. I am accustomed to challenging myself in all other FromSoft games but ER was a nightmare. I shouldn't be punished for choosing to play the game the same way I played literally every other title in the series. I don't want to use summons or magic because that personally sucks all the satisfaction from every victory.
Hey man, first off, I think you had lots of great points to share and I would love to see more of your inputs on the game, as well as some of your own combat-clips. (will dig through your channel to see if there is more to find). As some constructive critique, I have to agree with some of the others who called you out on the little personal insults you threw at Joseph. (I don't care about him personally, that video of his is literally the only one I've seen, so I'm not a protective fan or anything). If anything, it's just counter-productive to bake this into a video response, because it distracts from the actual informative value of your video, and to boot, it adds to the already formed notion of the souls-community as being condenscending and toxic. I didn't think your video's tone was toxic per se, but it was certainly condenscending, and I think it would have been more productive to simply point out what Joseph (and many like him) was/were missing. In fact, I think the players of this game need the handholding of people like you. Clearly, something is missing with the game giving you guidance, or at least hints regarding how you can best succeed in the game. I don't think this is productive, because "you're supposed to struggle with the game", or anything like that, because as we all know, most people are just going to resort to using one of the many, alternative tools that are provided to beat the game. In Sekiro, the "right way" to play was pretty much shoved into your face and it made the game no less easy...oh Lord, far from it. Lastly, I think it may benefit everyone if people like yourself, who mastered the combat mechanics successfully, really approached the other camp (who didn't) with a bit more compassion, and tried to understand why they are struggling. I fully get it that tons of players are just lazy to put in any effort into games and when they can't beat something on their first 3 tries, they are quick to blame the game, instead of applying some effort. But I think some tipping-point has to exist somewhere, where the game designers need to do some self-reflection, and ask; did we make the "right" way to beat these bosses too obscure and unintuitive? Does mastering this require a number of hours put in that most players will simply not have, and will most likely just resort to different builds or grinding out higher levels? Similarly, those select few who actually did master the game, have to be honest with themselves at some point, and ask; "Realistically, how many people would/could do what I did?" Honestly, looking at discussions about the game's combat online, I'd say that the percentage of people who talk of the combat as something that can be easily mastered and then executed in a satisfying way, is miniscule. So...I think formsoft needs some rethinking, and then from peeps like you, I think we need help:)
Thanks. Generally my view is that it isnt that the game that is missing something, its that gamers as a whole have gotten lazy over time and have been conditioned by average games into not wanting to think or engage with game mechanics. The fact that a lot of people straight up dont even try certain mechanics like prosthetic tools in sekiro makes me think the average person just wants to put the absolute minimum effort into games, and wouls rather have an easier time than a fun time. While i would say i dont technically insult Anderson, i see your point about the condescending attitude and the vibe i give off, even though thats just kinda the cadence I actually talk with, really exaggerating syllables and what not and swearing often. I made this video when i had 50 subs and all of them i persoanlly knew from twitch and discord, so the video was only really made with them in mind to settle some arguements where people had amnesia and couldnt remember what he had said in his video after just watching it. In any case, i dont get this double standard of me not being allowed to criticize or be condescending to a person's view about a videogame, especially when its lazy and wrong most of the time, but its fine for people like Anderson to have such a shit-eating attitude towards the game and game devs that spent years of their lives to actually produce a work of art. Why can't i respond to bad criticism when criticism itself is a response to art? It's not like a videogame critique is this stand-alone, constructive work of art that's at no-one's expense. Either way, thanks for the advice because it is good, i just wanted to give my two cents on why it all seems crazy to me, but that's definitely just how it is. I dont really want to be a response guy, so i did make some constructive videos about ER and as you can see the views are exponentially lower. Regardless if Andersons mindless fans hate me, im glad i got the word out so that many people did go into the game with a better mentality towards how they approached the game.
@@loopine I agree with you that modern games don't ask as much from you as Elden Ring does. (Which, once you get used to it, is not a lot lol.) That being said, I do think From needed to be more hand-holdy. They could've used Rogier to nudge us in the right direction, to coach us on types evasion other than just dodge rolling.
@@loopine Aren't you kinda proving the point? You get called out for being condescending, but instead you answer with the completely unrelated "Why am I not ALLOWED to respond?". And then you dish out insult after insult, that someone's view of a game is lazy and wrong MOST OF THE TIME, why can't(?????) I respond to "BAD" criticism, it's not the game people are just (insert insults).. It just seems like a complete lack of self awareness on your part. I mean you don't only manage to insult joseph while being called out for exactly that, but also insult the general gaming community as a whole like you're closing your eyes and pulling the trigger.
@wicked5999 Joseph was being ridiculous. Dude just doesn't understand the basic fundamentals of the boss AI and player movement and blames the game. Dude totally deserved to get shit on for that.
Btw the royal remnants are trivial when you just use a healing incantation or the maiden puppet's healing, healing directly transfers to damage with them, with most healing incants instantly poise breaking them, and blessings heal over time acting like poison to them, I might even test warming stones as well, point is if you use heal as soon as they start crawling out of the ground, you can one shot them
@@loopine Also a really neat lore thing, cus it's like the healing is trying to mend the bodies, which revenants being bodies mashed together would instead tear it apart. I actually discovered the mechanic on the hunch of "wouldn't it be cool if" and it actually worked, I was almost as stunned as the revenant was
It took me a long ass time to finally switch from a passive playstyle to a complete monkey aggressor, it took me exactly until a fight with Astel. In which I raged, and said FUCK IT, I'm gonna just run at him, and it worked, dodging between attacks and weaving in a few hits, made me realize, that there are no "safe" times during fights, It's a fight.
yea when i realize it feel so much more like a fight than previous game and actually fun not just wait boss to be idle but attack with him while dodging instead.
@@AgentYellowWang Yeah, I really don't get why people get hung up over the fact that the combat feels different than other souls games. I think it's great, and there's plenty of other things wrong with the game. Like torrent killing me from a 3foot tall fall.
To the risk of looking like a bot I'm going to paste a comment I already made on another thread. TL;DR to save yall some time: I acknowledge that ER bosses become more fun and feel more fair the more knowledge of their moveset and muscle memory you build, but for me it's not nearly as satisfying as what Sekiro accomplished with it's combat system and boss design. Here goes my full (very subjective) point of view: In my personal experience mastering Sekiro's combat has been miles better, more enticing and way more rewarding than Elden Ring's (ER from now on). You can make great arguments defending ER's boss design but for me the same applies better for Sekiro. Late game ER was a chore and everything felt just like gotcha difficulty meant to screw you and force you to memorize unintuitive patterns that don't transfer to becoming a better player, just better against a particular boss or area. In Sekiro each brickwall that I had to overcome made me a better Shinobi/Swordsman within the combat system of the game, each new main boss suffles/adds things and messes with your muscle memory a little but overall they build upon previous bosses. In ER ring I felt like each boss was just resorting to weird arbitrary timings, poor telegraphs and nearly unreactable attacks in order to get me in a cheap way, in Sekiro I felt each boss was a severe teacher trying to make me into a better player, I was getting absolutely smoked but I could clearly see why and how to get better. In ER you can learn a boss patterns to the point of playing more aggressive if you will but that requires some insane skill and effort, otherwise you have to play very passive because of how obscure their safe openings are. In Sekiro you can clearly see when and how to be aggressive, and with enough skill you'll not just play aggressive but also absolutely dominate the boss, become the boss yourself and earn the power fantasy. Anyways, that's just my two cents on the controversy. ER is a great game, likely a masterpiece in world and level design, and incredible playstyle variety, that's where it's strengths lie and that's why you should play Elden Ring. Sekiro is much more streamlined with bland semi/open world and levels, but on the flip side the bestest combat experience, it's not even a contest IMO.
@@RottenHeretic probably has to do with the fact that the game very much looks and feels like big dark souls, i mean you cant really fault them for expecting it to play a certain way when such fundamental things as the player animations have straight up been copy and pasted over. Also it never really emphasized that being aggressive is the optimal playstyle like Sekiro did, imo
I do disagree with Joseph in a lot of areas. But I do realize what he means. A lot of boss fights just don't flow very well in this game like they do in DS3 or ESPECIALLY Sekiro. Jump-evasions are not that clearly taught in this game since a lot of attacks that look like they don't hit you when you jump will still hit you and there are not many swipe attacks that incentivize jump attacks. Another problem is that bosses actually can attack for too long. Maliketh can just fly around a lot and stay out of reach. Malenia on her 2nd phase can have follow up a combo with waterfoul, then follow it up with clone attack, and then follow that up with another combo. And all you do when a boss attacks is evasion spam. This can make the fight boring. Yeah, bosses do have clear openings. But I think clear openings should've been more of a normal way to deal damage while the mid combo openings you have to find to really destroy bosses should've been more of an advanced level thing.
I don’t. Every aspect of the game is objectively unfair. Sure, it’s not devil may cry 1 levels of unfair. I may not find it fun, but I do say unrelated to its fairness. I don’t find it fun bc it’s boring and easy, with no substantial reason to actually explore anything. But fairness? You would be dishonest to claim it is fair. It’s like spider man (2018) it’s objectively unfair but also kinda addicting. Tho fun is subjective, fairness isn’t. Also fairness is unrelated to difficult. Spider man on the hardest difficulty is still mindlessly easy, but it’s even more unfair than the easier difficulties.
@@zzodysseuszz "fair" is subjective by definition. I actually find it much more dishonest to call 99% of ER anything but fair, but that's just my opinion.
@Rofi Bhoi Did we watch the same video? The whole point of this video was to prove that evasion spam and passive play are NOT the only responses to bosses attacking for a long time, that there are a number of ways to get hits in between attacks, or prevent them from going into overly long combos with good positioning that does NOT require the player to just run away or stand around passively. He wasn't disagreeing with Anderson when he stated that bosses can attack for a very long time, that wasn't the issue. The issue was that Anderson's, and a lot of other people's, response to that is to just keep moving away and wait, rather than proactively finding the openings and punishable windows in boss patterns, and exploiting them (no cheese or meta-build shit, just pure melee). I know because I also found MANY openings in bosses like Morgott and Maliketh while in the middle of their attack chains, exploitable even with a colossal weapons, and/or using the posture mechanic to stop them, or deliberately baiting the boss AI into using favorable attacks with good positioning, or using good positioning to prevent them from using their combo follow ups while allowing me to still whack at them. His main criticism basically boiled down to that Anderson and others just tried to play it like more DS3 and got frustrated when the game punished them for it, and rather than adapting, experimenting, and practicing with the bosses, they just gave up and decided the fights were boring and it was all the game's fault. The scrub mentality, as he said. I'm sorry, but your comment also just parrots what Anderson said without adding anything of substance or value, in a video that offers strong evidence against his claims no less and a reason to try practice more with these bosses.
@@ThroughfulGamer95 I did mention in my comment that the "Clear openings" thing should've been a more viable thing to rely on during a boss fights at a basic level. Whilst the playstyle the creator is talking about should've been a more advanced layer of the game. Not spamming evasion during long boss attack chains is also a very build specific or requires advanced level of play. I do not agree with Joseph in a lot of areas like combo extentions and undodgeable attacks. Plus I mostly disagree on the overall review by Joseph.
I initially agreed with Joseph Anderson's video when I first watched it and after my first playthrough of elden ring, but over time as I played more I realised I had fallen into the same trap I fell in when I first played Sekiro. Dark Souls had conditioned me so completely into the passive playstyle of "roll, punish" that I was just instinctively doing it. In Sekiro it took me a couple of hours to realise this. In Elden Ring, it took me over 100 hours to realise because mechanically its quite similar to Souls. You CAN play it like Dark Souls but it's very difficult and really boring! So I just assumed the bosses were very difficult and really boring. The problem I think is that the game doesn't do a very good job teaching the player the fundamentals of the reworked combat system in the way Sekiro did. Like you're told what posture breaks are, but their importance isnt really emphasised. The game seems more like it wants to steer you into finding RPG solutions to bosses like Summoning, Spirit Ashes, Spells, Levels, Gear etc rather than teaching fundamentals: be aggressive, attack the boss IN their animations, use positioning, go for posture breaks. There's a reason so many people like me agreed with JA's video when it came out, if you're playing elden ring like Souls - you're gonna have a bad time - but the game doesn't communicate that to you clearly enough imo. I think it's just a communication issue.
Yea imo the first playthrough is always the most miserable. From has always struggled to some degree to teach the player how to play with their hands off approach to varying degrees. The biggest examples would be making shields a huge crutch in dark souls 1 and the the emblem economy discouraging people from experimenting with prosthetic and combat art combos in sekiro
Thanks, that's some useful advice. (Far better than the "git gud" BS. If you are at the Melania fight you already "got good") This was my first Souls game and I went sword and board for my first play through... nd had pretty much assumed that roll and get 1 hit in was what you needed to do for the high level bosses. I'll give it a try. (And having to do roll instead of Block making my armor, shield and high poise useless does P me off!)
I found it interesting that you mentioned that there were east ways to deal with a bunch of enemies I found to be scary but mentioned the revenants being something that terrified you. They were some of the easiest enemies for me. I’d heal to damage and stun them and then just do it again. It really shows how different play styles can have different perceptions of enemies
The thing is that the Revenant suck at attacking sideways or moving laterally. In fact, time your dodge right and they'll miss most attacks. Revenants are pathetically vulnerable for that, but most people, for some reason, still want to dodge backwards or spam roll.
for melee builds, u can just jump over them before they start their combo and AOW their butts while they attack the wind infront of them for 10 seconds, not only that they have shit posture and it breaks easily, sometimes it does that "stop hanging around behind me" sweeping attack but that is also heavy jumpable! seriously each time souls vets bitch about an enemy u just know they just panic rolled backwards and R1 spammed, malenias water fowl excluded.
@@enman009it’s so frustrating to watch people never pick up on the sideways roll for revenants. In fact, so many of the enemies are designed with a roll catch and I’ve watched countless hours of veterans playing the game never adjusting to this new information. It’s painful to watch.
46:25 That zoidberg edit on Malenia DESTROYED me man, lol. Great edit and solid video essay so far. I actually recently went through the game having an extremely similar experience where I hated most boss fights until I understood posture damage and jumping attacks. I proceeded to stream a playthrough of the game completely solo to learn all the bosses again on a dex build and had a fucking blast doing it. It was such a fun experience. I think the only times I really got salty on a boss was entirely on Elden Beast being annoying as shit and possibly fire giant. Gave me a newfound respect for Niall, Godrick, and Morgot. Maliketh and Radagon were easily my favorite fights in the game. Easily. They were so fun, even if they were kicking my teeth in the whole time. 10/10 would git gud again.
Posture breaking is crucial often times. Played with light armor with bloody helice and epe (and parrying shield, misericorde, dragon seal, halberd - hence light armor with med roll), I stunlocked 1st phase Malenia with mimic do death. Also, you want to be safe and 100% set on being melee prepare for challenge. For me it's pure silly not to use one of many range options (to stop posture heal and/or deal damage) available to any build.
13:20 The logic doesn't work that way. "If you have fun, you play the game right." - doesn't mean "If you don't have fun, you don't play the game right". Let's look at something simpler: "If you have a husband, you have a partner". Sounds true, right? "If you don't have a husband, you don't have a partner". Is not true, because you may have a wife, or a girlfriend, etc So Joseph doesn't contradict himself here
Personally, the reason why I particularly can't stand Malenia is because she breaks a bunch of rules regarding stagger and recovery that every other humanoid boss (that I can remember) follow in the history of Souls games. There was an excellent breakdown by Swagapagos Turtle called "Malenia doesn't play by the rules" that covers it. Even though I was also using a pure strength colossal sword build (like you and Joseph Anderson which staggers her almost always, the couple times where it doesn't play by the rules was enough to trip me up and get me tilting, and that's just a spiral into a lost run. Also BHS nerf lmao, Lion's Claw users keep on winning.
Fun fact a similar thing was said about the dancer in dark souls 3. She "broke the rule" about how boss patterns work. She has like half steps or something like that. Also fun fact she is now considered one of the easier bosses because she's actually not that difficult, and can be beaten with a +3 or 4 weapon. I imagine Malenia will be very similar in a few months to a year, then after the next fromsoft game comes out we'll all collectively forget how much shit was thrown at her and do it to a boss in that game while claiming Malenia is a perfectly reasonable boss and super fair. Seen this pattern dozens of times now.
@@soulssurvivor3455 she’s fair after you’ve memorized her attacks. But for most people learning her fight, she’s ridiculous. Waterfowl Dance is basically a one hit instant death if you get hit with any of it. In retrospect, of course she’s easy. She has a tiny health pool and her attacks are all easy to dodge if you know exactly where to stand. But I definitely think the process of learning the fight is what makes her badly designed above all else.
@@soulssurvivor3455 The difference between Malenia and Dancer is that the dancer doesn't break existing rules, she invents a new foundation and applies the old rules to a new foundation. I'd argue the novelty of it is what trips up most people and one's inability to adapt to the new timing was definitely what made my brother unable to pass it, but I adapted after maybe a handful of deaths and caught wind of it really quickly. Dancer was novel for her unusual attack timings, and Malenia is novel because Miyazaki woke up one morning and decided he wanted to hurt a lot of people.
@@miss_bec As I said dancer also broke rules, there's literally a video about it. But if I'm being honest I don't actually care if you agree about that. My point is that Melania is another in a long line of dancers, ornstein and smough, father gascoigne, and even in elden ring radahn was another; all bosses considered way too difficult and unfair. Melania is just another one that people will have different opinions about come a few months and by the time the next fromsoft game comes we'll all collectively agree that these bosses were actually fair and balanced and the new ones prove how fromsoft is slipping. So anyways what I'm trying to say is; git gud.
I've spent the last two days on Malenia and finally beat her with pure bastard sword and knight set with medium rolls. All the guides I looked up probably made this video pop up on my recommended, and I'm glad it did. I agree with everything you said. Elden Ring screams in your face all through Tree Sentinel and Margit to attack during boss combos. The entire game is quietly trying to teach you this lesson... then you get to Malenia who can be flinched and poise broken if you consistently punish her mid-combo. Malenia even has several combo enders with long recoveries where you can get a full charged heavy swing, in both phases. Waterfowl can be dodged outright at any distance with any build. I only full-dodged it once in all my hundreds of attempts, but damn it was more goosebumps to do the proper dodge than even beating her. That said, I can understand if not everyone wants to do hundreds of attempts on a boss just to learn the pixel-perfect waterfowl dodge positioning. I can only hope Fromsoft doesn't stop putting hard optional bosses in like Malenia, or change the way you're supposed to punish combos in the next souls game. After Elden Ring, it's going to be boring to go back to turn-based bosses.
Coming back to this video after playing Bloodborne and Elden Ring's DLC, I just find it baffling to me how I didn't realise that Maria also has some "issues" like Elden Ring's bosses and how Anderson talks about Orphan. When he says that Orphan is the most aggressive and fast enemy but it's okay to take damage from him I actually facepalmed but I straight up laughed when he says that you're gonna overuse backstabs. The devs did not program the Orphan to expose his back to you after his attacks for no reason, it's a clear tell that his back is his weakness. Elden Ring's DLC bosses reflect this tell from developers as well. The Scadutree Avatar is a good example where he lands his head to you after all of his major combos or attacks. Messmer's air combo where he moves towards you is a clear tell that you should run away or dodge towards him. But of course people just don't want to pay attention and actually learn things in game
People complain that the bosses give them no openings and then when they have openings they choose not to use them. That’s like fighting Midir and choosing not to hit his head.
But the thing with bloodborne is that it gets away with trading hits because of the rally system which Elden ring doesn’t have and with much damage bosses do in the endgame it can make it feel cheap in the moments it does happen
@@juancampos9468 Yes Bloodborne has the rally system. But Elden Ring has ashes of war, jumping and crouching attacks, talismans, consumables and so on. No bosses in the endgame should be 2-3 hitting you with the only exception being Maliketh phase 2 but Maliketh has no poise and no health. You can stance break bosses very quickly so rather than you not having time to breathe, you're the one giving them not enough time to recover. These are 2 fundamentally different games with different design philosophy, one encourages trading and the other don't. But that doesn't mean you can't "have fun"
@@mingQWERTY more so the problem I have is that fromsoftware needs a new combat system in general in order to facilitate these bosses as while the bosses are so fast from is still using a combat system from 2009 and while there have been many tweaks and features the core of Elden rings combat is from demons souls a combat system that was never made for these bosses which is what bloodborne did so well by changing up the combat so much and it’s what from software really needs to do if they want to continue to make these extreme bosses
@@mingQWERTY also about rallying I’m referring to how Anderson talks about how it’s ok to be quickly hit by kos but not by some Elden ring fights but that’s because the rallying makes up for that damage so it doesn’t feel frustrating while Elden ring just slaps you and there’s nothing you can really do about it
Although I find this video more insightful than anything I've seen so far on the mechanics and ideas of elden ring and probably the rest of dark souls, I still find it somewhat uncomfortable to be called a nerd or scrub simply because I haven't experimented with every possible move in every possible scenario.
I mean you don't have to try everything. Its more like I rolled right and got hit, next time I will roll left. Oh that worked, now I know how to dodge that attack forever. That's it. You can go above and beyond and try to optimize it with a spaced charged R2 later if you want to get better/fancy so that adds to replayability. Not understanding every facet of the game or having every attack memorized does not make you a scrub. You can even say I don't like having to learn these bosses and I hate this game because its too tedious to learn the bosses. What a scrub would say is "this game is badly designed and the developers forgot how to design bosses" or " boss attacks are undodgeable and my build is completely unviable" simply because you're salty that you whiffed a jumping attack in neutral and got punished for it.
@@loopine Sure, I never would have known that some of what seems like a long boss combo is punishable in the middle of their action if not for your video, which by the way I very much appreciate. I think that's how the players get the impression that "the boss never stops", and "it's unfair".
@@loopine I'm pretty sure jumping attacks had the fastest recovery animation out of all heavy weapon attacks at the time he played it. I imagine he was salty over being punished for jumping attacks because he was using a hell of a lot of them.
@@michaelp4387the issue isn't the fact that they have a long combo. You can just run away from most long comboes or figure out how to dodge through most long comboes. The issue is the fact that you can't interact with this long combo. You can only dodge it or parry it(but then you cant use your swcondary cool weapon or a magic thing).
I just finally figured out how to actually beat Godrick without just tanking damage on my third playthrough. When he does the fire breath attack you just get behind him and you have like 10 seconds to go to town on him
37:00 "This is Immortal Warfare 101! Cut off her limbs! Cut her eyes out! Do something!" My guy, have you taken even 5 seconds to look at her boss design? The Scarlet Rot did all of that work for you! And she's still kicking your teeth out through your ass!
as someone who was new to Fromsoft series with ER, it was really obvious when watching actually skilled players play that there were plenty of punish windows with all bosses, and that there were multiple ways of dodging attacks that didn't involve rolling that gave you much more advantage than dodge roll -> light attack. Videos made by such players were around within weeks or even days of game release. With that in mind, its kind of baffling how self-proclaimed "souls vets" could make criticisms that watching readily accessible fight footage for a few minutes could disprove. To be fair, it took me an RL1 playthrough to really appreciate just how well-done some of the fights in this game are (in particular, Morgott / Maliketh). But it surprises me that players with years of experience with the series outright dismissed these movesets as defective game design.
Elden ring was my first Fromsoft game and also my first truly difficult game, I had never played anything like it before and had heard nothing but how hard it was Imagine my shock when I wasn't dying every second of the game and actually having fun with a video game for the first time in months The only attacks that I think are actually genuinely bullshit are the input reads (example being that sword jump that Melania does every time you heal)
The only problem I have with your take is with the unavoidable attacks. Saying you like Mohg's isn't really a counter to his argument. Don't get me wrong, you do you, but to me, all damage should be avoidable, assuming you're prepared for it. Also, in the base game, if you killed Morgott you wouldn't be able to get invaded by Eleonora (and so couldn't get the tear). I don't know if Anderson put out his video before or after it was fixed, but if it was before than I would agree that Mohg's nihil was extremely unfair and unfun. I mean, I'd say it's bad anyway because it's still unavoidable damage, but it was worse when you didn't have to ability to do anything about it just because you explored the plateau after doing Leyndell. The main problem with waterfowl is that she turns to track you when she's floating in the air. If she didn't, the circle dodge would be way more intuitive.
....huh? Are you sure about the Eleonora bit? I fought mohg by going to mohgwyn through the snowfields and went back for the flask when I heard the nihil was avoidable
@@zviyeri9117 I googled how to deal with nihil, and then went to the church, and she never spawned. I assume it was because I had beaten Morgott, but I guess I'm not sure. I beat Mohg pretty soon after launch, so it might have been changed. That or there was some bug that kept her from invading me.
@@BBQcheese Yeah, you definitely don't have to go through Yura's stuff for her to invade. I was just saying she never invaded in my first playthrough, even though I went to the church. I assumed it was because I already killed Morgott, because in the souls games, if you killed the area boss, multiplayer was turned off. It might've just been bugged though.
The best thing about Joe's video is the RUclips reco's after watching it, responses from people that know more about the game and just shut him down completely 31:10 fantastic work comrade
The minute I realized I could nerf the heck out of waterfowl by blocking the first round and then rolling through the rest, Malenia got so much easier.
Thats probably the intended way,the fight seems designed for you to get hit but being able to do more damage than she heals and if you were able to more easily dodge everything it would be very different and just like Maliketh.
I mostly observed when she does the jump. It's telegraphed so you know it's gonna happen. I remove lock on and run/roll away. I manage to escape it with minimal deduction to HP.
@@giusepperesponte8077 is only lame if you don't have an upgraded shield and low stamina. Shields are broken in this game, like most builds, and there's even an ash of war that makes invincible for a second or two.
Thank you, just thank you. I've been meaning to make a response video of my own in response to many of these videos that say Elden Ring has unfair boss design but you have literally almost every single rebuttal I have thought of. I myself fight Malenia with a colossal sword at level 80 and also have done a RL1 NG+ fight against her and a no weapon upgrades fight against her as well as several hitless fights against Malekith on my channel and they have been some if the most fun I have ever had fighting a video game boss ever, the only others to have come close are Ishinn, Gael and Sigrun from God of War.
It appears to me that you enjoy the trail and error approach more so than Joseph P. I'm understanding you also enjoy learning the bosses in a very technical manner. I get this impression from expressions used in the video like "combo-branch-point". I think people play games like these for very different reasons, and to some, things that make the games great can be the very weaknesses in it for others.
I agree, years of talking to people in the community has helped me realize alot of us enjoy the same games but for completely different reasons often. This trial and error approach coupled with a built in easy mode has been present in every game they've made to an extent though. An example would be me using the havel armor set on my first time through the Ringed City DLC and beating Midir, Gael, and Demon Princes all in about 1-3 tries (and that was way before i got into these games or challenge running), or even just going full mage and playing Co-op is 100× more braindead than that even. You have always made the game as hard as you want, it's just that now it's too hard for Joseph I think but it turns out he never really understood how the games worked anyways amd now his co fusion is really showing
This really isn’t a game for people that don’t like trial and error and a technical approach. That’s literally the point of souls games. That’s why these games appeal to certain people that enjoy deep diving into game mechanics, but what I don’t get is why people are adamant if they are not enjoying it it’s a bad game. I don’t like Fortnite because it doesn’t appeal to me yet you don’t see me telling people that do that they are wrong and that Fortnite is broken because it’s just not for ME
When I first started playing the Souls series, I treated it like exposure therapy for anger management. Playing like this forced me to take deep, contolled breaths and pick apart enemies' attacks and reactions while taking stock of what I had and could do. People that expect these games to play like any other have a fundamental misunderstanding of the souls series.
I’ll say I really enjoy malenia’s first phase, but her second is where I begin having problems with the way she is designed. First, the clear telegraphing is basically gone because now any movement she makes shakes particle effects everywhere that obscure her, most attacks she does now also have similar effects that make it harder to tell what she’s doing, and there’s very little telegraphing for her new rot based attacks like the flower or the clone attack, with the exception of the Aeonia nuke which is pretty well done. 2, she feels overstuffed/over designed in her second phase. She doesn’t just have healing anymore, she also does scarlet rot. She doesn’t just have one super attack in the form of water fowl, she has basically three, and the tell for waterfowl becomes muddled with the other attacks where she floats. It makes what was such a wonderfully simple but fun first phase into an absolute slog because she suddenly has all these extra things she absolutely didn’t need. I’m not going to advocate removing any of it, because that’s stupid. All I will ask for is turning down the particle effects and making the tells of certain moves more intuitive. Example of a good tell: her arm sparking before a large combo or the aeonia nuke. Bad tell: water fowl and the rot flower explosion both starting with an almost identical startup float animation.
I don't 100% agree but I will sat she is probably one of my least favorite shardbearer boss and yea it's so weird that she is the goddess of rot but you will never get rotted because her damage is so high she just kills you outright
are you seriously suggesting that nihil is in any way fun or well designed, especially considering the tear you need to lower the damage from it is in some fuckoff church you might not stumble upon
@@simonium8123 Unironically yes. Heck I'd even call it a thrilling and well crafted and memorable part of the encounter even if the tear to lower the damage didn't exist. In a game where you have 100s of options to deal with all the different things a boss can throw at you, having a phase transition which if it happens is 100% unavoidable damage is a statement, a vision.
@@simonium8123 Nihil is great, if you're going to have an unavoidable attack then this is the right way to do it. Is completely scripted which means you're never just wondering why you can't dodge it, not to mention that every step of the attack, each time he casts a ring offers a large punish and the attack itself offers an enormous punish which allows you to offset the healing while piling on stagger damage. Also, it is entirely bleed damage which is % based each bleed proc amounts to 40% of your max health if I'm not mistaken. Meaning you have to eat all three without doing anything for it to end you, even without the tear and regardless of your level/vigor investment. Nihil is a WAY more interesting phase change than a lot of bosses that just turn into a nuclear bomb when they phase change. It forces you to work out a strategy to capitalize on it and allows you to engage the boss in a way I find interesting and fun instead of just running away and watching it explode.
One thing I found out in playing/ finishing Sekiro for the first time recently (money, time and other reasons I haven’t been able to pick up Elden ring ;( ) is that I fucking love being aggressive and never giving my opponents moments to breath, making openings feels so good. I mean I also fucking adore “turn based combat” so yeah . Probably why I love monster hunter, a great mix of both.
This might just be me but I dont think you need to be in the top 1% of players at the game to reach a conclusion about what the game experience is like to the avg person
Here's how I Elden Ring in general. It's difficulty is grey. It has always been with from games but Elden is the prime example. If there's something I'm hard stuck on I'm looking for ways that it'll make it easier now that doesn't mean I have to use mimic tear, BHS, stone shield or a busted weapon. I would rather use a different aow, let's say I'm using a colossal weapon I would use an aow that comes out quicker and less recovery (lion's claw), if I feel like using a summon why does it have to be something OP ? I can use a weaker summon that won't make the fight trivial so that I get some big damage in ( Arrow Bros , Rat Bros ). Why do I have to use BHS ? I can use quick step even then I don't have to spam it , I can simply use it for an attack that I find difficult to dodge. I feel like the game wants you to use all its mechanics, wants you to experiment, try out new weapons, use the aow system.
The AI has always been adaptive at least since DS1. Even regular enemies constantly roll a dice to decide what they will do next, but the probably changes depending on the game state, such as distance and positioning relative to the player. Gwyn can "extend" his sword combo, but will interrupt it if you're too far away. Gwyn input reads you and actively tries to punish you for trying to heal. In DS3, which he praised, many bosses have counter attacks for the old "hug their butt" strategy, such as Gundyr doing a backwards kick. You can exploit positioning and weak spots, but you get punished if you're too greedy or impatient. The more skill you have, the more greedy and aggressive you can be, but the new player has to respect the boss (or "play by their rules") as they learn the moveset. And the mentality point is very true. It's not about being passive and waiting for a safe opportunity, it's about studying the boss' moves, thinking about how to counter them, and creating your opportunities to attack safely. And you can make mistakes, that's what the healing is for. It's a casual playthrough, not a hitless or deathless run. Another perspective thing I want to add is the difference between seeing deaths as mere failures or as part of the learning process. One cannot improve without failure. And most of the time it's your fault. A good example is DS2 fans coping about s and hitboxes being bad by saying "you have to get out of the hitbox". They say this trying to defend their favorite game's junky mechanics, yes, but they have the correct approach. Don't complain about the hitbox or the "infinite" combos, focus on what should you do to win.
I don’t think you’ve mentioned how Malenia’s great rune heals based on hits rather than damage making it useless on heavy weapon builds. Don’t think it was pathed. I was so mad when I saw how little I can heal with the healing window disappearing after 1 or 2 hits of my Zweihander and barely healing any hp. Cool video tho. Just that rally system being in Elden Ring comment made me recall how angry that rune made me.
By the time I beat Malenia for the first time, I had the fight analyzed down to a science after figuring out exactly where the least and most risky places to sneak in hits were in her strings, as well as the ez-bake freebie moves she had to get hits on. I could never figure out exactly how to cleanly dodge the first flurry of Waterfowl so I would play around that and space it out to be safe. Beating her was probably the greatest feeling I've ever had in a Souls game. My favorite Soulsborne boss by far
I still have no idea how to fight her without summoning mimic tear or real people. Absolutely horrendous boss and I sincerely hope the devs never make a boss like her or Maliketh ever again
@@crow1460 he either doesn’t stop attacking or he just jumps away when I run over to attack. The late game bosses deal way too much damage for how fast they attack
@@crow1460 also the destined death attack is completely unavoidable. I’ve tried running behind him and even trying to run away and there’s literally no way to avoid it. That attack is fucking bullshit and it doesn’t help that his hurt boxes are tiny and jumps around way too fucking much
I remember when i first fought mohg i just drank 3 spaced out flasks during his phase 2 transition and thought nothing of it and i beat him in that same attempt, I seriously never thought it was an issue people had with him
I, like many others, were new to souls games and holy shit that fight made me completely rethink how I play the game and I’m definitely better for it. It is the most memorable experience for me from Elden ring just for the struggle and complete shift and gameplay for me
Honestly. It didn't even occur to me that this was something people would genuinely bitch about "Oh shit that's what the rings were for. Chug chug chug, okay it's over? Time to beat your assOH FUCK HE'S GOT WINGS"
How many flasks did you have going into the fight? cause going in as a low level mage with less flasks and had to divert some to mana i was so fucking pissed when he pulled that out
I can get behind a lot of your points, but when you revealed you support using online guides I think you lost the position to be so harsh on JA. Can these bosses be learned inside and out? Absolutely, but it's at times a bit unreasonable....unless you just look up the answers of course. The devs wanted the community to help each other, yes, but they made the message system limited for a reason. The limitations that they imposed on in-game communication implies that they didn't necessarily want you to outright spoil all of the answers with a wiki.
However long is too long to learn the boss and be fun will be highly subjective to the individual. For this video I sat down to learn how to hitless Maliketh at RL70+15 with pure zwei. It took me 3 hours to solve him and also figure out extremely optimal punishes like you see in the video. All it took was using my eyes, taking a couple mental notes when I died, and experimenting a little bit with different punishes. I never used the guides personally, they are just an easy resource for people who are struggling with x or y attack. I think its fine but if someone doesn't feel like they've learned Margit after 10 hours I can see why they'd be frustrated, but I'd also wonder if they are just on auto-pilot and bashing their head against the wall without truly going into the fight with the will to learn
@@loopine hey thanks for the detailed reply! I agree, it is a highly subjective topic, and one worth exploring. I enjoyed the video, keep up the good work!
I shared a simar perspective with Joeseph Anderson on boss design with Elden Ring. But I had a few comments recommending this video to check out. And I'm really impressed! There's a lot of information here I never considered, like baiting out combos and the posture system. And that Sekiro gameplay makes me want to experiment with prosthetics more often in fights than just the sword. This was great, thanks for making it!
in truth most ppl that have this opinion of elden ring bosses objectively fought bosses wrong, playing the game like its ds3 or bb, as in smashing just the R1 button without using other attacks and dodging in random directions, this will only get you killed. this game is quite abit more aggressive than alot of souls boomers tell themselves.
13:32 : it doesn’t logically follow from : “if you are having fun, then you’re playing the game right” that “if you aren’t having fun, then you’re playing the game wrong.” This is actually a logical fallacy
im with matosis on this one , so the biggest thing im getting from this is that we have drastically different outlooks on gaming as a subject , because i was completely dumbfounded when you not only rebuked the idea of removing the copy/paste content such as the bosses , but also defended it because 'i think they're fun so i like that i can fight them more than 1 time in a single playthrough' why not copy/paste the content of the game you like 10x more then to make it a better game?.....
I was more saying that as far as creature bosses go compared to a unique character, reusing them once in a game this large is fine because I can kill the one to progress and then keep the dungeon version alive to practice on or experiment new tech without having to run a character into new game plus for 6 hours. 77 unique bosses kicks the piss out of previous games still.
@@loopineNot sure if you heard of this game called Dark Souls 2, but it also took a quantity over quality approach to bosses and also got a large amount of criticism as well. And it didn’t even repeat nearly as many bosses as Elden Ring Sekiro let you rematch bosses whenever you wanted and even added enhanced versions of bosses you could fight at any shrine. Maybe they should have done that and balanced the game better. This would perfectly address you wanting to practice the bosses while keeping quality higher in the main game. I’ve never heard someone earnestly argue quantity over quality especially when a previous game found a way to have both
@@Tammy-nl4lp Comparing ER bosses to DS2 💀 I'd take all Remembrance and mainline bosses and some side bosses like Fallingstar Beast over any of the previous games bosses any day of the week, except sekiro. And yea I'm hoping for a boss gauntlet/replay option later in the DLC. For things like ds3 arena and shit wasn't even added until the final DLC
@@Tammy-nl4lp Open world games are bound to have copy paste content because it simply takes too long to design unique encounters and dungeons all over the game world. Even Breath of the Wild which is a highly rated open world game has repeated content like the test of strength shrines and the overworked bosses like the stone golem and the hinox. The genre gives you the freedom to explore the world however you like but it comes at the cost of some content being unoriginal.
@@Schmixed I would prefer a smaller world with mostly original content so that everything is rememberable and fresh when you find it. Just because BotW is a praised game and reused content doesn’t mean that should be the standard. Things like Astel just being in a random cave completely ruined the spectacle and importance of the fight and that’s a recurring theme throughout elden ring
After plowing through the whole game with a greatsword(the guts one), I would say that I found my run through a lot more rewarding than the first time I did it with Moonveil/Dual Katanas. Granted the ugs buffs and lion's claw buffed helped immensely but taking the risks to meet the bosses head on whether it be for stylish video making reasons taught me a decent amount about ugs play that has transferred into my Dark Souls 2 run. I'd say the game is fair to some extent and the fact that you can eventually feel out the stagger rates really lets you take the fight to the bosses to some extent. Now, I'm of the sentiment that wins feel a lot better without summoning but I agree that game gives you plenty to work with even if you just want to do basic movements+ash of war kind of wins so it felt kind goofy to me watching Joseph's whole spiel on things. I found I did better on Malenia with the greatsword than moonveil once I got more into trying to be somewhat active with her compared to my passive play in my first run. Waterfowl is still a mess, but everything else is somewhat reactable and can be outmaneuvered to set up for a meaty Lion Claw/some kind of counter. Feels like Anderson wasn't thinking/experimenting hard enough. Heck, even some research and trial can lead to a better time in Elden Ring.
@@moron_on_the_internet Agreed there, I enjoyed the enemies actually flinching from my attacks and strategic enough placement allowing for r1 hits to stunlock sometimes 3 enemies at once felt nice. Heck, just poise breaking the bosses more often was a reward, I loved getting the crit and the following it up with a meaty charged r2 or Lion's claw to swipe even more of the bosses hp away.
Anderson never experiments enough, I'm not sure why people take his opinions seriously. The dude literally played the entirety of Bloodborne with the transformed axe.
@@sartavin Its probably the video essayist effect, not that i hate them but i've noticed it with other creators such as Cvit where you make a long enough video with enough flowery words and sophistry, people will likely buy it even if you don't have the substance to back it up.
The Subscriber / Views ratio is criminal on this. Takes a lot of work to make a video this long, I'll be damned if I can remember half of it, but it was pretty fun of it. Some stray ideas to fire off: The reused bosses/dungeons argument never quite sat right with me. Like, sure, the Erdtree avatar is pretty much just Asylum Demon, but moreso than anytime before we're dealing with a singular Empire than the remainders of scattered and ruined kingdoms. Liurnia and Caelid have different aesthetics and histories, but ultimately they were still conquered by Marika, so it makes sense that the funerary rites/customs and details of the dungeons would look similar. Germany, France, and other European countries have vastly different cultures, but all the cathedrals and mausoleums they built are all similar because they shared a religion, and in many cases belonged to a single empire for large stretches of time. So when I get to the end of one of the hero's graves and the boss *isn't* a Watchdog Statue, it feels weird. Although I've played a lot of DnD in my life, and I've had DM's that stick by the randomized tables for encounter generation, so I've fought 14 camels in a swamp before, so idk. My introduction to the souls series was almost exclusively co-op based, my friend was replaying all of them in the lead-up to Elden Ring, so I tagged along. Played the same build in every game: a cleric with a longsword and a shield, I wasn't very 'passive', per se, just that I felt like I needed way more healing than usual to make it past some sections. It wasn't really until the end of DS2, middle of DS3 that I started to get more comfortable and dropped the shield for a two-hander, but I always kept a full suite of healing spells in stock because that's just who I was and it made taking on bosses together with my friend easier because I could keep us topped up. I never finished Bloodborne; I like the cosmic horror concept and enjoy watching videos about it, but the in-game sound design was just very *squicky* and I didn't enjoy it. Elden Ring started out much the same as the other ones, but I transitioned from the sword+shield into more of an archer/support build. I used a ton of cracked pots and throwing knives, I was crafting everything and anything because the game really let me off the leash and said "go experiment." My build was a real mess, with 30 points in nearly everything but Int because I wanted to try every spell and weapon I picked up. I eventually settled back into comfort as a "holy archer" with high Dex and Faith, but found the game challenging while also accommodating. I learned very quickly about jump shots and dodge shots, using those to work around punish windows, and most of the time I wasn't firing from halfway across the arena, I was within 10 feet of the boss and always kept a melee weapon on me as a fallback. Elden Ring seemed like it wanted me to engage with ALL the mechanics as opposed to the others which seemed like it was very easy to fall into a very settled build which is what seems to be Anderson's major failure. And now I've gone back and played Ds2 and Ds3 by myself, and I've tried that "rogue"-ish type build and found that having a bow on hand makes some sections of the games extraordinarily easy/less tense and is a very viable playstyle. I think I used a shield a few times because I couldn't get the timings down on some attacks, so I chose to soak the damage rather than i-frame it, but the game didn't slap me on the wrist for it. I was just using the tools available.
Your video is: 1. Entertaining 2. Filled with a lot of good (even great) arguments about game mechanics, backed up with substantive evidence. 3. Done in what comes across as such a snobbishly preachey manner that it becomes the whole tone and framing of the video. I liked the video overall, but the third point is the one that sticks out to me the most, although it's obviously subjective. It really was entertaining and well done, so good luck with future videos as well.
It was made being a direct response as framework to the video. Glad you still could enjoy it despite me being an asshole about it the whole time, most people would never sit through a video like this if they felt it was just a 'gotcha' type low brow response video. Thanks for the feedback
@@loopine You make some good points but, it changes almost nothing, elden ring still has a lot of badly designed bosses with problems that don't belong in any games boss, like having to fight the GODAMN FUCKING CAMERA and not boss. Doesn't make it a bad game no game is perfect.
elden ring is one of my favorite games ever at this point and i agree on some points (mohg's nihil, radagon, enemy combo decisions, using a ds str build created a more frustrating exp), but i still agree with anderson more overall a lot of your arguments how the attacks and combos are fair and make them fun to fight against with a str build (most specifically for malenia, maliketh, godskin bros) require tons of hours put into the game before you can even dream of succesfully executing it which in turn means hours and hours of failed attempts against a boss where you trial-n-error through it before you learn your options i also strongly agree with him that having repeated bosses made the encounter with them feel less special and the world cheaper, less immersive and overall worse anderson's criticism on radagon makes no sense tho
I guess the amount of time you need to invest is subjective but for Maliketh I sat down to learn him on my own on my 2nd or third run at RL70+15 and I figured him out in 3 hours. If you really go in there with the intent to learn, use your eyes, experiment wit ha few punishes, and take some mental notes I really think it's fine, just gotta recognize when you're auto-piloting. Besides I typically avoid open world games because in my mind I am signing a contract to commit 80 hours to the damn thing
Literally every From Software game has trial and error. It's an unavoidable aspect when you make a hack n slash with no animation cancelling. Committing to attack animations = required knowledge of enemy attacks, openings and patterns. The extent to which you need to observe before engaging the boss isn't any different in Elden Ring than it is in their other games. As long as you understand that the game expects you to position yourself better rather than trying to dodge every single attack like in Dark Souls, you will end up killing a lot of bosses faster.
I do agree with some of andersons points but i think its dumb of him to play a pure str build and than complain that the bosses take a ton of trial and error to learn and complain that the game is to hard. You can make the game as easy as you want for yourself. I am playing a bleed build and the game is a joke. What anderson wants is a PERFECTLY balanced game and that is just not realistic.
No way dude. I’m pretty much a strength main in all these games, and I can say with certainty that Elden Ring is the easiest Fromsoft game made yet. By design! The most striking thing I noticed playing this game first time was how ridiculously OP all the spells are for Faith and Intelligence characters. It’s like the developers knew that most novice players will probably just want to shoot projectiles instead of getting close to enemies, so they buffed them up tremendously, even in the very beginning of the game.
I followed your advice my second time through Elden Ring, playing without spirit summons this time, & it was eye-opening. Made the boss fights soooooooo fun. Soloing Malenia took me 3 days and maybe 200 tries, but I ultimately did it by chaining together the circle spinning ash of war into charged heavies while she was standing back up & chasing her down for a jumping attack. With a big hammer, this 3-attack sequence would consistently break her stance, so I could just ragdoll her ass through phase one, even hitlessing the first phase a couple times. Now I'm trying out my first magic build in a souls game, playing as a spellsword with a hammer in my right hand, & I'm still able to play aggressively for stance break. The hammer does great stance damage, magic does at least some stance damage too, & dealing ANY damage prevents stance recovery, so I can keep the pressure on with spells before going in for melee openings. I'm having a blast.
Three days and 200 tries?! I'm glad you're having fun and enjoyed it but that's not really a great show of balanced boss design. That's the kind of time that should be applied to mastering higher end game mechanics (think movement tech in doom eternal or high end combos on DMC), not beating a solitary boss with melee. Once again, not an insult to you man. More like questioning fromsoft for bad balance. No boss should take that long to beat.
@@jwilliam6743 I was wasted drunk for two of those days and refused to use summons or shields. The third day when I was sober took me just over an hour, definitely less than 2 hours. Also the whole point was to make her the hardest boss they had ever made. She's fairly balanced and succeeds at being very hard, she's just not that fun. Still can be satisfying just to beat a boss that hard tho
@@loopine she took me about three hours to beat with the solo greatsword on my last playthrough. Did not enjoy it to be honest. But I'm also convinced that fromsoft balanced the game around of ashes of war and summons with melee being super hard mode. I guess this is how magic users felt during BB and Sekiro. I'm fairly experienced at character action games in general (not just souls) so three hours is a ridiculous amount of time for one boss for me. But hey, if you're enjoying it, don't let my take bring you down.
Damn, I played through the whole game while not having any idea of these boss mechanics. Glad I found this video! When the dlc comes out I'll replay it with this in mind. Lets see how much more fun the bosses are!
Yup it’s happening the endless amount of low effort critiques of the dlc are coming out, and saying the same factually incorrect information already proven wrong by this video.
Feeble King video is a masterpiece though, factual facts that tell us why having to heal 5 times to get full health with the flask not maxxed out is bad Game design. Seriously I would want to make a response to that thing
@@JoseViktor4099 feeble kings video is bad but I’ve seen much worse, at least feeble puts effort into his content. I got recommended a video where the dude said that the boss follow ups are rng coin flips and showed Margits quick knife as an example, then he proceeded to call the game objectively badly designed even though he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and is factually wrong.
I've seen a ton of videos where they say despite the DLC being "good", "From is hitting peak difficulty" and "how they must evolve" since ER bosses are just way too hard and have way too many moves with too few punish windows. I can respect the want for a more innovative formula outside of just rolling and hitting(since as much ER tries to step away from that, it still is at least 60% if not 70% of the combat at the end of the day), but it fails since their reasons for doing so literally just boils down to bosses just being way stronger than the player ie "too hard" while regurgitating the same arguments used by Anderson. One of the worst ones was where a dude(I think the video was why the ER DLC is not as hard as you may think), stated that the DLC bosses aren't realistic and somewhat break immersion since all of them allegedly have a giant instakill move they'll use as a part of their kit, unlike previous from fights which were way more grounded and "balanced"(while talking about lady Maria) who only had giant moves for phase transitions. Such a bizarre point but at least it's unique. Hate how that became a talking point though, this idea that a boss is "just like the player" and has the same "limitations", which were originally just phrases used to describe the type of gameplay humanoid fights offered in the past(which were wrong anyway but the sentiment it was trying to convey were that the fights were consistent and readable I believe). What's funny is that I found most of the DLC fights are actually more consistent and easier than some of the endgame base game fights outside of the Radahn rematch, Rellana, and Messmer. Midra can be staggered super easily, Scadutree Avatar has low HP, Gaius has only three combos that never mix up, same goes for Petruscent Knight. Dancing Lion is tough until you realize his head telegraphs 90% of his attacks, and Bayle's attacks are more telegraphed than the location of goodies in modern Resident Evil. Not saying these fights aren't hard. I'm just saying they aren't the overly difficult super bosses that these content creators make them out to be. I'm not even running an op build(strength/endurance priority with vigor with a mid amount of faith while two handing magma wyrm scale sword) and I only played through most of the from games once(although I will go back to them for sure), so it's not like I'm a Giga gamer pro challenge runner either(although I did fight the majority of Ds3 bosses with 8 estus).
@@thesnatcher3616 it always happens around 2-3 weeks after the launch of a Fromsoft game, the endless amount of low quality critiques from no name RUclipsrs always come out and have the most nonsensical and misinformed criticisms. I’m so done with trying to correct these factually incorrect and regurgitated points, the entire discourse surrounding ER is a cesspool for the most part, this video being a major exception.
@@makia3 Imo this comes because everyone want to take a piece of that pie that Mauler archieved of ruining the reputation of something they didn´t liked. (That btw, I realized that Mauler critique about DS2 was actually very disingenous) Trying to use the post-honeymoon era when is when everyone tries to get "cynical" and want to criticise the most famous thing at the moment. To get more views basically. How much I would like to see an actually well researched critique of a Soul game without any bias behind.
You sound like the kind of guy who would absolutely love Nioh 2. It pretty much plays exactly like how you describe boss fights here, but with way more moves and combo depth.
![The Complete Story of Destiny! From origins to Shadowkeep [Timeline and Lore explained]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9mbDXvDNqTU/mqdefault.jpg)
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Final Stray Thoughts and some Common Responses
People always refer to the rally system in Bloodborne and praise it for enabling the player to be aggressive and have more fun. I don't think this playstyle is exclusive to bloodborne though, you can play this aggressive and absorb some hits as long as you level hp properly. The rally system only taught you to play aggro, it didn't unlock this playstyle. This is the distinction imo. Souls games have struggled in the past to teach the player how they should play, the game can give you all the tools in the world but most people just won’t use them unless they’re subtly forced to. Just look at shields being overly easy to crutch on in souls or the spirit emblems keeping players from experimenting with prosthetic combos more. Also Joseph complains that we don't have the resources to keep up with the faster enemies but neglects to mention that endurance regenerates faster than ever now, even turbo regening when you crouch or just click crouch for half a second.
I would say you could make the arguement to defend waterfowl dance if you want to but yea it's definitely an insane and polarizing attack. I can guarantee most people will have a hell of a time ever trying to figure out a roll dodge for it and probably never will on their own. For me this meant crutching on bloodhound step on my blind playthrough, then seeing Ongbal dodge it with light roll and going "oh thats how you do it" and then doing the roll dodge ever since. Even when I go into boss fights strictly to observe and take notes there is a slim chance that I think I would've ever figured out the up close dodge on my own, even though bloodhound helped me figure out the direction I should be dodging. The thing is though, now that I know how to dodge waterfowl I fuckin love it, it's so satisfying to get the up close dodge and feels so baller when you space the first string and only use one single roll to dodge the whole combo and make it look effortless. My problem with waterfowl is that it's so fun to dodge, but learning how is an absolute bitch to figure out and usually will mean players reaching for a crutch and not getting that cool moment of figuring out a solution for the craziest attack they have ever seen. In this regard waterfowl is too hard, but I don't want them to change it now at this point.
Just to further clarify my opinion on Malenia specifically I would argue she is fair but she is definitely far from the funnest boss in ER imo. My problem with her is the flow of the fight is weird with her just stringing together standalone attacks rather than having longer combos and flowcharts like Morgott for example. She was anecdotally my lightbulb moment for changing my mentality and approach to this game's combat though and I had all the days of footage of me fighting her so that's why she ended up being a focus of the video.
Another idea for dungeon rewards after some heated drunk discord debates was that we could have themed dungeons so you know what type of reward you could expect. An example would be a crystal cave for a sorcery as the main reward. That way if you are making a mage build you know it will be worthwhile to do. The problem is that a strength build would have zero motivation to do it except for minor rewards and runes. Instead of theming the dungeons then, we could add questlines and rumors to the npcs so they could point you in the right direction. Sellen could give you some gossip or a treasure map that leads to a dungeon with a high level spell. This would also help fill out some more npc questlines in a refreshingly non-cryptic way. As long as we avoid the fetch quest trap.
For the dungeon rewards being unique I could also mention that if you find a spell or weapon that you want to try you can easily re-spec to try it out and it's way easier than in ds3 and completely nonexistent in Bloodborne.
Idk if there are just this many Dark Souls 1 boomers or what but it puzzles me as to why so many diehard Souls fans have such an aversion to actual rpg mechanics/systems, such as item crafting. Also wtf is this hand wringing about the hitless players. All these nerds who never bother to challenge run souls games, and have no idea what it's even like, whining that it needs to be fun while hitless so we should make it easier. Save the scrub sympathy and go try and hitless dark souls 3 right now and see just how miserable and janky it really is.
Dark Soap pointed out to me that Great Runes don't carry over into ng+. Idk why this slipped my mind but yea. IF you want to do a lifesteal build then you could Blasphemous Blade, God Devourer Serpent Curved Sword, and Taker's Cameo, but this would only give hp on kills and not vs bosses. Godskin swaddling cloth talisman does give you hp on successive attacks though so there's that. Sucks but ah well. I'll reiterate that I wish there were more great runes like the Melania Rune that give playstyle altering properties. Again I still believe you can play like you might in bloodborne even without a rally system. Also I have yet to see footage but apparently elden stars and Radahn meteor can happen multiple times in one fight. I have yet to see this in ng+5 even after I stopped leveling at 125 so anecdotally I'm going to say for most people you will almost always see these attacks just once, and both are easy to dodge anyways if you know what to do (just Google the elden stars dodge already my god I even show it in the vid).
Godskin nobles Belly Wog (Noble Prescence) seems to have been solved by hitless runners and you can run backwards out of it. Still unsure if its 100% consistent but check out a fellow challenge runner and ask them about it. There are some no roll runs of this boss out there.
To the nerds who can only hyperfixate on one thing at a time yes, From tiptoeing the line between fair and unfair with a couple enemies out of hundreds in a game can be good game design. Stop pretending like they did it for every single boss and enemy.
Yes I know many hitless runners have a laundry list of complaints about a few of the bosses, mostly Malenia since she is guilty of the most jank. For 99.5% of the playerbase they will not have their overall enjoyment of the entire game compromised because a few attack or hitboxes are not 100% perfectly clean, and I know this because it has existed in every souls game to date and people are now saying those were their favorites of all time, even when they too were unbalanced af on launch. I don't see people complaining that "malenias double swipe can be undodgeable into it in certain situations when you are on higher elevation," instead you see people saying Margit has undodgeable frame traps. Just because there are a handful of attacks that exist in this game out of hundreds that aren't cleanly perfect 100% of the time due to unintended bugs like projectiles getting hung up on terrain, doesn't mean that From suddenly shit their pants and forgot how to balance games. If you are a hitless runner than yes unfortunately you will have to play around bosses to mitigate certain moves because there is rng in the sense that an attack might bug out and end your run, but for the layman they will never even notice these issues most of the time. It's the same shit as when I showed Silverbullet getting killed by an invisible attack in his Lady Maria run while Joseph is there praising her balance while being able to sweep the jank under the rug. I am aware that hitless runs are not a great indicator of how good or fair a boss is, but it is instructive because majority of the complaints I see are just this attack or that attack is undodgeable when they are sorely mistaken and just need to learn how to dodge it. I can see why my desire to spotlight many of these under-watched creators came across as me using hitless runs as proof that bosses are perfectly fine the way they are already. There IS a myriad of legitimate problems with this game like all the rest, but once again the greater conversation about these games lost because scrubs are too busy spreading misinfo and muddying the water. There are still fucking redditors that to this very day claim that they forget to turn on poise in ds3.
To the babbies saying I'm view hungry I started on this video when I had 50 subs and I just wanted to make it to share with my friends in the invader community so I wouldn't have to talk about the same shit over and over every single time we argued about Anderson's video on discord, with every person remembering what he said totally differently. I had to make my own timestamps for his video and takes notes over 5 watches just to even figure out his concrete stance on anything specific so I can understand how people end up misremembering and imprinting their own bias onto his analysis, given the wishy washy and perma-sidetracked nature of long form essays. Clip farming for ez gotcha's is one thing, but I really needed to make sure we are somewhat on the same page here at least.
One last complaint about sekiro, who are all these guys coming out of the woodwork to say how much they love sekiro in order to then complain about Elden Ring. Where the fuck were all these fans when the game was getting lambasted for being an ultrahard, over-tuned, repetitive grind of L1 spam. Posers smh. I’ve noticed a huge wave of newcomers to sekiro lately and its been fantastic, but I think people forget just how much that game got shit on the year it released. I’m honestly shocked it got GOTY considering how many game journalists had to beat it with cheats.
Lastly, to all the kind folks commenting things along the lines of "Good job on the video man but but I still agree with Joseph," thank you but please give yourself some credit. You can feel that Elden Ring isnt fun or fair enough and dislike it, you don't have to agree with either me or Joseph.
Souls fans don't really like it when they experiment. Look at the worst souls bosses. Or levels which have experiments in them such as the bell dudes in Undead Crypt in Ds2 or the Depths in Ds1. They don't really know what they want and when they can't experiment things will remain the same. It can become stagnant and people will get bored. If they do new things and it doesn't turn out well (look at most of the shit in Dark Souls 2 as an example) then people won't buy it because it's not the same thing. People have no idea what they want. Zelda fans are just like that as well because Nintendo wants to experiment. God people are so stupid sometimes.
I'm just curious, what are hitless runners saying about the bosses in Elden Ring? where can I find their thoughts? I would be curious to know what someone like Ongbal thinks about Elden Ring bosses, b/c I found his fights against them very entertaining
@@lucideclair6690 look thru this comment section and see Swagopagos, mrBorkD, and NathanSavageDamages comments. Also most hitless runners give their opinions on bosses the description of their videos where they do things like hitless and base level runs
@@loopine gotcha thanks
I've been thinking about all this since Elden Rings released, thanks for calling out all the assholes with impossible standards.
One of the funniest things I heard early on about this game from Zero Punctuation was that jump attacks make the game infinitely more easy - I have to give him credit for realizing how profound a change it was
And infinitely more ridiculous seeing greatsword users jump around like in super mario because its simply faster than normal R1.
@@CODA96 crouch R1 enter the scene
bro i was abusing the shit out of jump attacks on my first playthrough
@@CODA96 after factoring in recovery times, no, jumping attack greatswords is nowhere near faster than R1, they are quite slower, leave you much more vulnerable for longer, and takes much more stamina to perform.
the one thing elden ring taught me is that you should use all the attacks, ashes, heavys and lights, jumping heavys and lights etc etc
for example, some of godfreys moves start too fast to heavy jump attack with a greatsword, but leaves you just enough time to dodge out if you use a light jumping attack, this applies to so many enemies factoring in so many weapon classes.
ER as a whole is laughably more complex than past games barring sekiro.
@@jowoel5073 and you probably got abused right back more than you shouldve if you always spammed jumping, trick is to use all the attacks depending on the boss/enemy.
"I'm so good at this fight but I've never beaten it", resonates with my soul.
“this fight isn’t even fucking hard - easy piece of shit” - the one time i get lucky after getting plowed by the same boss all day
If you were good at the fight you would have beaten it.
It’s the way how it works…
To be honest, that is how I felt with Malenia's waterfall dance, I was dodging everything else, but that thing would kill me half the time or waste one or two of my flasks, I only beat her because I got a good rng and she only used that move three times.
you get malenias greatrune extremely lategame and can only use it on like 4 main bosses and it doesnt carry over to ng+ so the being able to play like bloodborne point is not entirely true aside from that great video
Yea fair enough. I replay these games quite a lot so I don't mind if I use it in new game plus. But yea basically you aren't using it on your first playthrough
Edit: oh wait it doesn't carry over wtf? That's lame af then. That's so bizarre like I definitely knew that but it just completely slipped my mind. I suppose you would have to do a blasphemous blade and God Devourer Serpent Curved Sword build with Takers Cameo then.
Well granted you can actually skip a lot of exploring and straight up kill Morgott, get to the Mountaintops and the two medallion halves and fight Malenia even before you fight Godrick but through natural progression and first playthrough no you won't be able to get until late game
@@aceoffires1032 I wonder if they could've made a really obscure questline to get to malenia early somehow so you could get the rune early if you are a God at her. Like beat Mohg and can use Miquella to teleport to haligtree depths
@@loopine that would be interesting, especially since people never use the gate to get to Mohgwyn in the first place and go through Varre's quest line, it would several hours earlier, it would work, least in theory
@@loopine you can do lot better great stars, godskin apostle cloth talismen first heals a tiny bit every hit other heal with consecutive hits, have icon shield and blessed dew tailsmen, plus takers cameo or better assassins crimson talismen since its a great hammer can do posie break easily . put bestial vitality and a have the heal over time physick and the heal with damage physick in the mix and can have one of the most annoying to kill builds ever. plus put wild strikes on the great stars .
Malenia clicked for me when I understood that she flinched super easy and I could even knock her out of combos. Basically: I lost respect and started bullying that woman
It makes it even more funny how Joseph had such trouble considering str builds are horrifically strong, especially against her. I was telling someone I had so much trouble with her my first kill and he said he simply used dual wield colossal weapons and just did jumping attacks, and didn't even know why I had so much trouble to begin with.
The main problem is still the water fowl dance but even still the way she gets staggered is completely random. She usually always stagger after she jumps to the left but there’s no consistency to how she is staggered out of an attack. Some times on the same move she’ll get staggered other times she’ll just poise through your attack.
I felt like all the poise breaks and staggers you could do against bosses felt cheap and dumb throughout the game, they also feel super random especially because they for some reason didn’t add a stagger meter to bosses.
@@ISesseriI strength was dog shit on release
@@stephenm707 the way she flinches is not random, certain attacks give enemies hyperarmour where they have infinite poise. You can learn them. Staggering is also again not random, there is an invisible bar that depletes if youre not attacking. You can easily figure out how many attacks it takes to stagger with your weapon you dont need a fucking bar go play ubisoft shite. Waterfowl is also extremely easy to dodge, you literally just unlock and run backwards and she misses 95% of the attack. In general in souls games you can literally walk away and around bosses and attacks. Watch any player do no hit runs and youll understand.
@@tony_tonelg it was fairly similar, the players got better not the weapons.
Wake Up Babe, another niche, underrated youtuber just dropped
Had me at the intro music honestly
Thanks for waking me up ♥
And then dropped a second time, I just randomly got this recommended to me
What is so niche and underrated by being a contrarian to a popular and overrated RUclipsr???
@@diamondhamster4320 whoose side are you on?
A wise final boss once said “Hesitation is Defeat.”
Still struggling with him.
Peak Video Game Finale Boss.
He shall forever be the best old man boss
Hesitation is the feet
@@lorenzo8208 I inhaled the rice I was eating and had a choking fit while cry-laughing. So thank you for that x
"There is a fine line between consideration and hesitation, the former is wisdom, the latter is fear" - Izaro
56:46 Fun fact: Pontiff was originally supposed to be the final boss, and his arena was originally for a boss version of the Fire Witch (the tall guys that shoot fire earlier in the city). Given both his original intended placement and his importance in the lore/story, it makes sense that he has a complicated and difficult moveset.
That is definitely some valuable context, thank you
Everyone says pontiff was hard. He's not. I thought Aldrich and dancer were loads harder but that's what's good about souls. We all can debate out hardest or easiest bosses
@@Justanotherguy83totally agree pontiff was a joke. Dancer was a pain.
@@Justanotherguy83Aldrich 💀
@@errorcringyname4044 Aldrich was a real ass. Dancer wasn't really so hard but much as I tried to telegraph her she still seemed to one up me lol. She's my most hated main Game boss. I literally did not like the fights. I enjoyed Aldrich tho although had me about to rage quit a couple times lol
I beat Mogh’s second phase yesterday with serpent bow and serpent arrows and kukri because I’m not great at dodging around the blood flame. I’m playing a character using as many of the mechanics in the game as I can making heavy use of crafting. It absolutely the most fun I’ve had with this game. Limitations are a fun challenge but if someone’s self imposed limitations are annoying them, then it’s not the game at fault.
the thing is, self imposed limitations can highlight glaring flaws or issues within the game that would have otherwise been an after thought because you have enough health to not care. things like the camera spazzing out when theres gigantic bosses having mobility equivalent to small ninjas. things like lockon remaining active when godskin noble is rolling in circles around pillars, then last second decides to toggle off at the last second and fuck up your positioning. in an effort to won up their previous games, the bosses get jammed all these different movesets that they were already redlining with in ds3 with the sister friede fight. valiant gargoyles is a boss that not only fucks with the camera alot so you have to free aim..but when u free aim you have to go back and forth between 2 of them. to add insult to injury they made it so the things spew poison mist that is barely readable in your peripherals because it blends in with the blue/greenish water. i still have alot of fun with the game but theres so many things where i felt they just decided to throw everything into a design but the kitchen sink.
@@Shad0wmoses I won’t argue you with you about Valiant Gargoyles, that fight is dogshit if you’re trying to beat them solo even when you’re levelled appropriately. The poison makes those two needlessly overtuned.
That said, I broadly agree with the points made in the video. I’ll summon Bernahl for Godskin Duo and not think twice about it but if a player wants to strictly play through it solo, then have patience with the process, discover a better strategy and learn it or stop complaining because ultimately, the mechanics are there in game to use and you do it to yourself.
@moses " self imposed limitations can highlight glaring flaws or issues within the game"
If those flaws are the result of self imposed limitations and something you wouldn't expect to see in otherwise normal gameplay, no.
If the flaw is only an issue when you go out of your way to ignore game elements then its not some glaring issue as its already been addressed in the game.
Valiant Gargoyles camera handling and readability are not a self imposed flaw, it happens as a result of normal gameplay even if you decide to summon, its a flaw in the game.
Joseph not using tools or ashes of wars at all and complaining about his limited capability to act against bosses is a self imposed flaw, as having done so would have solved his issue (more poise to trade hits, more defense to trade at a better advantage, more acess to attacks that can interupt enemies and deal more poise damage).
This is the conclusion I came to and why I agree with the assessment that he's a scrub.
Not only does he complain about everything under the sun rather than mechanics in the game itself.
But then proceeds to say he will not use very legitimate strategies for beating the boss or interrupting annoying mechanics that he cant overcome.
Like, what do you want?
You said it was too hard with your build because you cant find attack windows - people give you explicit tips to make attack windows and you still complain calling it boring...
Literally no pleasing these kinds of people. I'm just going to assume that he doesnt like souls games when he doesnt have a baby safe window. At that point, just use a sword and board if you want to play it safe.
@@rasmachris94 Yeah, I mean, I’ve been fighting Mohg all week and I used to really struggle against him but with the DLC due I’ve beaten him with three of my characters and I’ve been co-opping to help others too. He’s still tough, but now I understand where the openings are. So why not just use the mechanics available and then build up the challenge by removing them incrementally rather than going in cold and expecting to power through? It’s a bit mad to be honest.
The real annoying attack with Rykard is the delayed earthquake he does in phase 1. It looks like it could be jumpable but isn't, lasts a little too long to roll and is a little too wide to run through unless you're pre-running. You kinda have to just position so he doesn't use it.
The way to dodge that is also how you dodge melania's first flurry of waterfowl (even if you are close). You sprint away and then do a sprinting jump when the attack comes (for Rykard you run to the side). I also found an alternative dodge that involves jumping onto the corpse piles. ruclips.net/video/OaUQ_OUKmh8/видео.html
Also, you can just block it, even at RL1 with an unupgraded Serpent Hunter and no armor. But yea, it's probably still the most f*cked attack in the game tbh besides maybe ancestral regal spirit roll.
@@loopinedude you’re def getting my sub, most people wouldn’t reply let alone actually give good advice!
Just use a shield or run away
@@Sohelanthropusfuck. Does that mean I can block the earth one from godrick too?
I still don’t understand how to dodge that, so i just tank it 😂
The way some people describe the way they're going through the game, it's as if every single boss they're fighting is just an upscaled version of a Royal Revenant
Yea the first time I faced one of those freaked me out so bad that my controller drop out of my sweaty claws
True. I can understand hyperbole, but people are straight up lying.
Like Sekiro and DS3 bosses didn't have a million moves, Elden Rings bosses just have delayed attacks and ask of you to walk and run during the fight, not just roll, plus jump when you need to. I don't wanna say it, but some people just need to get good... And that goes to the same people that would use that phrase to make fun of others, but are now in the same boat
@@Lord.alucarD One thing I have noticed is that especially after the DLC, many of the delayed attacks are designed to be strafed. they are made to be harder to dodge roll, which makes you dodge in a different way. think Margit's infamous staff swing, Godfrey's big swing, Messmer dragging his spear along the ground, etc
@@FinnishArsonist Exactly, the game also expects you to run around and not just spam dodge roll into normal attack... That formula got stale by this point, I don't understand how people can dislike the fact that bosses are different and expect you to play different... Literally in no other game would a player intentionally not use half the mechanics given to them and then complain the game is "hard", only in Elden Ring
I am very late but a minor thing I found while fighting Pontiff in DS3. If your playing pure mage, the invisibility spell hidden body will for some reason break agro completely as long as it's maintained... which will allow to spam long range spells and absolutely delete him without breaking a sweat. I haven't tried it on any other bosses but it was fucking hilarious. I only found out because I used hidden body to get passed the knights without having to roll. I got far away from Pontiff in the fight at one point and the dude just let me fuck his day up it was probably the funniest glitch/tech I've ever encountered in Dark Souls.
That's very interesting actually. I suspect it only works on Pontiff and it might be for a very specific reason: he stands there and only starts walking when you get closer. Maybe it has something to do with how that works. Generally, bosses in Souls games have infinite aggro range, apart from cases like this.
My mimic and I just locked mogh in this back hand slash😂 without cornering him. Fucking funny
Dude, this video has made really interested in playing Elden Ring again because I know that I will be even better next time and have more fun. I always say that these games are about confidence and what From does really well is scare you as a new player in every game. The absolute biggest factor that determines boss difficulty for me is whether or not I have beaten it before, the biggest knowledge check is not what the boss is strong or weak to or its moveset. It is that it is beatable. It's not that I get better at the game, I just get more confident with the game and dare do things I otherwise wouldn't dare to do.
I remember the first time I beat Kalameet. He was impossible to me, but then during a run something just clicked. He did a side swipe attack and it was just like I saw something I hadn't seen before, and I instantly knew that I would beat him. It was like I awoke my sharingan or something, and I knew that he was easy.
Never had problems with him after that.
"what From does really well is scare you as a new player in every game"
100% When DS1 came out it was praised by some but many claimed it was "artificial difficulty", similarly when DS3 came out Midir and Nameless King were hailed as the hardest bosses in gaming, and hard for the sake of being hard. Same with Sekiro, being called a rhythm game that you just remember the same tricky timings that are unintuitive for difficultys sake.
We know these are all untrue. Like you said Fromsoft is so good at truly instilling fear in the player, and making bosses that seem impossible. At first. But if you embrace losing, embrace death, you can keep trying to beat it, learning new tricks every attempt, seeing things you didnt see before, eventually it is beatable.
I think the reason ERs claims of artificial difficulty have been so loud is because it had been so long since we got a new Fromsoft game, and players forgot what it is like to lose. Players got the idea in their heads that they were good at these games, that they were "Souls Vets" and shouldn't be scared of bosses, but more importantly they shoudnt be dying, again and again.
When you let yourself fail, you unlock your true strengths.
@@shinyhydreigon7257beautifully said.
Who asked?
"Hmm yes, i will click this video about someone i've never heard of."
Joseph Anderson is a legend and I love him but he does have some silly takes on the soulsborne series
@willharcus110 as a Souls vet his takes regarding Elden Ring’s are entirely right, the infinite stamina is straight bullshit and their movesets are over tuned as fuck, mainly with too many combos that seamlessly flow into the next leaving no opening, or combos have extended variants that are impossible to tell apart from their normal versions until it’s too late to take advantage of any opening that was created.
@@Slender_Man_186his takes about ER are far from entirely right. I really like Joseph, i think his videos are fun and provide an interesting view-point, and ER's video is not outside of that, but he also says blatantly wrong things, like ER bosses encouraging a pasive playstile. On the contrary, once you learn to strafe some attacks and use properly jump attacks you can be super aggressive with the bosses.
Seriously, i started off agreeing with him since i didn't understand what the game wanted from me in my first playthough, but after replaying the game some more and experimenting with my kit... No, he was wrong on that.
And yeah, I'm a souls vet too.
@@Slender_Man_186these kinds of takes just baffle me because i think "did we play the same game?"
@@angelamengualcortinas3614 Exact same experience here. If I'd watched Joseph's video back when the game launched I would have totally agreed with him, but now after actually learning how the combat works in ER, not so much.
I think the issue most people have with Elden Ring's difficulty is that there isn't much of a middle ground in terms of challenge. Based on your build, certain bosses either require a ridiculous amount of effort to beat, or can be trivialized via summons and magic. Compared to previous games in the series, builds offer less of a skill curve, where people of low, adverage, and advanced skill can play through the game with suitable builds to their skill level. This results in people of adverage skill either getting frustrated with their build's high difficulty or getting board from playing an overpowered build because it's too easy, without a clear middle ground.
Yea i agree its more polarizing. It's likely a side effect of the arms race From finds itself in to keep make harder games each time they make a game similar to dark souls, since if they just made another batch of ds3 bosses I guarantee it would be a ds2 situation where everyone just complains that it's way too easy to the point where the devs say "Fuck you" and give us Scholar of the First Sin edition. I guess the compromise they decided they had to make bosses even harder but also introduce some new mechanics to help along the players that need it.
@@loopine still no excuse for not making a tighter, more focused game that allows a more solid learning curve
@@loopine i think their approach def is what made it so controversial. like in theory this idea of give players a ton of tools to make the game easier, and then more experienced players can simply not use those tools sounds amazing. Even in the previous games this is basically the point of sl1 runs, they remove the entire rpg part of the game basically to create a higher challenge. the difference is soul level 1 changes very little of the basics of the game. The overall experience is simply just, you do less damage, and can take less hits. Compare that to elden ring, what's the difference between using all the tools available, or sticking to a only rolling melee weapon build where you try to dodge every attack and get hits in when you can. Using spirit summons alone can trivialize fights, removing any need to really engage with a bosses full mechanics since they can just deaggro and focus your summon giving you tons of time to heal. There is some fun to be found playing with spirit summons esp if you find the game super hard without them, but unlike in previous games the normal way you're expected to play the game is one of the least fun ways to play the game. whereas the what i would consider most fun way to play the game feels like i'm doing a soul level 1 run even though i'm doing a normal run where i'm even a bit overleveled if anything.
You could argue that spirit summons could be considered in the same tier as spellcasting from previous games, which can allow you to ignore engaging with bosses mechanics, but the difference is there's still a choice there and a "normal" difficulty if you will. What is elden rings "normal difficulty"? Not every boss was this way but man, bosses like malenia took me as long as it takes me to do a no-hit sl1 boss. I don't mind because i love SL 1 runs, but if i didn't man i would not like this game. It feels like there's no middle ground between what is basically a cheesing a boss, and getting shit stomped by them until you know them better than your own family.
Overall though, i love elden ring and agree with most of your points. It's frustrated me that there's loads of youtubers complaining about bosses when the main bosses mostly felt great. The game has loads of flaws, but the main bosses imo are not one of them.
@@stolensentience that doesn't really mean anything, you're mad you had a hard time with the game and are making an excuse as to why. There is a proper learning curve in ER its just steeper.
All of their games are like this to an extent. Where a certain build can trivialize some bosses and make some tougher. It's been around since demons souls. ER just gives far more options. There doesn't need to be some vague "middleground" in these games because you can create your own "middleground" type of build, even in ER. It's just that many bosses are noticeably tougher.
Anyone can play through elden ring with any build, at any skill level. It just takes patience. Fact.
A small problem that goes a long way is just rolling backwards away from attacks.
Rolling into attacks and then using your roll as a way to position for a punish is a really important aspect of Elden Ring and especially slow strength weapons.
Sure you might get hit but it’s okay to take risks, especially when the pros to playing aggressive are crazy good.
Yea I think most people know on some level that it is more fun and engaging to roll into bosses and be aggressive, and is more optimal. I think that in ER with combo mixups and the faster pace they were met with way more resistance to rolling in than ever before and were taken aback and just went back to rolling away. Def takes wayyy longer to truly learn a shardbearer boss in this game first time around
The problem with that is that so many bosses punish that behaviour by putting you in 50/50 mixups or just straight up punishing you for trying to be aggressive like with margits daggers.
Okay now make this comment after playing more than 22% of the game
@@rickysanchez42084 Respond to this comment after getting good
@@huckmart2017 in my experience margit daggers werent undogeable with smaller weapons like longswords.
I mean if you wanna carry heavier weapons then sure, it is expected that you need to play more carefully man
theres a huge difference between saying that elden ring in particular has apects to its bosses that make them less enjoyable than other Fromsoft games and saying they're terrible on the whole or they're all good, you just don't get it. There are parts of fights that I feel give cheap damage, but that doesn't sour my experience of the whole encounter. As an example, I hate Godrick's whirlwind because it can randomly punish you for properly punishing his own whiff (And I mean after only getting 1 hit on him. not being greedy). But on the whole, I still think the fight is fun and overall fair, its just that one bit I don't enjoy facing, even if it "makes sense" from certain game design perspectives. There's also shit like Margit's 7 decade long windup that feels weird and unnatural compared to literally any other game in existence. But that fight is still fun, and has plenty of moments I enjoy, so those problems only make up about 25% of my experience. Its important to realize that yeah, you can always adapt to what a boss is doing, but there can still be issues with a fight thats a good experience on the whole. Just because I know how to deal with Waterfowl, doesn't mean that I have to like that it was included and have no real issues with it
nah, the game from fire giant to the end is just dogshit lmao
@@arosbastion7052 It's really not, last few bosses were some of the best in the game
@@skdeathxlife I think this disagreement comes from what ppl enjoy in these games. I've always hated fighting big stuff. dragons, giants, giant blobs of hitbox. and once you get to fire giant almost all of the rest of the bosses are huge. and if you don't mind or enjoy those fights than it doesn't even matter. but to me or op here, that shit kinda stinky.
@@janefkrbtt I agree with op I'm talking to the guy who said the game is shit after the fire giant (Also hate the dragons the only good one was placidusax)
@@skdeathxlife 🤝
I find that Malenia’s first phase, she’s extremely passive and lore walks at you, watching you fully charge an R2 and get staggered, and the moment she senses fear in the player she becomes hyper aggressive and relentlessly attacks.
That's a good way to put it
"Oh, You're Approaching Me?"
She's actually super passive in first phase period. She is one of the very few bosses that lets you just run away and heal, buff, swap weapons for as long as you want. She just defaults to this slow walk when you're not attacking. She mostly just retaliates, or becomes aggressive if you stick close to her. It's a fight where player 100% dictates the pace. You can disengage from her pretty easily, and she will very rarely chase you.
@@Quicksilver_CookieLorewise it shows how cocky she is in her absolute belief that you stand no chance against her she becomes hyper aggressive in her second phase because now she realizes you're basically another Radahn.
@@WokeandProud also she's blind and can't figure out where you are unless you move...
You fighting Malenia and screaming into the mic was way funnier than I anticipated it being.
Nobody fucks with uncle Lupine when he's been drinking, that includes fictional bosses
@@loopine dude idk how you play something like this while drinking that much. I become way too sloppy and then quit and go play DRG. either way, it was fucking hilarious and I need to catch a stream of yours.
@@Jakster840 I just did Fire giant, Commander Niall, Astel, and Godskin Noble with an unupgraded zweihander at RL1 with No Aux or Armor pretty hammered not too long ago lol I need some beers so I don't get bored on 30 minute attempts
you must be some kid that grew up watching pewdiepie to be entertained by what he had to say during the fights
@@berry.juice3Yes that's true and my favorite video is "Five Minecraft RUclipsrs Who Have Swore".
Pretty good video, especially the editing, my main problem with alot of the attacks in ER is that figuring out how to avoid them is often unreasonable. Examples: inconsistancys with which attacks can be jumped over, delayed attacks(they arent that bad because often there is still a bit of a telegraph when the attck will come) and figuring out that you have to make a circle for waterfowl dance. The position based combo extensions are also never explained, so a lot of players will think its just random.
Truuue. I think souls games have always struggled to teach players how to play the game honestly. And yea I could not figure out hardly any attacks to jump in my first playthrough, I never started to experiment until second playthrough. There is a lot of inconsistency in the readability. The big moment for me was Maliketh's beast claw, the lingering hitbox is ridiculous if you roll but it's easy to jump even if the particle goes thru your legs (The way jumping works is it makes your lower half invincible).
With the new light roll you can pretty much dodge anything at the cost of damage negation... waterfowl dance is a joke now.
@@dvamg I did learn the Maliketh fight hitless on my own for this video. Took like 3 hours. You can do it if you put your mind to it and learn the full fight, I just knew that is was worth the effort so I was motivated while most people just think Oh this is broken what's the point, guess I'll just hittrade with Jumping L1s. And yea totally, these games have always struggled to teach the player the way they are supposed to fight, like I say in my pinned comment. There are legitimate problems with the game and that's why it is sickening that we are talking about bullshit like this when we should be addressing things like input dropping. Oh and like I said the community effort thing I guess is subjective but looking at the challenge runner and invader communities that sprung up because of it, I am super grateful. Stos charity fundraiser that he put on for the tiny little twitch invader community raised in the top 10 of all events put on by that charity on twitch in 3 days and absolutely smashed their yearly goal with just our one event.
@@loopine i know that this essay vides they always seem misinformation most of the time about about the game like recently i watched neverknowbests who bring ranni quest as been difficult to do even though it the most easier to follow compared to other quest in the game i saw a couple peoples on the comments even point that out too or blaidd where he been only friendly if you buy an gesture from a merchant which kind untrue
@@dvamg why does anyone join the scrub camp? It's because it is easier to come up with an excuse and blame a mythical line of code and give up, rather than be realistic about your skill and knowledge level, accept it, and be open minded and learn to actually improve
In the souls games, I've always played more reactive, just act instinctively to what happens as opposed to learning the bosses moves, windows etc. The doggedness of the elden ring bosses, while sometimes being frustrating, makes this approach really fun and rewarding for me personally.
I believe Elden Ring lacks a bit of polish with its difficulty, mainly because damage ramps up to absolutely ridiculous degrees by the time you reach Mountaintops, and also some bosses because of various complaints, be it poor visual clarity because of the camera with Fortissax and Lansseax, ganks made of mobs that aren't specifically crafted to work as a gank because it increases the likelyhood of facing pattern overlap, which is still as frustrating as it was with Lud&Zallen in DS2, or other specific issues.
However, I very much think the evolution of the combat was the right direction for Elden Ring. I've malded countless times during my 5 or 6 playthroughs, but the idea of shifting the "turn based combat" from the previous games into a semi-endless flurry of attacks you have to break apart to find exploitable gaps for counters, yes, I'm all about that, it adds a new layer of complexity to boss design that makes for a refreshing experience.
Agree 100% and I can’t even fault Fromsoft cause it’s the first time they attempted this change I feel like dlc or new games that attempt this kinda of Risk/Reward fighting will be better implemented
Tbh, the difficulty spike didn't phase me that much. It felt just like Bloodborne after killing Rom and DS3 after Dancer
The problem is that this works when facing a single enemy, but lots of times there are more than one on screen, making it an endless flurry of attacks you cant do anything about, except run away and spam ranged attacks.
@@personunknown4573 sekiro already did this and did it infinitely better
This isn't a good comments section to come and whine that [checks notes] it's bad that the late game bosses do more damage
I think the big difference from Sekiro in terms of the flexibility of evasive options (i-frame rolls, jumping, low-profiling, walking) is that Sekiro communicates very clearly what to use in any given situation. You jump the sweeps, Mikiri the thrusts, jump and return the lightning, dodge the slams. And all of these attacks have a special telegraph in the form of a danger symbol, because you're supposed to just parry the other attacks without hesitation, since Hesitation is Defeat. When the ape throws a huge... boulder at you and you're bad at dodging you can just block it with your dinky katana, and the worst it will do is stagger you for a few seconds and deny you one punish opportunity.
Elden Ring gives you all of the options, but none of the help. Since there's no general rule of "everything but these things can and should be parried" there's no universal callout for attacks that allow/require different evasion options, so even to somebody who has beat and enjoyed Sekiro it could become somewhat unclear how to evade certain attacks that shouldn't just be i-frame rolled. Just from this video, I wouldn't expect to jump Morgott's tail because it is so big, nor the Beast's AoE attack because it looks so tall, and low-profiling wouldn't even occur to me. Between this and the lack of an in-game explanation of posture breaking, Elden Ring has a lot of depth but doesn't communicate it very well. This complicates the problem of learning the bosses and gittin' gud, all while leaving a pile of "easy mode" options on the table.
Basically, Sekiro adds a lot of options and guides a "bad player" through them. Elden Ring dumps the same options on you and expects you to figure out how to use them with no guidance and little indication they're there at all. All while having some of the strongest magic in all of FromSoft's games and the Spirit Ash system both presented much more prominently.
Edit: also, the temptation argument leads to a diametrically opposite conclusion on the "easy mode" question for me. Because right now, the tools to make the game easy are all readily available to the point where scrubs may end up with takes like "is it all designed around me using this obvious stuff?" Shunting some of these features into a clearly labeled easy mode would make it more obvious: no, we designed the game to be beaten normally with these fundamental tools, git gud at using them. It would, if anything, reduce the temptation, because popping the Mimic wouldn't be as simple and immediately accessible as just equipping it in a slot and using it.
Marge should have been a blocker for the rest of the game and tuned for a +0 weapon, solo only, base level player like in DS3
Giving away all those overpowered ways of beating the game with exploration means people reach the endgame not having learned anything about the combat. Then, when even the overpowered shit isn't enough to steam roll everything there's an abyss between what the player is capable of and what the game asks of them
Someone who did it "the hard way" is much more likely to have a smoother difficulty curve (even if the absolute values of the difficulty are higher) simply because they couldn't mindlessly roflstomp 95% of the game
I have to disagree, you have all the tools necessary to avoid damage or block/parry like you said (and some spells give even more defensive options), so the impetus is on the player to chose what tactic is best.
Sure, some enemy attacks can be a little unclear at first glance, but this is an insignificant hurdle with one or two attempts to see what works.
A huge problem that you (and most players) don’t realize, is that leveling up your Vigor as your most important stat, will give you these chances to learn and make mistakes. I roll my eyes when players get one-shot to almost any attack that isn’t some huge grab attack or massive explosion. You should always be able to recover and immediately heal, as I’ve realized that there are almost zero circumstances where and enemy will not give you enough time to reset and heal, especially attacks that knock you down, giving you even more i-frames,
@@BLK_MN You're coming at this from the perspective of a knowledgeable player and thus miss the point: the path from "noob" to "knowledgeable player" is the problem.
To use the Beast's attack as a specific example, a player who knows well how each of their evasive options works would know to check if that attack is jumpable. A scrub who got along without jumping wouldn't, and the game does little to teach you about the lower body intangibility that makes jumping a better evasive option than it looks. It's absolutely a skill issue, but also a skill gain issue.
And I get it that lots of people don't realize the one true meta that is Vigor (itself something of an issue), but I would note that I didn't in fact get one-shot by weak attacks. Oceiros had shotted me enough times in DS3 that I did learn the value of a healthy health bar. That doesn't change the nature of unknown unknowns: if you don't realize you have a tool that you can try, you won't try it and learn that it works.
And to be clear, again, it's fine if the game is so obtuse that it's hard to learn how to learn it. It's much worse when the options to not learn it and still progress are all over the place and not properly segregated. A common take I've seen on Margit is that he teaches you to turn around, go explore the world, and come back when you're stronger. That's not a good thing in my opinion, it incentivizes scrubs (like myself) not learning the game properly and just bulldozing it with all the power given to them in the name of "accessibility".
@@BLK_MN Thank you. When you don't know the game of course you're gonna make mistakes. Sekiro fans can't say the nailed every stealth encounters nor the spirits bossfights on the first go (the less we talk about Ape's screaming or Demon of Hatred, the better).
@@illusive-mike I’d again argue that you’re looking at it from an overly critical “noob” perspective.
The reason why leveling Vigor is so important, is because you WILL get hit a lot.
If you level nothing but Vigor, and run straight to Margit, you could reliably beat him without having to go back first and explore. It’s all about having enough health to mitigate mistakes.
Sekiro got me addicted to "NO HESITATION!" and staying up in the boss's face at all times, it was hard to go back to this style of play. Not necessarily worse just different.
I had a similar issue when I started Sekiro and just how different it was to Dark Souls.
Then the Elden Ring Reforged mod is for you
Staying in the bosses face and being aggressive is exactly what you want to do in Elden Ring. A lot of the boss moves reward you for rolling into them with openings and safety from follow ups while rolling away gets punished. This is especially true for Malenia and the Fire Giant.
I stay up close to pretty much all enemies and bosses all the time in Elden Ring, and constantly attack in dodge like in Sekiro.
@@tsunamie1015 its hilarious how many souls veterans need to be told to get gud and stop rolling backwards.
I don’t even care what you say in the rest of the video. You opinion is already 100% valid with this clip 18:16
I'm a game dev currently working on a souls-like project, and i program these types of AI every day. They are running on behavior trees, which are basically flowcharts of tons of little decisions. At each point it looks at the current state of the game, such as its own HP & stamina, and things like the distance and angle to the player, whether the player is currently attacking, rolling, blocking, jumping etc. You can get a lot of unexpected "emergent" behavior from these, meaning you are going to see a lot of variety from bosses. Their main priority is going to be to attack. So you sometimes end up with these kind of "perfect storm" situations where all the variables line up to give the boss a brutal attack window to just go berserk. And not every player is going to encounter all the same behaviors as all the other players. It entirely depends on the way the player moves around and interacts with the AI.
You can easily moderate the pace with aggression cooldown.
Please don't do estus = fireball
@@thegk-verse4216 fr that shit is so annoying
@@thegk-verse4216 or estus = literally canceling animation to fuck your shit up with a giant rapier
I wish developers would spend a little more time explaining these types of things so that people would understand it more. I am also a developer working on a hollow knight / souls like type game, and I understand dude. Honestly, I wouldn’t want my bosses either way. Lol punish these plebs.
After a lot of of attempts. The first phase of Malenia's fight definitely became one of my favorite fights in the game. Though I do think one of the main problems with her is how inconsistent she is, with her being able to do things like canceling her stagger animations to dodge/block your attack. And while I did use a greatshield to block the first part of the waterfowl I think the main problem with the circle around dodge is that it's something you can't really figure out on your own, as opposed to her other attacks that are hard to dodge, but can be figured out by trial and error.
Yeah. If she was consistent and Waterfowl had more time to run away, then a lot of people would have her as their favorite boss.
You'd be ultra aggressive. Constantly trying to stagger her and use the fact that she is a humanoid with limited mass and poise.
Or, she could have just been Lady Tomoe in the DLC that they scrapped and still be a loved boss in a game where the player can addapt to her inconsistency. Maybe make her even crazier and have even more animation cancel.
The ONLY boss I vehemently hate in Elden Ring is the Godskin Duo. Fighting either of them 1v1 can be pretty fun and rewarding, but the Godskin Duo feels like they were thrown together without making any changes to synergies their movesets.
The biggest issue is the arena size and Noble’s rolly polly move in his second phase. The roll itself seems easy enough to understand however sometimes he can roll over the broken pillars which should be able to shield you and, as many people have posted videos of, can literally animation cancel mid roll to attack and in the next few frames start rolling again. The past 3-4 times I’ve fought them Noble has has killed me because of the animation cancel.
The Apostle is not too bad in the Duo fight though if only because he’s somewhat more passive than the Noble.
I am absolutely dreading this boss on the RL1+0 Zwei only run
I beat them first try, with a light build, using Malenia’s Blade. It was my first playthrough, so I was a bit overleveled, but still, not that challenging.
What helped is that I’ve done dozens of summons for them where you fight one or the other, or even the actual Duo fight.
It’s really nothing compared to say Ornstein and Smough, or the Throne Watcher and Defender, or even Ariamis and Sister Friede.
Well, Brandon Sanderson likes the Godskin Duo.
What are your thoughts on the twin gargoyles or triple rot crystalarians? I think both of those fights suck major ass.
Use Sleep on them
One of my favourite things about Elden Ring combat is the way that enemies don't just let you hit them in a pseudo turn based fashion. Elden Ring was my first Souls game, and it was insanely tough for me first playthrough, but everytime I beat a boss I felt triumph because it felt like the bosses genuinely wanted to stop me. When I fought Radagon and Elden Beast, it genuinely felt like they wanted to defeat me and stop me from becoming Elden Lord. They didn't pull any punches or wait for 3 hours so I could hit them. They just fought me, desperately doing everything in their power to stop the Tarnished from becoming Elden Lord, to keep that triumph from me. So when I did prevail, it felt like more of a victory, because I really felt like the bosses were giving it their all and I had to win not by taking advantage of specific openings, but by outsmarting them and creating my own openings. And even though I'm a lot better at the game now, I still get that feeling each playthrough.
Yep exactly, going back to DS3 or earlier games it feels so jarring having a massive knight or monster fighting to the death just sitting there just long enough for the player to get an attack in before going back to moving just as they were. Furthermore to your point the bosses really have a sense of desperation to them, my personal favorite being Morgott with his never ending combo's, and especially his Phase 2.5 combo. Fun stuff.
Yes!! I finished the game a few days ago, it was so good. The only boss I didn't beat was Malenia, and I'm trying now. Is so hard, I died so many times. But I'm feeling good now, I'm at a point where I've learned all of her phase one, now it's more about mechanical consistency. When you get in the rhythm of the fight it feels so awesome, is like a dance. You feel really, really powerful when you start to hit more than she hits you. The sensation of learning how to defeat a boss is something really special.
@@shinyhydreigon7257 It's because bosses there simulated stamina.
One of the boss which emphasizes this "not letting you win" the most, I think, is the crucible knight. If you attack them they will have their shield to protect themselves and will counterattack, and most of the time their attacks just don't f*** stop. It's even more relevant in phase 2. When you think you can attack they surprise you with their tails. They are very hard but I love these bosses. (Parrying them with a shield is something even funnier)
Another one I thought of is the godskin, the slim one. Whenever you're far and want to heal he'll throw a fireball at you. That's maybe "not fair" but concretely it makes far more sense.
Pretty good points and video but I think it’s pretty safe to say with the astel boss fight… come on. It may not have ruined it for you but for many players including myself, the one in the cave completely ruined the sanctity of the first one. The entire trek to get to that fight is just building up more and more what happened to the land underneath the lands between having you wonder what possibly could have wrecked this place and made it look like an underworld version of space. With the turnout/payoff being a cosmic horror something looking like it came straight out of bloodborne, with a super unique fight, boss arena, and lore behind it. The other astel is in a cave near an area associated with frenzy just… because? It’s really insulting imo and I guess this argument is pretty subjective but I think there’s cases where reused content is good such as the night’s cavalry, or the godskins but I really feel like if there is no established reason why fromsoft should reuse content then it feels like they are just putting it in to fill gaps in content based upon how much content they had to fill because they created to big of a map. I’m not complaining the map is too big but it really feels like fromsoft bit off more than they could chew. I’ll accept three versions of asylum demon because one was optional but a pretty damn important part of elden ring is fighting the tree asylum demons and there’s so many it doesn’t feel like an engaging boss fight anymore, it feels like a chore.
lmao
"insulting" hahahaha
Interesting to hear people bring this up point about Astel up so much, because it's a non-issue in my own experience. I personally see the Consecrated Snowfield as an endgame area that you should be doing last anyways. There are two realistic possibilities following this logic: 1) You've already progressed through Ranni's questline and accessed the first Astel through Lake of Rot 2) You're already at an endgame level that would melt the first Astel fight and you're not backtracking to it.
You either find the first proper Astel fight when you should fight it or you don't. The second Astel fight is a re-match, and if not then you already missed out on the real initial encounter. I don't necessarily want to say this is the player's fault for routing badly, as Elden Ring encourages you to tackle objectives in a player-determined order, but it seems odd to critique the game for reusing an encounter that it's somewhat reliably assuming you've already done. Perhaps one way to improve this would be by outright requiring some kind of item from dropped from the first time you encounter the boss, ensuring you don't play in the "wrong order."
Also before anybody calls me a Fromsoft dick rider, I think the Concentrated Snowfield is a trash area anyways. Additionally, yeah the reuse of Astel is fucking lazy from a lore perspective imo. That and the Godrick reskin are the only two times that I think the game goes slightly overboard with the boss recycling. However, within the context of the game's huge boss pool, these seem like super trivial gripes.
@@earic2499 I think that’s a pretty reasonable response, I never even considered looking at it from a gameplay perspective because like you said your pretty much set up for the fight and it’s just a rematch. I always was just outright offended at the reuse of him because he’s a cool established boss and the entirety of the boss fight and everything surrounding it feels earned. It’s like if Oceiros from ds3 was just in the game at a later optional point for filler. Like I know it’s not a perfect example but you can understand what I’m trying to get at. It just takes away from the original fight and makes him feel like less of an established character. I feel like the less pushback we give to fromsoft the more they will do it too. It could get to a point where main bosses would be repeated(which before you think, yes I understand godrick is, it’s just some would say no because his copy is hard to find and he’s TECHNICALLY not a required boss to beat the game). Like how much impact would the abyss watchers have if you just kept seeing them? Not in any different interesting ways, it’s just the same boss fight and MAYBE a slight cosmetic change or they add a few more different options in they’re movesets. It eventually crumbles the original feelings and moments you have when playing these games at least in my opinion. I agree that from the lore perspective it’s bad and from a gameplay perspective it can be good, but what l’m asking is if you take it all away and just think about what your feeling in the moment I think most people would probably agree it sucks.
As it was said previously, only godrick fight (didn't understand what I was fighting at the moment for the 1st time)
And for the Astel fight in the snowfield cave, I knew He was somewhere thete but I was like "Oh well idc, it's just a rematch" but when I found him it was very "mehhhh It would have been better to have only one astel"
For the tree avatar I don't see the problem (some of them have new moves) because in a lore perspective it's logic to have one in front of each trees
You make a lot of good points, but I will never accept the close range Waterfowl Dance dodge to be a good argument in defense of the move. Running in a circle under Malenia and switching direction at the last frame of her start up animation IS NOT an intended mechanic, it's counterintuitive and most certainly not a dodge. You're just confusing her AI targeting to miss you in a way which isn't intended. Waterfowl Dance IS MEANT to never miss you in close range, and just because speed/challenge runners found a stupid way to glitch it, doesn't mean it's a well thought out or designed move.
The intended design for the move is to force players to run away, and sure enough if you have enough space it's not that hard to survive, but this still creates moments where she can bust the move out while you're recovering from an animation or approaching her, and that means playing outside of the move's range is preferable, and that makes it boring and extremely passive. It would have been good if you could stagger her out of the move using a jumping R2; the window is already narrow as it is and this way the player has to make the correct call quickly, run towards her and stagger or run away and dodge. That is an engaging way to do it which encourages aggression and rewards player experimentation with the mechanics of the game. But no, WFD is left in its current state as the stupidest least intuitive move to deal with in the entire Soulsborne subgenre.
I've seen this argument a lot and I don't get it at all tbh. IMO they obviously knew about the close range dodge, they tested so many variations of this move and redesigned it and clearly and insane amount of dev time went into just this one move. Why would they want to force you to run away when its clearly not possible in all situations?
@@loopine No way to know why they would want anything but the only alternative to running away is an exploit that messes with her AI targeting to make her miss you. This is not a game mechanic or technique which is introduced in Elden Ring or taught to the player. Running under Malenia in a circle is not something that builds on or compliments any gameplay mechanics or systems that are introduced or explained to the player. It's literally just a an AI targeting trick. It's the kind of thing you should reasonably only expect challenge and speed runners (the people whose job is to break the game) to know.
Since the end goal is surviving the attack and winning this is "fine" but it still stands to reason to say: WFD's intended design seems to encourage passivity. Players just found a silly way around it.
@@h.s6352 You say its an exploit, I say it's an intended dodge. Guess we can only hope for an interview
@@loopine Maybe they just fucked up, wouldn't be the first time haha
@@loopine I don’t see how you can say From knew about the close range dodge, it’s so random it’s like something that was discovered during a Tool Assisted Speedrun.
I still stand by the notion that Malenia's Waterfowl Dance is too unfair in how it's executed and that it makes her boss fight so stress-inducing in the worst way that I never feel satisfied when I do manage to beat her.
Im honestly fine with all the other boss fights in Elden Ring that piss people off: Mohg, Maliketh, Fire Giant, Radagon, even Elden Beast, but Malenia is just too much for my wee little goblin brain.
try using freezing pot when shes up in the air.
Just sprint away from the first combo then dodge behind the second. It works every time.
Edit: also freeze pot her
It's definitely not unfair considering it's dodgable, luckily melania is optional so if you don't want to put in the time to improve then you don't have to
@@bubalfred260 yeah its dodgable, but barely. In my first playthrough I died well over 150 times to her. And it's not like I was underleveled or had bad gear. I was RL 135 with a maxed out Blasphemous Blade rocking 40 str 35 dex and 50 faith as well as 40 vigor and decent armor.
I didn't want to use the mimic tear because it would make the fight easy af (I eventually ended up using it just to finally put her behind me, but I didn't enjoy the fight as much)
I got good with fight too, using jump attacks, posture breaking, healing off the Blasphemous Blade and spamming the special attack to knock her down, but her Waterfowl dance always ended up killing me or nearly killing me. It has a very short wind-up, and unless you've practiced like LMSH then dodging her attack (flawlessly) is VERY difficult.
I don't have a problem with waterfowl itself or even her healing mechanic. It's the fact she has both that pisses me off. If either one of those were taken out of the boss fight it would make her much more fair.
I don't even know if there's a good lore reason as to why she's even able to heal on hit, like, that's never explained.
@@thegreycrusader If you don't like her or think she's a shitty boss that's fine, everybody has bosses in the souls series they don't like, but if your saying the boss is "unfair" because you couldn't beat her or you didn't have fun then that's just straight up false lol. She is extremely difficult, that's why she's optional, if you feel fighting her is ruining your enjoyment of the game then you don't have to fight her at all, that's completely fine. But the fact remains that every single one of her attacks are dodgable and avoidable if you put the time and effort into learning it, so she's not unfair at all
Whenever Malenia uses that move where she grabs you, throws up in the air, and impales you, I'm never even mad. That move is cool as shit.
Ooh, that one deals big damage. But thankfully she gives you a good telegraph showing you her hand. A little wave, if you will.
A wave goodbye.
@@nox6497Yeah, that’s what supposed to happen if you get literally impaled, big damage.
Is it cool as shit the third time too?
Thankfully it's really easy to dodge. Unlike that bs waterfowl move.
I have never played a single soulsborne games before elden ring, and my husband was really sure i would drop the game before godrick. but here i am. 200 hours in on my first playthrough, exploring as much ad i can, powerleveling whenever needed, learning through the experiences of the community. I am running a strength + faith build and i have been enjoying myself immensely. I like the specificity of buiilding because i can only focus on what i can really use. I got slapped around by bosses, including Mohg, but each death I learned and got bolder. This has been the best gaming experience i have had so far and it was totally worth what i paid for, it gave back to me in spades.
Yeah! Go for it! You should always level as much as you can your first playthrough of anything. You have no frame of reference for how hard or easy certain things should be, so there’s no reason to not try just plowing through, and maybe noting where certain areas are maybe meant to be played earlier or later for another round with another character.
I was like level 250 when I finished the game and I could have easily gone higher. I know now I can reliably beat the game at a lower level, but that’s just hindsight. So don’t listen to others saying you should play the game this way or that way, because they could be dead wrong until you personally know for yourself.
Similar here, first souls game, loving it, have a hard time reading move sets though so I tend to just ham my way through most of the time after dying a few dozen times... Hah
I too am running strength faith build. You've good taste!
@@BLK_MN definitely taking my time with this one. I try to discover as much locations, get gear that would work well with my build, etc. I'm at 195 now and I'm sure i can make a victory lap to the end but there's so much more given that I haven't completed the mountaintops area. I'm just adventuring through it 😊
@@spookzer16 thank you fellow STR+FAI tarnished we are people of culture 👌
The most fun I have had with Elden Rings bosses has been the times I had learned to be more aggressive rather than passive. Some of the more annoying bosses had become my favorites from the feeling I got from not only learning their fight but aggressively winning it.
Same, I was shocked when I a 10 minute long malenia fight became a 60 second phase 1 when I threw caution to the wind and went ham on her going for posture breaks
I remember when I finally experienced this feeling during Champion Gundyr fight that this little space in his combos is a great opportunity to deal 1 hit and thus deal damage to the boss more consistently. He immediately became one of my favourite bosses just because he was the first one who kinda leveled up my souls game in terms of aggresivness during a fight. In Elden Ring this shit of WAITING just runied so much fun for me, especially with these skiils like Godric's winds that he casts without any preparation, Rykard's explosive floor (actually A LOT of enemies in the game have this explosive floor ability), etc. I believe they could've do so much more with all of the fights and we know it because of how DS 3 bosses were great and stil distinctive from each other. In Elden Ring it feels more like a step back than forward. Trying to make bosses less predictive with delayed attacks and 15 attacks in row definitely isn't the best way to make a fight harder
Agree 100%. Bosses in ER rewards positioning and aggressiveness. Malekith now takes me less than 5 min, and he used to be my Malenia. Nowdays, barely any boss/mini boss presets any harm.
People will say that the bosses just won't stop comboing when they are always dodging away from the boss trying to avoid taking damage. Take Morgott for example, if you stay close to him and actually decides to engage the boss, he'll be forced to do other things instead of infinitely comboing you. This is even better with a heavier weapon because you can posture break him much more frequently so instead of him not giving you time to breathe, it's now the other way around. It's designed to make you actually fight the boss
Have you played sekiro? You might likd it.
I’m late to this video but the point about turn based combat really gave me perspective into why I struggle with some fights in elden ring. Really gotta try and work on that
Hearing that point made me completely re-evaluate how I played the game and made it so much more fun for me. Just hearing that I cannot wait around for my opening caused my third eye to open and make me actually kick the bosses ass in
the whole positioning thing was taught to me by kingdom hearts 2 where it's pretty obvious and extremely helpful to bait out easily punishable attacks. i remember after playing ds1 for a while realizing that wille glacialy slow it does have plenty of similarities to kingdom hearts of all games
Regarding the "get-off me bro" attacks, I know for a fact The Old demon King from DS3 has like three or four moves that he will spam in close range that are really hard to react to, despite that the boss is arguably one of the easiest from that game
So thats like one boss?
@@TheKillaShow no that's just the one that I remembered immediately off the top of my head he mentions more in the video, so please do not try to strawman my observation into an argument against his points
That is simply not true.
@@danielantony1882 what do you mean it's not true? He has the hammer slam attack where he slams The Hammer down directly under his feet and the combustion move where he makes a magma ball and explodes it right in front of him. Both of these attacks he will only use if you are under his feet because that is where he is weakest.
Some bosses and enemies do have anti-spam attacks/moves to keep you in your toes in previous games, but ER is the only one so far were even the most basic of mooks have frame 12 wakeups like they were fighting game characters.
I find it infuriating that enemies get those sort of moves, designed specifically for you to lure them out (wait) or play passive against them to prevent damage (more waiting). Does it lead to deaths, significant drain of resources or even some sort of threatening situation? Not really no, its just aggravating for the sake of being so.
Maybe the game isn't intended to be played without sitting at a bonfire throughout a whole legacy dungeon anymore, but I can't say I'm happy with that.
Elden Rang is actually one of the easier fromsoft games with all the tools they give you. But it can absolutely be the hardest if you make it that way.
After my first playthrough with no summons and a strength/faith build, I can confirm that Elden Ring is definitely the hardest game in the series when played this way. However, bring out the summons and some bleed and the game is a cakewalk.
No one chooses to make their experience more miserable in a game they're playing for the first time in a game without difficulty settings...
Agreed.
Every Soulsborne gamer ever: [insert game] is actually the easiest! lmao
True, I literally 3 shot radagon just by maxing out a blasphemous blade and leveling strength to 90 with my ritual sword talisman and physique
21:30 lucky?! Lucky enough to find it?! It’s in a church! You know? The things with sacred tears in them!? The things you can see from the map?! The thing that is easily found, accessed and a thing you’re given reason to go to?! wtf does Joseph mean by lucky?!
And It's literally right along a main road.
The only ways you can miss it is if you weren't exploring at all, or you chickened out of the Elenora fight.
11:40
Little note on the stagger cancels, it's not actually that she "can" cancel her stagger, it's that she will *always* cancel her stagger with a block after too many hits in a row. This is perfectly consistent every time, and is probably supposed to be encouraging you to learn to pace yourself and stay back (you know, the thing you're supposed to do to be able to avoid the first part of waterfowl dance). As it is a 100% consistent I don't believe this should never be considered an unfair mechanic, even if no one else does it.
I'm pretty sure when you use a rune arc before Godrick, it functions just like an ember. And I think the the rune arc tutorial message is referring to getting the benefit of a great rune as opposed to the straight health boost you get when one isn't equipped.
Good point
"Melenia taught me" good thing she isn't one of the last bosses then, and probably the last boss most people will finish in the game.
Was more of an anecdote but ok
NG+
@@liquidreality472 doesn't really matter, beating the other bosses will be the more helpful and relevant thing to beating them again.
NG+ and new playthroughs exist. Or you can use the RPG tools to make it easier.
Favorite thing about these bosses is how you have to free form, and it feels like hip hop which is a great vibe. Main reason why hourax loux is such a favorite of mine. He does do these resting things but in my experience it’s almost like he’s baiting you into attacking so he can Chuck you across the arena
Feels like you're missing the point. Even if there are ways to eventually figure out how to deal with things like double dagger, beast double swipe and water foul, the steps you have to take to learn it isn't reasonable or fun. Same with not knowing which attacks you can jump over and not. I too realized that I needed to play hyper aggressive, but unlike in say sekiro where every attack is able to be parried and learned and the type of dodge you need to make is telegraphed so the learning process is fun and feels fair, in elden ring it often just felt like I was sloppily trading and rushing through the boss and winning when they happened not to use their harder attacks through rng. It wasn't a feeling of mastery. So to repeat the point, there are ways to avoid the problematic attacks, but is it he road to lesrning thst reasonable? There's a reason the water foul is so infamous, because so many people were insble to figure out how to avoid it on their own, and that simply doesn't indicate good design.
You know, the attack RNG actually makes sense why some fights go well while others end up with you eating dirt. Against the tail swipe Crucible Knight, I had the 'easiest' time when he failed to judge his swipe's range and didn't spam the ground shattering stomp whenever I was trying to find an opening to get in a hit, forcing me to give up on the window or take damage. By the time I beat him, he failed two tail swipes because I'd backed up (he has no real telegraphing on that attack so if you're caught in an attack animation, you're screwed), and only used the ground shatter stomp once, which I dodged. Besides that, he used his normal combos and failed to hit me with any of his wing dashes.
Against Renalla, Queen of the Moon, I've lost a lot of health when I'm dodging her beam on top of her homing shot spam because there is no ability to NOT take damage if you're forced to dodge sideways out of the beam's path. I've tried rolling multiple times and I get hit because they all line up and I come out of the roll just in time to take a few hits in the head. Plus I lose any window of opportunity if she decides to either throw her staff or use the scatter spell when I finally get in close range and she leaps back, forcing me to heal or die to the next spell spam. Made worse when she decides to pull the explosive moon spell before I'm even allowed to approach because I don't know how to attack around that and have to deal with the homing spam or the throwing staff again now that I'm forced to go around or suffer.
The RNG of these moves can make stupid combos that make it near impossible for me to do anything at times but take damage and die.
How is it not reasonable? Also, fun is subjective. You can't define fun. It was fun for me.
@@TheStraightestWhitest the issue is RNG moves can result in false equivalence between players. Some have an easy enough time to enjoy the fight while others get beaten into the dirt despite their skill because they are trained by the game to punish the enemy during windows of opportunity. But because of the RNG design, some people find themselves burning out fast because the combo is done multiple times, extending the battle time beyond what their brains can handle just looking for an opening.
I myself burned out on Renalla, Queen of the Moon because she kept performing the moon spell, staff throw, or crystal scatter as soon as I approach, pushing me back with no time to get in a hit without losing chunks of health in the process. Then she would use the homing shots quickly followed by a beam so I had no chance to avoid damage as the homing shots would come together on my path trying to avoid the beam and some would hit me anyway.
My brain was burning out as a result of the fight. Made worse that there wasn’t a Stake of Merika nearby, leaving me to deal with more and more burnout until I lost all ability to concentrate.
When it feels like I’m playing a Dark Souls character in a game of Bloodborne or Sekiro, the balance stretched to the risk of breaking every time the RNG fails to ease off.
@@toyhaunter8260 No offense, but if you got skill checked by Rennala, that's on you.
@@TheStraightestWhitest The issue is less a skill check and more burnout because i was tired of everything. I’ve beaten her before but trying things with a new character just leaves me in a bad state. I’m too tired of dealing with the game to care for it anymore. It’s not fun to me dealing with so many enemies I despise rather than enjoy fighting.
Pretty sure Malikeths parry tool doesnt even require any quest line - I never did the manor quest on my first playthrough and still got invaded + got the tool afterwards. Great video!
you have to kill Rykard otherwise Bernahl won't invade you.
@@SteveFard good to know! Thx for the heads up :D
The question, "Do you understand how fucking good I am at this fight and I've never beaten it?!" is such a mood for every goddamn first playthrough I've had of every FS game so far lol
Happened to me at the DLC final boss so hard... I was able to get to phase two so consistently fast and damageless that I felt similar to when you fight Genichiro in Sekiro final boss... But that phase two... God damn, took me so much
As someone playing the game for the first time, this is exactly how I’m feeling about the GODDAMN DRACONIC TREE SENTINEL outside Leyndell
13:25 From what I've heard, Joseph played all through Armored Core 6 with one build and _refused_ to switch his build, despite hating the game for it. His chat even told him to switch and he still refused. Joseph truly just doesn't want to learn how to play games, but still thinks he's justified in complaining about it.
That's pretty much it, ER and AC6 both fundementally are about exploring the game's mechanical variety.
This is why ER gives so much build tools as a reward, its asking you to consider them.
Refusing to engage with that to any extent (especially in AC6 where its much much more prevelant than in ER) is fundementally no different than trying a challenge run on your first playthrough only to complain about the challenge itself.
@@theresnothinghere1745 It's kind of the same situation as duels and honor invasions: From didn't make the game with the idea that players would use invasions for anything other than to practically cosplay patches, but players decided to do them anyways; and From didn't give the player a massive amount of weapons, items, and spells with the idea that players would pick a "build" and play with just that for the whole game. "Build? What's a build? I just gave players tools to win fights."
Because of how long the game is, I changed up my build after each area to try everything, since every area felt like it was basically an entire game, so it felt natural to change my build against certain bosses. For example, I used the Mist Raven skill for most of the game after I got it, but had to change it for bosses like Malenia that use combos that are bad for the single attack dodge ability.
I know Joseph isn't dumb enough to play through the entire game using just the starter AC, but if he starts making shit up about Armored Core, he better be ready for the pushback from people who actually think
I can understand getting upset about elden ring kinda forcing you to change between rock paper scissor builds, because respeccing is done with a finite resource. But in the AC series, the game is made to be played with different mechs between some missions. It forces you to diversify and have different builds for different missions. Don't hate the game for making you throw out scissor and paper when all you wanna do is throw rock out and you get punished for it.
I fall into that category for ER as a Soulsborne veteren. I've played through each game of the series (yet to properly play DS2 but I will) with the mindset of "I am building a strength character" or "I am building a dex character." As those games are generally psuedo-open world and more linear, you get finite resources and you can't respec your stats or your weapons stats once you commit to upgrading them (as far as I am aware).
I like the high risk high reward fast paced aggressive playstyle that Bloodborne taught me and I carry that through all of the games.
I found the weapon I wanted to use as my build main for my playthrough in ER like 5 hours in (Grafted Blade Greatsword cause I'm an ASOIAF fan) and I built my character around that fantasy I had built in my head with that weapon. Playing as a pure strength build with that weapon in ER was a nightmare. I am accustomed to challenging myself in all other FromSoft games but ER was a nightmare.
I shouldn't be punished for choosing to play the game the same way I played literally every other title in the series. I don't want to use summons or magic because that personally sucks all the satisfaction from every victory.
Hey man, first off, I think you had lots of great points to share and I would love to see more of your inputs on the game, as well as some of your own combat-clips. (will dig through your channel to see if there is more to find).
As some constructive critique, I have to agree with some of the others who called you out on the little personal insults you threw at Joseph. (I don't care about him personally, that video of his is literally the only one I've seen, so I'm not a protective fan or anything).
If anything, it's just counter-productive to bake this into a video response, because it distracts from the actual informative value of your video, and to boot, it adds to the already formed notion of the souls-community as being condenscending and toxic. I didn't think your video's tone was toxic per se, but it was certainly condenscending, and I think it would have been more productive to simply point out what Joseph (and many like him) was/were missing.
In fact, I think the players of this game need the handholding of people like you. Clearly, something is missing with the game giving you guidance, or at least hints regarding how you can best succeed in the game. I don't think this is productive, because "you're supposed to struggle with the game", or anything like that, because as we all know, most people are just going to resort to using one of the many, alternative tools that are provided to beat the game.
In Sekiro, the "right way" to play was pretty much shoved into your face and it made the game no less easy...oh Lord, far from it.
Lastly, I think it may benefit everyone if people like yourself, who mastered the combat mechanics successfully, really approached the other camp (who didn't) with a bit more compassion, and tried to understand why they are struggling.
I fully get it that tons of players are just lazy to put in any effort into games and when they can't beat something on their first 3 tries, they are quick to blame the game, instead of applying some effort.
But I think some tipping-point has to exist somewhere, where the game designers need to do some self-reflection, and ask; did we make the "right" way to beat these bosses too obscure and unintuitive? Does mastering this require a number of hours put in that most players will simply not have, and will most likely just resort to different builds or grinding out higher levels? Similarly, those select few who actually did master the game, have to be honest with themselves at some point, and ask; "Realistically, how many people would/could do what I did?"
Honestly, looking at discussions about the game's combat online, I'd say that the percentage of people who talk of the combat as something that can be easily mastered and then executed in a satisfying way, is miniscule.
So...I think formsoft needs some rethinking, and then from peeps like you, I think we need help:)
Thanks. Generally my view is that it isnt that the game that is missing something, its that gamers as a whole have gotten lazy over time and have been conditioned by average games into not wanting to think or engage with game mechanics. The fact that a lot of people straight up dont even try certain mechanics like prosthetic tools in sekiro makes me think the average person just wants to put the absolute minimum effort into games, and wouls rather have an easier time than a fun time.
While i would say i dont technically insult Anderson, i see your point about the condescending attitude and the vibe i give off, even though thats just kinda the cadence I actually talk with, really exaggerating syllables and what not and swearing often. I made this video when i had 50 subs and all of them i persoanlly knew from twitch and discord, so the video was only really made with them in mind to settle some arguements where people had amnesia and couldnt remember what he had said in his video after just watching it.
In any case, i dont get this double standard of me not being allowed to criticize or be condescending to a person's view about a videogame, especially when its lazy and wrong most of the time, but its fine for people like Anderson to have such a shit-eating attitude towards the game and game devs that spent years of their lives to actually produce a work of art. Why can't i respond to bad criticism when criticism itself is a response to art? It's not like a videogame critique is this stand-alone, constructive work of art that's at no-one's expense.
Either way, thanks for the advice because it is good, i just wanted to give my two cents on why it all seems crazy to me, but that's definitely just how it is. I dont really want to be a response guy, so i did make some constructive videos about ER and as you can see the views are exponentially lower. Regardless if Andersons mindless fans hate me, im glad i got the word out so that many people did go into the game with a better mentality towards how they approached the game.
@@loopine I agree with you that modern games don't ask as much from you as Elden Ring does. (Which, once you get used to it, is not a lot lol.) That being said, I do think From needed to be more hand-holdy. They could've used Rogier to nudge us in the right direction, to coach us on types evasion other than just dodge rolling.
Honestly, sometimes you just gotta shit on a motherfucker to humble him up.XD
@@loopine Aren't you kinda proving the point? You get called out for being condescending, but instead you answer with the completely unrelated "Why am I not ALLOWED to respond?". And then you dish out insult after insult, that someone's view of a game is lazy and wrong MOST OF THE TIME, why can't(?????) I respond to "BAD" criticism, it's not the game people are just (insert insults).. It just seems like a complete lack of self awareness on your part. I mean you don't only manage to insult joseph while being called out for exactly that, but also insult the general gaming community as a whole like you're closing your eyes and pulling the trigger.
@wicked5999 Joseph was being ridiculous. Dude just doesn't understand the basic fundamentals of the boss AI and player movement and blames the game. Dude totally deserved to get shit on for that.
Btw the royal remnants are trivial when you just use a healing incantation or the maiden puppet's healing, healing directly transfers to damage with them, with most healing incants instantly poise breaking them, and blessings heal over time acting like poison to them, I might even test warming stones as well, point is if you use heal as soon as they start crawling out of the ground, you can one shot them
Yea it's a neat game knowledge check
@@loopine Also a really neat lore thing, cus it's like the healing is trying to mend the bodies, which revenants being bodies mashed together would instead tear it apart. I actually discovered the mechanic on the hunch of "wouldn't it be cool if" and it actually worked, I was almost as stunned as the revenant was
It took me a long ass time to finally switch from a passive playstyle to a complete monkey aggressor, it took me exactly until a fight with Astel. In which I raged, and said FUCK IT, I'm gonna just run at him, and it worked, dodging between attacks and weaving in a few hits, made me realize, that there are no "safe" times during fights, It's a fight.
yea when i realize it feel so much more like a fight than previous game and actually fun not just wait boss to be idle but attack with him while dodging instead.
@@AgentYellowWang Yeah, I really don't get why people get hung up over the fact that the combat feels different than other souls games. I think it's great, and there's plenty of other things wrong with the game. Like torrent killing me from a 3foot tall fall.
Crucible knights are what taught me pretty early on with “dodge, attack attack attack, dodge..dodge, attack attack attack attack”
To the risk of looking like a bot I'm going to paste a comment I already made on another thread. TL;DR to save yall some time: I acknowledge that ER bosses become more fun and feel more fair the more knowledge of their moveset and muscle memory you build, but for me it's not nearly as satisfying as what Sekiro accomplished with it's combat system and boss design. Here goes my full (very subjective) point of view:
In my personal experience mastering Sekiro's combat has been miles better, more enticing and way more rewarding than Elden Ring's (ER from now on). You can make great arguments defending ER's boss design but for me the same applies better for Sekiro. Late game ER was a chore and everything felt just like gotcha difficulty meant to screw you and force you to memorize unintuitive patterns that don't transfer to becoming a better player, just better against a particular boss or area. In Sekiro each brickwall that I had to overcome made me a better Shinobi/Swordsman within the combat system of the game, each new main boss suffles/adds things and messes with your muscle memory a little but overall they build upon previous bosses. In ER ring I felt like each boss was just resorting to weird arbitrary timings, poor telegraphs and nearly unreactable attacks in order to get me in a cheap way, in Sekiro I felt each boss was a severe teacher trying to make me into a better player, I was getting absolutely smoked but I could clearly see why and how to get better. In ER you can learn a boss patterns to the point of playing more aggressive if you will but that requires some insane skill and effort, otherwise you have to play very passive because of how obscure their safe openings are. In Sekiro you can clearly see when and how to be aggressive, and with enough skill you'll not just play aggressive but also absolutely dominate the boss, become the boss yourself and earn the power fantasy.
Anyways, that's just my two cents on the controversy. ER is a great game, likely a masterpiece in world and level design, and incredible playstyle variety, that's where it's strengths lie and that's why you should play Elden Ring. Sekiro is much more streamlined with bland semi/open world and levels, but on the flip side the bestest combat experience, it's not even a contest IMO.
@@RottenHeretic probably has to do with the fact that the game very much looks and feels like big dark souls, i mean you cant really fault them for expecting it to play a certain way when such fundamental things as the player animations have straight up been copy and pasted over. Also it never really emphasized that being aggressive is the optimal playstyle like Sekiro did, imo
I do disagree with Joseph in a lot of areas. But I do realize what he means. A lot of boss fights just don't flow very well in this game like they do in DS3 or ESPECIALLY Sekiro. Jump-evasions are not that clearly taught in this game since a lot of attacks that look like they don't hit you when you jump will still hit you and there are not many swipe attacks that incentivize jump attacks. Another problem is that bosses actually can attack for too long. Maliketh can just fly around a lot and stay out of reach. Malenia on her 2nd phase can have follow up a combo with waterfoul, then follow it up with clone attack, and then follow that up with another combo. And all you do when a boss attacks is evasion spam. This can make the fight boring. Yeah, bosses do have clear openings. But I think clear openings should've been more of a normal way to deal damage while the mid combo openings you have to find to really destroy bosses should've been more of an advanced level thing.
I don’t. Every aspect of the game is objectively unfair. Sure, it’s not devil may cry 1 levels of unfair. I may not find it fun, but I do say unrelated to its fairness. I don’t find it fun bc it’s boring and easy, with no substantial reason to actually explore anything. But fairness? You would be dishonest to claim it is fair.
It’s like spider man (2018) it’s objectively unfair but also kinda addicting. Tho fun is subjective, fairness isn’t.
Also fairness is unrelated to difficult. Spider man on the hardest difficulty is still mindlessly easy, but it’s even more unfair than the easier difficulties.
@@zzodysseuszz "fair" is subjective by definition.
I actually find it much more dishonest to call 99% of ER anything but fair, but that's just my opinion.
@Rofi Bhoi Did we watch the same video? The whole point of this video was to prove that evasion spam and passive play are NOT the only responses to bosses attacking for a long time, that there are a number of ways to get hits in between attacks, or prevent them from going into overly long combos with good positioning that does NOT require the player to just run away or stand around passively.
He wasn't disagreeing with Anderson when he stated that bosses can attack for a very long time, that wasn't the issue. The issue was that Anderson's, and a lot of other people's, response to that is to just keep moving away and wait, rather than proactively finding the openings and punishable windows in boss patterns, and exploiting them (no cheese or meta-build shit, just pure melee). I know because I also found MANY openings in bosses like Morgott and Maliketh while in the middle of their attack chains, exploitable even with a colossal weapons, and/or using the posture mechanic to stop them, or deliberately baiting the boss AI into using favorable attacks with good positioning, or using good positioning to prevent them from using their combo follow ups while allowing me to still whack at them.
His main criticism basically boiled down to that Anderson and others just tried to play it like more DS3 and got frustrated when the game punished them for it, and rather than adapting, experimenting, and practicing with the bosses, they just gave up and decided the fights were boring and it was all the game's fault. The scrub mentality, as he said. I'm sorry, but your comment also just parrots what Anderson said without adding anything of substance or value, in a video that offers strong evidence against his claims no less and a reason to try practice more with these bosses.
Did you actually watch the video?
@@ThroughfulGamer95 I did mention in my comment that the "Clear openings" thing should've been a more viable thing to rely on during a boss fights at a basic level. Whilst the playstyle the creator is talking about should've been a more advanced layer of the game.
Not spamming evasion during long boss attack chains is also a very build specific or requires advanced level of play.
I do not agree with Joseph in a lot of areas like combo extentions and undodgeable attacks. Plus I mostly disagree on the overall review by Joseph.
The pure joy and relief felt on that first Melenia kill is a universal experience in Elden Ring
I initially agreed with Joseph Anderson's video when I first watched it and after my first playthrough of elden ring, but over time as I played more I realised I had fallen into the same trap I fell in when I first played Sekiro. Dark Souls had conditioned me so completely into the passive playstyle of "roll, punish" that I was just instinctively doing it. In Sekiro it took me a couple of hours to realise this. In Elden Ring, it took me over 100 hours to realise because mechanically its quite similar to Souls. You CAN play it like Dark Souls but it's very difficult and really boring! So I just assumed the bosses were very difficult and really boring.
The problem I think is that the game doesn't do a very good job teaching the player the fundamentals of the reworked combat system in the way Sekiro did. Like you're told what posture breaks are, but their importance isnt really emphasised. The game seems more like it wants to steer you into finding RPG solutions to bosses like Summoning, Spirit Ashes, Spells, Levels, Gear etc rather than teaching fundamentals: be aggressive, attack the boss IN their animations, use positioning, go for posture breaks. There's a reason so many people like me agreed with JA's video when it came out, if you're playing elden ring like Souls - you're gonna have a bad time - but the game doesn't communicate that to you clearly enough imo.
I think it's just a communication issue.
Yea imo the first playthrough is always the most miserable. From has always struggled to some degree to teach the player how to play with their hands off approach to varying degrees. The biggest examples would be making shields a huge crutch in dark souls 1 and the the emblem economy discouraging people from experimenting with prosthetic and combat art combos in sekiro
H bomberguy's play conditioning rears its beautiful head yet again
Thanks, that's some useful advice. (Far better than the "git gud" BS. If you are at the Melania fight you already "got good") This was my first Souls game and I went sword and board for my first play through... nd had pretty much assumed that roll and get 1 hit in was what you needed to do for the high level bosses. I'll give it a try. (And having to do roll instead of Block making my armor, shield and high poise useless does P me off!)
The reason people play like dark souls is because besides the jump mechanic, the combat, speed and animations of the character is identical to ds3
Okay, tried being more aggressive... and got punished for it. Still, Godfrey might not have been the time to try that out.
I found it interesting that you mentioned that there were east ways to deal with a bunch of enemies I found to be scary but mentioned the revenants being something that terrified you. They were some of the easiest enemies for me. I’d heal to damage and stun them and then just do it again. It really shows how different play styles can have different perceptions of enemies
Thats just because they're weak to holy damage. I literally killed one by popping a heal while hiding behind something until it bled to death.
You can literally always spawn kill them too since they can be damaged for the whole 3seconds they spawn
The thing is that the Revenant suck at attacking sideways or moving laterally. In fact, time your dodge right and they'll miss most attacks. Revenants are pathetically vulnerable for that, but most people, for some reason, still want to dodge backwards or spam roll.
for melee builds, u can just jump over them before they start their combo and AOW their butts while they attack the wind infront of them for 10 seconds, not only that they have shit posture and it breaks easily, sometimes it does that "stop hanging around behind me" sweeping attack but that is also heavy jumpable! seriously each time souls vets bitch about an enemy u just know they just panic rolled backwards and R1 spammed, malenias water fowl excluded.
@@enman009it’s so frustrating to watch people never pick up on the sideways roll for revenants. In fact, so many of the enemies are designed with a roll catch and I’ve watched countless hours of veterans playing the game never adjusting to this new information. It’s painful to watch.
When he said "woowoowoowoo woo woo woowoo"... I felt that
46:25 That zoidberg edit on Malenia DESTROYED me man, lol. Great edit and solid video essay so far.
I actually recently went through the game having an extremely similar experience where I hated most boss fights until I understood posture damage and jumping attacks. I proceeded to stream a playthrough of the game completely solo to learn all the bosses again on a dex build and had a fucking blast doing it. It was such a fun experience. I think the only times I really got salty on a boss was entirely on Elden Beast being annoying as shit and possibly fire giant. Gave me a newfound respect for Niall, Godrick, and Morgot.
Maliketh and Radagon were easily my favorite fights in the game. Easily. They were so fun, even if they were kicking my teeth in the whole time.
10/10 would git gud again.
Posture breaking is crucial often times. Played with light armor with bloody helice and epe (and parrying shield, misericorde, dragon seal, halberd - hence light armor with med roll), I stunlocked 1st phase Malenia with mimic do death. Also, you want to be safe and 100% set on being melee prepare for challenge. For me it's pure silly not to use one of many range options (to stop posture heal and/or deal damage) available to any build.
13:20 The logic doesn't work that way.
"If you have fun, you play the game right." - doesn't mean "If you don't have fun, you don't play the game right".
Let's look at something simpler:
"If you have a husband, you have a partner". Sounds true, right?
"If you don't have a husband, you don't have a partner". Is not true, because you may have a wife, or a girlfriend, etc
So Joseph doesn't contradict himself here
Personally, the reason why I particularly can't stand Malenia is because she breaks a bunch of rules regarding stagger and recovery that every other humanoid boss (that I can remember) follow in the history of Souls games. There was an excellent breakdown by Swagapagos Turtle called "Malenia doesn't play by the rules" that covers it. Even though I was also using a pure strength colossal sword build (like you and Joseph Anderson which staggers her almost always, the couple times where it doesn't play by the rules was enough to trip me up and get me tilting, and that's just a spiral into a lost run.
Also BHS nerf lmao, Lion's Claw users keep on winning.
Fun fact a similar thing was said about the dancer in dark souls 3. She "broke the rule" about how boss patterns work. She has like half steps or something like that. Also fun fact she is now considered one of the easier bosses because she's actually not that difficult, and can be beaten with a +3 or 4 weapon. I imagine Malenia will be very similar in a few months to a year, then after the next fromsoft game comes out we'll all collectively forget how much shit was thrown at her and do it to a boss in that game while claiming Malenia is a perfectly reasonable boss and super fair. Seen this pattern dozens of times now.
@@soulssurvivor3455 she’s fair after you’ve memorized her attacks. But for most people learning her fight, she’s ridiculous. Waterfowl Dance is basically a one hit instant death if you get hit with any of it. In retrospect, of course she’s easy. She has a tiny health pool and her attacks are all easy to dodge if you know exactly where to stand. But I definitely think the process of learning the fight is what makes her badly designed above all else.
@@soulssurvivor3455 The difference between Malenia and Dancer is that the dancer doesn't break existing rules, she invents a new foundation and applies the old rules to a new foundation. I'd argue the novelty of it is what trips up most people and one's inability to adapt to the new timing was definitely what made my brother unable to pass it, but I adapted after maybe a handful of deaths and caught wind of it really quickly.
Dancer was novel for her unusual attack timings, and Malenia is novel because Miyazaki woke up one morning and decided he wanted to hurt a lot of people.
@@miss_bec As I said dancer also broke rules, there's literally a video about it. But if I'm being honest I don't actually care if you agree about that. My point is that Melania is another in a long line of dancers, ornstein and smough, father gascoigne, and even in elden ring radahn was another; all bosses considered way too difficult and unfair. Melania is just another one that people will have different opinions about come a few months and by the time the next fromsoft game comes we'll all collectively agree that these bosses were actually fair and balanced and the new ones prove how fromsoft is slipping. So anyways what I'm trying to say is; git gud.
@@soulssurvivor3455 Nobody said that about the dancer. Thats literally the first time ever I've heard about that
I've spent the last two days on Malenia and finally beat her with pure bastard sword and knight set with medium rolls. All the guides I looked up probably made this video pop up on my recommended, and I'm glad it did. I agree with everything you said.
Elden Ring screams in your face all through Tree Sentinel and Margit to attack during boss combos. The entire game is quietly trying to teach you this lesson... then you get to Malenia who can be flinched and poise broken if you consistently punish her mid-combo. Malenia even has several combo enders with long recoveries where you can get a full charged heavy swing, in both phases. Waterfowl can be dodged outright at any distance with any build. I only full-dodged it once in all my hundreds of attempts, but damn it was more goosebumps to do the proper dodge than even beating her.
That said, I can understand if not everyone wants to do hundreds of attempts on a boss just to learn the pixel-perfect waterfowl dodge positioning. I can only hope Fromsoft doesn't stop putting hard optional bosses in like Malenia, or change the way you're supposed to punish combos in the next souls game. After Elden Ring, it's going to be boring to go back to turn-based bosses.
Coming back to this video after playing Bloodborne and Elden Ring's DLC, I just find it baffling to me how I didn't realise that Maria also has some "issues" like Elden Ring's bosses and how Anderson talks about Orphan. When he says that Orphan is the most aggressive and fast enemy but it's okay to take damage from him I actually facepalmed but I straight up laughed when he says that you're gonna overuse backstabs. The devs did not program the Orphan to expose his back to you after his attacks for no reason, it's a clear tell that his back is his weakness. Elden Ring's DLC bosses reflect this tell from developers as well. The Scadutree Avatar is a good example where he lands his head to you after all of his major combos or attacks. Messmer's air combo where he moves towards you is a clear tell that you should run away or dodge towards him. But of course people just don't want to pay attention and actually learn things in game
People complain that the bosses give them no openings and then when they have openings they choose not to use them. That’s like fighting Midir and choosing not to hit his head.
But the thing with bloodborne is that it gets away with trading hits because of the rally system which Elden ring doesn’t have and with much damage bosses do in the endgame it can make it feel cheap in the moments it does happen
@@juancampos9468 Yes Bloodborne has the rally system. But Elden Ring has ashes of war, jumping and crouching attacks, talismans, consumables and so on. No bosses in the endgame should be 2-3 hitting you with the only exception being Maliketh phase 2 but Maliketh has no poise and no health. You can stance break bosses very quickly so rather than you not having time to breathe, you're the one giving them not enough time to recover. These are 2 fundamentally different games with different design philosophy, one encourages trading and the other don't. But that doesn't mean you can't "have fun"
@@mingQWERTY more so the problem I have is that fromsoftware needs a new combat system in general in order to facilitate these bosses as while the bosses are so fast from is still using a combat system from 2009 and while there have been many tweaks and features the core of Elden rings combat is from demons souls a combat system that was never made for these bosses which is what bloodborne did so well by changing up the combat so much and it’s what from software really needs to do if they want to continue to make these extreme bosses
@@mingQWERTY also about rallying I’m referring to how Anderson talks about how it’s ok to be quickly hit by kos but not by some Elden ring fights but that’s because the rallying makes up for that damage so it doesn’t feel frustrating while Elden ring just slaps you and there’s nothing you can really do about it
Although I find this video more insightful than anything I've seen so far on the mechanics and ideas of elden ring and probably the rest of dark souls, I still find it somewhat uncomfortable to be called a nerd or scrub simply because I haven't experimented with every possible move in every possible scenario.
I mean you don't have to try everything. Its more like I rolled right and got hit, next time I will roll left. Oh that worked, now I know how to dodge that attack forever. That's it. You can go above and beyond and try to optimize it with a spaced charged R2 later if you want to get better/fancy so that adds to replayability.
Not understanding every facet of the game or having every attack memorized does not make you a scrub. You can even say I don't like having to learn these bosses and I hate this game because its too tedious to learn the bosses. What a scrub would say is "this game is badly designed and the developers forgot how to design bosses" or " boss attacks are undodgeable and my build is completely unviable" simply because you're salty that you whiffed a jumping attack in neutral and got punished for it.
@@loopine Sure, I never would have known that some of what seems like a long boss combo is punishable in the middle of their action if not for your video, which by the way I very much appreciate. I think that's how the players get the impression that "the boss never stops", and "it's unfair".
@@loopine I'm pretty sure jumping attacks had the fastest recovery animation out of all heavy weapon attacks at the time he played it. I imagine he was salty over being punished for jumping attacks because he was using a hell of a lot of them.
@@loopine Ah yes, makes perfect sense with Waterfowl dance close up.
@@michaelp4387the issue isn't the fact that they have a long combo. You can just run away from most long comboes or figure out how to dodge through most long comboes. The issue is the fact that you can't interact with this long combo. You can only dodge it or parry it(but then you cant use your swcondary cool weapon or a magic thing).
I just finally figured out how to actually beat Godrick without just tanking damage on my third playthrough. When he does the fire breath attack you just get behind him and you have like 10 seconds to go to town on him
37:00
"This is Immortal Warfare 101! Cut off her limbs! Cut her eyes out! Do something!"
My guy, have you taken even 5 seconds to look at her boss design? The Scarlet Rot did all of that work for you! And she's still kicking your teeth out through your ass!
as someone who was new to Fromsoft series with ER, it was really obvious when watching actually skilled players play that there were plenty of punish windows with all bosses, and that there were multiple ways of dodging attacks that didn't involve rolling that gave you much more advantage than dodge roll -> light attack. Videos made by such players were around within weeks or even days of game release. With that in mind, its kind of baffling how self-proclaimed "souls vets" could make criticisms that watching readily accessible fight footage for a few minutes could disprove.
To be fair, it took me an RL1 playthrough to really appreciate just how well-done some of the fights in this game are (in particular, Morgott / Maliketh). But it surprises me that players with years of experience with the series outright dismissed these movesets as defective game design.
Elden ring was my first Fromsoft game and also my first truly difficult game, I had never played anything like it before and had heard nothing but how hard it was
Imagine my shock when I wasn't dying every second of the game and actually having fun with a video game for the first time in months
The only attacks that I think are actually genuinely bullshit are the input reads (example being that sword jump that Melania does every time you heal)
The only problem I have with your take is with the unavoidable attacks. Saying you like Mohg's isn't really a counter to his argument. Don't get me wrong, you do you, but to me, all damage should be avoidable, assuming you're prepared for it. Also, in the base game, if you killed Morgott you wouldn't be able to get invaded by Eleonora (and so couldn't get the tear). I don't know if Anderson put out his video before or after it was fixed, but if it was before than I would agree that Mohg's nihil was extremely unfair and unfun. I mean, I'd say it's bad anyway because it's still unavoidable damage, but it was worse when you didn't have to ability to do anything about it just because you explored the plateau after doing Leyndell.
The main problem with waterfowl is that she turns to track you when she's floating in the air. If she didn't, the circle dodge would be way more intuitive.
....huh? Are you sure about the Eleonora bit? I fought mohg by going to mohgwyn through the snowfields and went back for the flask when I heard the nihil was avoidable
@@zviyeri9117 I googled how to deal with nihil, and then went to the church, and she never spawned. I assume it was because I had beaten Morgott, but I guess I'm not sure. I beat Mohg pretty soon after launch, so it might have been changed. That or there was some bug that kept her from invading me.
@@BBQcheese Yeah, you definitely don't have to go through Yura's stuff for her to invade. I was just saying she never invaded in my first playthrough, even though I went to the church. I assumed it was because I already killed Morgott, because in the souls games, if you killed the area boss, multiplayer was turned off. It might've just been bugged though.
This is such a weird standard to have. Who tf decided all dmg, however negligible, should be avoidable.
The best thing about Joe's video is the RUclips reco's after watching it, responses from people that know more about the game and just shut him down completely
31:10 fantastic work comrade
The minute I realized I could nerf the heck out of waterfowl by blocking the first round and then rolling through the rest, Malenia got so much easier.
Thats probably the intended way,the fight seems designed for you to get hit but being able to do more damage than she heals and if you were able to more easily dodge everything it would be very different and just like Maliketh.
Yeah I never understood the problem. I'm not even good at the game but like, there is a block button, even with a 2hand big boi sword
I mostly observed when she does the jump. It's telegraphed so you know it's gonna happen. I remove lock on and run/roll away. I manage to escape it with minimal deduction to HP.
The main problem is that blocking is lame.
@@giusepperesponte8077 is only lame if you don't have an upgraded shield and low stamina. Shields are broken in this game, like most builds, and there's even an ash of war that makes invincible for a second or two.
Thank you, just thank you. I've been meaning to make a response video of my own in response to many of these videos that say Elden Ring has unfair boss design but you have literally almost every single rebuttal I have thought of. I myself fight Malenia with a colossal sword at level 80 and also have done a RL1 NG+ fight against her and a no weapon upgrades fight against her as well as several hitless fights against Malekith on my channel and they have been some if the most fun I have ever had fighting a video game boss ever, the only others to have come close are Ishinn, Gael and Sigrun from God of War.
It appears to me that you enjoy the trail and error approach more so than Joseph P.
I'm understanding you also enjoy learning the bosses in a very technical manner. I get this impression from expressions used in the video like "combo-branch-point".
I think people play games like these for very different reasons, and to some, things that make the games great can be the very weaknesses in it for others.
I agree, years of talking to people in the community has helped me realize alot of us enjoy the same games but for completely different reasons often. This trial and error approach coupled with a built in easy mode has been present in every game they've made to an extent though. An example would be me using the havel armor set on my first time through the Ringed City DLC and beating Midir, Gael, and Demon Princes all in about 1-3 tries (and that was way before i got into these games or challenge running), or even just going full mage and playing Co-op is 100× more braindead than that even. You have always made the game as hard as you want, it's just that now it's too hard for Joseph I think but it turns out he never really understood how the games worked anyways amd now his co fusion is really showing
This really isn’t a game for people that don’t like trial and error and a technical approach. That’s literally the point of souls games. That’s why these games appeal to certain people that enjoy deep diving into game mechanics, but what I don’t get is why people are adamant if they are not enjoying it it’s a bad game. I don’t like Fortnite because it doesn’t appeal to me yet you don’t see me telling people that do that they are wrong and that Fortnite is broken because it’s just not for ME
When I first started playing the Souls series, I treated it like exposure therapy for anger management. Playing like this forced me to take deep, contolled breaths and pick apart enemies' attacks and reactions while taking stock of what I had and could do.
People that expect these games to play like any other have a fundamental misunderstanding of the souls series.
I’ll say I really enjoy malenia’s first phase, but her second is where I begin having problems with the way she is designed.
First, the clear telegraphing is basically gone because now any movement she makes shakes particle effects everywhere that obscure her, most attacks she does now also have similar effects that make it harder to tell what she’s doing, and there’s very little telegraphing for her new rot based attacks like the flower or the clone attack, with the exception of the Aeonia nuke which is pretty well done.
2, she feels overstuffed/over designed in her second phase. She doesn’t just have healing anymore, she also does scarlet rot. She doesn’t just have one super attack in the form of water fowl, she has basically three, and the tell for waterfowl becomes muddled with the other attacks where she floats. It makes what was such a wonderfully simple but fun first phase into an absolute slog because she suddenly has all these extra things she absolutely didn’t need.
I’m not going to advocate removing any of it, because that’s stupid. All I will ask for is turning down the particle effects and making the tells of certain moves more intuitive. Example of a good tell: her arm sparking before a large combo or the aeonia nuke. Bad tell: water fowl and the rot flower explosion both starting with an almost identical startup float animation.
I don't 100% agree but I will sat she is probably one of my least favorite shardbearer boss and yea it's so weird that she is the goddess of rot but you will never get rotted because her damage is so high she just kills you outright
you can counter scarlet aeonia and the start of waterfowl the same way.
People looking at attacks like nihil as an ‘undodgeable attack’ instead of an awesome phase transition will be the death of creativity in games
are you seriously suggesting that nihil is in any way fun or well designed, especially considering the tear you need to lower the damage from it is in some fuckoff church you might not stumble upon
Especially considering there's actually an item to counter it *in* the area
@@simonium8123 Unironically yes. Heck I'd even call it a thrilling and well crafted and memorable part of the encounter even if the tear to lower the damage didn't exist.
In a game where you have 100s of options to deal with all the different things a boss can throw at you, having a phase transition which if it happens is 100% unavoidable damage is a statement, a vision.
@@common_undead i cant believe i share oxygen with you
@@simonium8123
Nihil is great, if you're going to have an unavoidable attack then this is the right way to do it. Is completely scripted which means you're never just wondering why you can't dodge it, not to mention that every step of the attack, each time he casts a ring offers a large punish and the attack itself offers an enormous punish which allows you to offset the healing while piling on stagger damage. Also, it is entirely bleed damage which is % based each bleed proc amounts to 40% of your max health if I'm not mistaken. Meaning you have to eat all three without doing anything for it to end you, even without the tear and regardless of your level/vigor investment.
Nihil is a WAY more interesting phase change than a lot of bosses that just turn into a nuclear bomb when they phase change. It forces you to work out a strategy to capitalize on it and allows you to engage the boss in a way I find interesting and fun instead of just running away and watching it explode.
One thing I found out in playing/ finishing Sekiro for the first time recently (money, time and other reasons I haven’t been able to pick up Elden ring ;( ) is that I fucking love being aggressive and never giving my opponents moments to breath, making openings feels so good. I mean I also fucking adore “turn based combat” so yeah .
Probably why I love monster hunter, a great mix of both.
How? You can be aggressive in this game, especially later on when bosses 2-3 hit kill you
Time-stamping 38:06 for myself to use later and others because it's the perfect example of Anderson's internally contradictory critique.
This might just be me but I dont think you need to be in the top 1% of players at the game to reach a conclusion about what the game experience is like to the avg person
I'm just here for the mald.
Here's how I Elden Ring in general. It's difficulty is grey. It has always been with from games but Elden is the prime example. If there's something I'm hard stuck on I'm looking for ways that it'll make it easier now that doesn't mean I have to use mimic tear, BHS, stone shield or a busted weapon. I would rather use a different aow, let's say I'm using a colossal weapon I would use an aow that comes out quicker and less recovery (lion's claw), if I feel like using a summon why does it have to be something OP ? I can use a weaker summon that won't make the fight trivial so that I get some big damage in ( Arrow Bros , Rat Bros ). Why do I have to use BHS ? I can use quick step even then I don't have to spam it , I can simply use it for an attack that I find difficult to dodge. I feel like the game wants you to use all its mechanics, wants you to experiment, try out new weapons, use the aow system.
The AI has always been adaptive at least since DS1. Even regular enemies constantly roll a dice to decide what they will do next, but the probably changes depending on the game state, such as distance and positioning relative to the player. Gwyn can "extend" his sword combo, but will interrupt it if you're too far away. Gwyn input reads you and actively tries to punish you for trying to heal.
In DS3, which he praised, many bosses have counter attacks for the old "hug their butt" strategy, such as Gundyr doing a backwards kick.
You can exploit positioning and weak spots, but you get punished if you're too greedy or impatient. The more skill you have, the more greedy and aggressive you can be, but the new player has to respect the boss (or "play by their rules") as they learn the moveset.
And the mentality point is very true. It's not about being passive and waiting for a safe opportunity, it's about studying the boss' moves, thinking about how to counter them, and creating your opportunities to attack safely. And you can make mistakes, that's what the healing is for. It's a casual playthrough, not a hitless or deathless run.
Another perspective thing I want to add is the difference between seeing deaths as mere failures or as part of the learning process. One cannot improve without failure.
And most of the time it's your fault. A good example is DS2 fans coping about s and hitboxes being bad by saying "you have to get out of the hitbox". They say this trying to defend their favorite game's junky mechanics, yes, but they have the correct approach. Don't complain about the hitbox or the "infinite" combos, focus on what should you do to win.
I don’t think you’ve mentioned how Malenia’s great rune heals based on hits rather than damage making it useless on heavy weapon builds. Don’t think it was pathed. I was so mad when I saw how little I can heal with the healing window disappearing after 1 or 2 hits of my Zweihander and barely healing any hp. Cool video tho. Just that rally system being in Elden Ring comment made me recall how angry that rune made me.
By the time I beat Malenia for the first time, I had the fight analyzed down to a science after figuring out exactly where the least and most risky places to sneak in hits were in her strings, as well as the ez-bake freebie moves she had to get hits on. I could never figure out exactly how to cleanly dodge the first flurry of Waterfowl so I would play around that and space it out to be safe. Beating her was probably the greatest feeling I've ever had in a Souls game. My favorite Soulsborne boss by far
I beat her by using the shard spiral spell and had like 4 flasks left and killed her on my first try
I still have no idea how to fight her without summoning mimic tear or real people. Absolutely horrendous boss and I sincerely hope the devs never make a boss like her or Maliketh ever again
@@madmanpecos Maliketh is awesome! He's literally one of the most well balanced bosses in the game
@@crow1460 he either doesn’t stop attacking or he just jumps away when I run over to attack. The late game bosses deal way too much damage for how fast they attack
@@crow1460 also the destined death attack is completely unavoidable. I’ve tried running behind him and even trying to run away and there’s literally no way to avoid it. That attack is fucking bullshit and it doesn’t help that his hurt boxes are tiny and jumps around way too fucking much
I remember when i first fought mohg i just drank 3 spaced out flasks during his phase 2 transition and thought nothing of it and i beat him in that same attempt, I seriously never thought it was an issue people had with him
same here. if you're really nerdy about it I think you can get away with just 2 flasks
I, like many others, were new to souls games and holy shit that fight made me completely rethink how I play the game and I’m definitely better for it. It is the most memorable experience for me from Elden ring just for the struggle and complete shift and gameplay for me
Honestly. It didn't even occur to me that this was something people would genuinely bitch about
"Oh shit that's what the rings were for. Chug chug chug, okay it's over? Time to beat your assOH FUCK HE'S GOT WINGS"
How many flasks did you have going into the fight? cause going in as a low level mage with less flasks and had to divert some to mana i was so fucking pissed when he pulled that out
@@maybeiamepic2263 i was running a strength build so i had only health flasks lmao
I was NOT ready for the pro wrestling segment at the end. What a fucking legend
I can get behind a lot of your points, but when you revealed you support using online guides I think you lost the position to be so harsh on JA. Can these bosses be learned inside and out? Absolutely, but it's at times a bit unreasonable....unless you just look up the answers of course.
The devs wanted the community to help each other, yes, but they made the message system limited for a reason. The limitations that they imposed on in-game communication implies that they didn't necessarily want you to outright spoil all of the answers with a wiki.
However long is too long to learn the boss and be fun will be highly subjective to the individual. For this video I sat down to learn how to hitless Maliketh at RL70+15 with pure zwei. It took me 3 hours to solve him and also figure out extremely optimal punishes like you see in the video. All it took was using my eyes, taking a couple mental notes when I died, and experimenting a little bit with different punishes. I never used the guides personally, they are just an easy resource for people who are struggling with x or y attack. I think its fine but if someone doesn't feel like they've learned Margit after 10 hours I can see why they'd be frustrated, but I'd also wonder if they are just on auto-pilot and bashing their head against the wall without truly going into the fight with the will to learn
@@loopine hey thanks for the detailed reply! I agree, it is a highly subjective topic, and one worth exploring. I enjoyed the video, keep up the good work!
@@Mmm13254 I'm not sure you understood my point. I never said the message system was a design flaw.
@@ZarkAttack Yes I did, my bad.
I shared a simar perspective with Joeseph Anderson on boss design with Elden Ring. But I had a few comments recommending this video to check out.
And I'm really impressed! There's a lot of information here I never considered, like baiting out combos and the posture system. And that Sekiro gameplay makes me want to experiment with prosthetics more often in fights than just the sword. This was great, thanks for making it!
in truth most ppl that have this opinion of elden ring bosses objectively fought bosses wrong, playing the game like its ds3 or bb, as in smashing just the R1 button without using other attacks and dodging in random directions, this will only get you killed. this game is quite abit more aggressive than alot of souls boomers tell themselves.
@@flamingmanure still the elden beast is an awful fight
@@Luhiner And Fire Giant
13:32 : it doesn’t logically follow from
: “if you are having fun, then you’re playing the game right” that “if you aren’t having fun, then you’re playing the game wrong.” This is actually a logical fallacy
You cant just say "this is a logical fallacy". That phrase has a meaning to it. How is it a fallacy?
@@alastor8091 it’s called denying the antecedent
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent
@@ashwinprasanna8257 I get it now. He may not be having fun, but the game could actually have flaws that prevent fun.
Somehow I never even thought of using bloodhound step to avoid the Waterfowl Cheapshot.
im with matosis on this one , so the biggest thing im getting from this is that we have drastically different outlooks on gaming as a subject , because i was completely dumbfounded when you not only rebuked the idea of removing the copy/paste content such as the bosses , but also defended it because 'i think they're fun so i like that i can fight them more than 1 time in a single playthrough'
why not copy/paste the content of the game you like 10x more then to make it a better game?.....
I was more saying that as far as creature bosses go compared to a unique character, reusing them once in a game this large is fine because I can kill the one to progress and then keep the dungeon version alive to practice on or experiment new tech without having to run a character into new game plus for 6 hours. 77 unique bosses kicks the piss out of previous games still.
@@loopineNot sure if you heard of this game called Dark Souls 2, but it also took a quantity over quality approach to bosses and also got a large amount of criticism as well. And it didn’t even repeat nearly as many bosses as Elden Ring
Sekiro let you rematch bosses whenever you wanted and even added enhanced versions of bosses you could fight at any shrine. Maybe they should have done that and balanced the game better. This would perfectly address you wanting to practice the bosses while keeping quality higher in the main game. I’ve never heard someone earnestly argue quantity over quality especially when a previous game found a way to have both
@@Tammy-nl4lp Comparing ER bosses to DS2 💀
I'd take all Remembrance and mainline bosses and some side bosses like Fallingstar Beast over any of the previous games bosses any day of the week, except sekiro. And yea I'm hoping for a boss gauntlet/replay option later in the DLC. For things like ds3 arena and shit wasn't even added until the final DLC
@@Tammy-nl4lp Open world games are bound to have copy paste content because it simply takes too long to design unique encounters and dungeons all over the game world. Even Breath of the Wild which is a highly rated open world game has repeated content like the test of strength shrines and the overworked bosses like the stone golem and the hinox. The genre gives you the freedom to explore the world however you like but it comes at the cost of some content being unoriginal.
@@Schmixed I would prefer a smaller world with mostly original content so that everything is rememberable and fresh when you find it. Just because BotW is a praised game and reused content doesn’t mean that should be the standard. Things like Astel just being in a random cave completely ruined the spectacle and importance of the fight and that’s a recurring theme throughout elden ring
After plowing through the whole game with a greatsword(the guts one), I would say that I found my run through a lot more rewarding than the first time I did it with Moonveil/Dual Katanas. Granted the ugs buffs and lion's claw buffed helped immensely but taking the risks to meet the bosses head on whether it be for stylish video making reasons taught me a decent amount about ugs play that has transferred into my Dark Souls 2 run. I'd say the game is fair to some extent and the fact that you can eventually feel out the stagger rates really lets you take the fight to the bosses to some extent. Now, I'm of the sentiment that wins feel a lot better without summoning but I agree that game gives you plenty to work with even if you just want to do basic movements+ash of war kind of wins so it felt kind goofy to me watching Joseph's whole spiel on things.
I found I did better on Malenia with the greatsword than moonveil once I got more into trying to be somewhat active with her compared to my passive play in my first run. Waterfowl is still a mess, but everything else is somewhat reactable and can be outmaneuvered to set up for a meaty Lion Claw/some kind of counter. Feels like Anderson wasn't thinking/experimenting hard enough. Heck, even some research and trial can lead to a better time in Elden Ring.
Welcome to the big bonk club. Hope you enjoy your stay
@@moron_on_the_internet Agreed there, I enjoyed the enemies actually flinching from my attacks and strategic enough placement allowing for r1 hits to stunlock sometimes 3 enemies at once felt nice. Heck, just poise breaking the bosses more often was a reward, I loved getting the crit and the following it up with a meaty charged r2 or Lion's claw to swipe even more of the bosses hp away.
Anderson never experiments enough, I'm not sure why people take his opinions seriously. The dude literally played the entirety of Bloodborne with the transformed axe.
@@sartavin Its probably the video essayist effect, not that i hate them but i've noticed it with other creators such as Cvit where you make a long enough video with enough flowery words and sophistry, people will likely buy it even if you don't have the substance to back it up.
The DS2 war ALL OVER AGAIN. War never changes..im a vet of that war myself.
The Subscriber / Views ratio is criminal on this. Takes a lot of work to make a video this long, I'll be damned if I can remember half of it, but it was pretty fun of it.
Some stray ideas to fire off:
The reused bosses/dungeons argument never quite sat right with me. Like, sure, the Erdtree avatar is pretty much just Asylum Demon, but moreso than anytime before we're dealing with a singular Empire than the remainders of scattered and ruined kingdoms. Liurnia and Caelid have different aesthetics and histories, but ultimately they were still conquered by Marika, so it makes sense that the funerary rites/customs and details of the dungeons would look similar. Germany, France, and other European countries have vastly different cultures, but all the cathedrals and mausoleums they built are all similar because they shared a religion, and in many cases belonged to a single empire for large stretches of time. So when I get to the end of one of the hero's graves and the boss *isn't* a Watchdog Statue, it feels weird. Although I've played a lot of DnD in my life, and I've had DM's that stick by the randomized tables for encounter generation, so I've fought 14 camels in a swamp before, so idk.
My introduction to the souls series was almost exclusively co-op based, my friend was replaying all of them in the lead-up to Elden Ring, so I tagged along. Played the same build in every game: a cleric with a longsword and a shield, I wasn't very 'passive', per se, just that I felt like I needed way more healing than usual to make it past some sections. It wasn't really until the end of DS2, middle of DS3 that I started to get more comfortable and dropped the shield for a two-hander, but I always kept a full suite of healing spells in stock because that's just who I was and it made taking on bosses together with my friend easier because I could keep us topped up. I never finished Bloodborne; I like the cosmic horror concept and enjoy watching videos about it, but the in-game sound design was just very *squicky* and I didn't enjoy it.
Elden Ring started out much the same as the other ones, but I transitioned from the sword+shield into more of an archer/support build. I used a ton of cracked pots and throwing knives, I was crafting everything and anything because the game really let me off the leash and said "go experiment." My build was a real mess, with 30 points in nearly everything but Int because I wanted to try every spell and weapon I picked up. I eventually settled back into comfort as a "holy archer" with high Dex and Faith, but found the game challenging while also accommodating. I learned very quickly about jump shots and dodge shots, using those to work around punish windows, and most of the time I wasn't firing from halfway across the arena, I was within 10 feet of the boss and always kept a melee weapon on me as a fallback. Elden Ring seemed like it wanted me to engage with ALL the mechanics as opposed to the others which seemed like it was very easy to fall into a very settled build which is what seems to be Anderson's major failure.
And now I've gone back and played Ds2 and Ds3 by myself, and I've tried that "rogue"-ish type build and found that having a bow on hand makes some sections of the games extraordinarily easy/less tense and is a very viable playstyle. I think I used a shield a few times because I couldn't get the timings down on some attacks, so I chose to soak the damage rather than i-frame it, but the game didn't slap me on the wrist for it. I was just using the tools available.
Your video is:
1. Entertaining
2. Filled with a lot of good (even great) arguments about game mechanics, backed up with substantive evidence.
3. Done in what comes across as such a snobbishly preachey manner that it becomes the whole tone and framing of the video.
I liked the video overall, but the third point is the one that sticks out to me the most, although it's obviously subjective. It really was entertaining and well done, so good luck with future videos as well.
It was made being a direct response as framework to the video. Glad you still could enjoy it despite me being an asshole about it the whole time, most people would never sit through a video like this if they felt it was just a 'gotcha' type low brow response video. Thanks for the feedback
@@loopine You make some good points but, it changes almost nothing, elden ring still has a lot of badly designed bosses with problems that don't belong in any games boss, like having to fight the GODAMN FUCKING CAMERA and not boss.
Doesn't make it a bad game no game is perfect.
@@zeehero7280 All souls games bad camera. All souls games trash 😔
@@zeehero7280 Turn lock on off if you are having camera problems. There you go, now the game is fixed and perfect.
elden ring is one of my favorite games ever at this point and i agree on some points (mohg's nihil, radagon, enemy combo decisions, using a ds str build created a more frustrating exp), but i still agree with anderson more overall
a lot of your arguments how the attacks and combos are fair and make them fun to fight against with a str build (most specifically for malenia, maliketh, godskin bros) require tons of hours put into the game before you can even dream of succesfully executing it
which in turn means hours and hours of failed attempts against a boss where you trial-n-error through it before you learn your options
i also strongly agree with him that having repeated bosses made the encounter with them feel less special and the world cheaper, less immersive and overall worse
anderson's criticism on radagon makes no sense tho
I guess the amount of time you need to invest is subjective but for Maliketh I sat down to learn him on my own on my 2nd or third run at RL70+15 and I figured him out in 3 hours. If you really go in there with the intent to learn, use your eyes, experiment wit ha few punishes, and take some mental notes I really think it's fine, just gotta recognize when you're auto-piloting. Besides I typically avoid open world games because in my mind I am signing a contract to commit 80 hours to the damn thing
Literally every From Software game has trial and error. It's an unavoidable aspect when you make a hack n slash with no animation cancelling. Committing to attack animations = required knowledge of enemy attacks, openings and patterns. The extent to which you need to observe before engaging the boss isn't any different in Elden Ring than it is in their other games. As long as you understand that the game expects you to position yourself better rather than trying to dodge every single attack like in Dark Souls, you will end up killing a lot of bosses faster.
I do agree with some of andersons points but i think its dumb of him to play a pure str build and than complain that the bosses take a ton of trial and error to learn and complain that the game is to hard. You can make the game as easy as you want for yourself. I am playing a bleed build and the game is a joke. What anderson wants is a PERFECTLY balanced game and that is just not realistic.
No way dude. I’m pretty much a strength main in all these games, and I can say with certainty that Elden Ring is the easiest Fromsoft game made yet.
By design!
The most striking thing I noticed playing this game first time was how ridiculously OP all the spells are for Faith and Intelligence characters.
It’s like the developers knew that most novice players will probably just want to shoot projectiles instead of getting close to enemies, so they buffed them up tremendously, even in the very beginning of the game.
Your over exaggerating the amount of time it takes to learn a moveset.
I followed your advice my second time through Elden Ring, playing without spirit summons this time, & it was eye-opening. Made the boss fights soooooooo fun. Soloing Malenia took me 3 days and maybe 200 tries, but I ultimately did it by chaining together the circle spinning ash of war into charged heavies while she was standing back up & chasing her down for a jumping attack. With a big hammer, this 3-attack sequence would consistently break her stance, so I could just ragdoll her ass through phase one, even hitlessing the first phase a couple times. Now I'm trying out my first magic build in a souls game, playing as a spellsword with a hammer in my right hand, & I'm still able to play aggressively for stance break. The hammer does great stance damage, magic does at least some stance damage too, & dealing ANY damage prevents stance recovery, so I can keep the pressure on with spells before going in for melee openings. I'm having a blast.
Glad to hear man. Morningstar has a goated one handed moveset for hammers too. I would recommend checking out RofotheGyrm's Bloodstar mage build.
Sounds like a good idea, I'm definitely having fun finally learning how magic works in these games & how to blend it with aggressive melee.@@loopine
Three days and 200 tries?! I'm glad you're having fun and enjoyed it but that's not really a great show of balanced boss design. That's the kind of time that should be applied to mastering higher end game mechanics (think movement tech in doom eternal or high end combos on DMC), not beating a solitary boss with melee. Once again, not an insult to you man. More like questioning fromsoft for bad balance. No boss should take that long to beat.
@@jwilliam6743 I was wasted drunk for two of those days and refused to use summons or shields. The third day when I was sober took me just over an hour, definitely less than 2 hours. Also the whole point was to make her the hardest boss they had ever made. She's fairly balanced and succeeds at being very hard, she's just not that fun. Still can be satisfying just to beat a boss that hard tho
@@loopine she took me about three hours to beat with the solo greatsword on my last playthrough. Did not enjoy it to be honest. But I'm also convinced that fromsoft balanced the game around of ashes of war and summons with melee being super hard mode. I guess this is how magic users felt during BB and Sekiro. I'm fairly experienced at character action games in general (not just souls) so three hours is a ridiculous amount of time for one boss for me. But hey, if you're enjoying it, don't let my take bring you down.
Damn, I played through the whole game while not having any idea of these boss mechanics. Glad I found this video! When the dlc comes out I'll replay it with this in mind. Lets see how much more fun the bosses are!
HOLY SHIT! Being a magic player I never noticed bosses react this way. I need to get on a melee build now and try playing this way!
Yup it’s happening the endless amount of low effort critiques of the dlc are coming out, and saying the same factually incorrect information already proven wrong by this video.
Feeble King video is a masterpiece though, factual facts that tell us why having to heal 5 times to get full health with the flask not maxxed out is bad Game design.
Seriously I would want to make a response to that thing
@@JoseViktor4099 feeble kings video is bad but I’ve seen much worse, at least feeble puts effort into his content.
I got recommended a video where the dude said that the boss follow ups are rng coin flips and showed Margits quick knife as an example, then he proceeded to call the game objectively badly designed even though he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and is factually wrong.
I've seen a ton of videos where they say despite the DLC being "good", "From is hitting peak difficulty" and "how they must evolve" since ER bosses are just way too hard and have way too many moves with too few punish windows. I can respect the want for a more innovative formula outside of just rolling and hitting(since as much ER tries to step away from that, it still is at least 60% if not 70% of the combat at the end of the day), but it fails since their reasons for doing so literally just boils down to bosses just being way stronger than the player ie "too hard" while regurgitating the same arguments used by Anderson. One of the worst ones was where a dude(I think the video was why the ER DLC is not as hard as you may think), stated that the DLC bosses aren't realistic and somewhat break immersion since all of them allegedly have a giant instakill move they'll use as a part of their kit, unlike previous from fights which were way more grounded and "balanced"(while talking about lady Maria) who only had giant moves for phase transitions. Such a bizarre point but at least it's unique. Hate how that became a talking point though, this idea that a boss is "just like the player" and has the same "limitations", which were originally just phrases used to describe the type of gameplay humanoid fights offered in the past(which were wrong anyway but the sentiment it was trying to convey were that the fights were consistent and readable I believe).
What's funny is that I found most of the DLC fights are actually more consistent and easier than some of the endgame base game fights outside of the Radahn rematch, Rellana, and Messmer. Midra can be staggered super easily, Scadutree Avatar has low HP, Gaius has only three combos that never mix up, same goes for Petruscent Knight. Dancing Lion is tough until you realize his head telegraphs 90% of his attacks, and Bayle's attacks are more telegraphed than the location of goodies in modern Resident Evil. Not saying these fights aren't hard. I'm just saying they aren't the overly difficult super bosses that these content creators make them out to be. I'm not even running an op build(strength/endurance priority with vigor with a mid amount of faith while two handing magma wyrm scale sword) and I only played through most of the from games once(although I will go back to them for sure), so it's not like I'm a Giga gamer pro challenge runner either(although I did fight the majority of Ds3 bosses with 8 estus).
@@thesnatcher3616 it always happens around 2-3 weeks after the launch of a Fromsoft game, the endless amount of low quality critiques from no name RUclipsrs always come out and have the most nonsensical and misinformed criticisms.
I’m so done with trying to correct these factually incorrect and regurgitated points, the entire discourse surrounding ER is a cesspool for the most part, this video being a major exception.
@@makia3 Imo this comes because everyone want to take a piece of that pie that Mauler archieved of ruining the reputation of something they didn´t liked.
(That btw, I realized that Mauler critique about DS2 was actually very disingenous)
Trying to use the post-honeymoon era when is when everyone tries to get "cynical" and want to criticise the most famous thing at the moment. To get more views basically.
How much I would like to see an actually well researched critique of a Soul game without any bias behind.
You sound like the kind of guy who would absolutely love Nioh 2. It pretty much plays exactly like how you describe boss fights here, but with way more moves and combo depth.