Elden Ring - Input Reading vs Positon Based Attacks
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- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2025
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It's more irritating when the enemy decides to just stand there and look at you for 20 seconds until you do any form of attack input. I've had Malenia literally stare at me emoting several times before she did a single attack.
Nope, she's responding to your range. She'll be passive if you're out of range but will immediately attack as soon as you get close to her.
But it’s easy to weed out her attacks. Get close enough and she will react. She’s meant to be that way to hold back till you do a move. So you think. She will react when you get close. Dodge away and she will be in the process of doing another attack. There’s tricks to her fight if you want to learn her.
@@siweiguo5865 it is input reading all the way try lightning bolt she dodges it every time, she dodges light attacks if you have slower weapons
THIS!
SEVERAL bosses do this, where as long as you're not doing anything, they're not doing anything..the MOMENT you use an item or flask all of a sudden they wake up
Never knew you can jump over the CK's dive
Never would have considered it until after I beat one of the bosses at the end of the game.
I think a Zulie video revealed that the interesting thing about your hitbox when jumping is that your legs are essentially intangible. So you can jump more attacks than you might think are possible if you internalize the idea that only your upper body has a hurtbox on jump. It's sort of like a SHMUP where you have to internalize that the image of your spaceship or witch girl or whatever your character model is isn't actually the part that can be hit by all the bullets, just a little circle inside of that image that can actually trigger a hit.
you can also crouch the dive if you're spaced correctly!
Your legs get s on jump. Other guy said the same thing but was trying to reach the 600 word limit.
@@MidlifeCrisisJoe Another way to look at it is to pretend your legs and chest are invisible when you jump.
I both like and dislike this system. For what you pointed out, it makes the fights more engaging and fun. On the other hand, it can be supremely frustrating and feel like the game said "GOTCHA!!".
For example - an enemy does a 3 hit attack combo that you avoid by rolling backwards. You notice the 3rd attack has a long cooldown so next time you'll roll towards him or to the side, and hit him after the 3rd attack. Seems like a good plan? WRONG. He actually does a 4th attack, which never triggers unless you're close by.
It's extremely annoying. All the souls games have position based attacks, they don't all have obnoxious counters to everything all the time that makes the fight take forever. Strength builds got fucked in this game with attack windows.
Dude, I'm watching this, and as he's claiming "there's so much you can punish", he's only reliably punishing like ONE of this boss's attacks throughout the entire video.
horrible system
Yeah the knights do that.
Crucible Knights whipping out the tail right when you think you've got their patterns down 💀
I love how some bosses will slowly walk towards you if you keep your distance, but then in phase 2 they go super aggro instead.
Malenia for example, was not ready for that the first time.
Malenia will literally never leave you the fuck alone in her second phase, jesus christ get the FUCK OFF ME
However, first phase? Nah man, we cool, I'm just going to walk to the side very very slowly until... oh, you stepped into my 2 meter aggro range DIE. I hope you don't confuse my recovery animation with my wind down animation, because I can interrupt the latter for another combo lmao
Reminds me of how you can get a VERY slight outspace neutral R1 on father Owl, that he won’t block because he thinks it will miss. Position based attacks are definitely a thing in sekiro too. Thank you for the insight in Elden Ring too.
Position and distance based actions for sure have been in these games from the start. Even many of the specific concepts have survived all the way from DeS to here, like the three(-ish) aggro zones and such. The way they have polished it is astounding, though, when looking back.
@@qwormuli77
Elden Ring has evolved it to impressive lengths though as enemies can change their close range combos to add mid range attacks if you change your positioning on the fly.
@@naoiwatani8402 - It's a beautiful thing 😌👌
Fun fact: If you start running away from him at a certain point and keep doing it, he will legit keep spamming the running poke and slash that people witness when they try to run and heal, until you stop running away. It's actually very predictable what some of the enemies do, it's hard to tell sometimes since they kill people pretty fast.
A lot of people play like NPCs, doing the same thing over and over even if it didn't work the first time. Then they get frustrated and complain about "input reading" lmao
If you get far enough, it just gives up and defaults to rp walking towards you, menacingly. Freest heals ever.
@@qwormuli77Late post but maybe dude ran out of stamina
There is input reading in Elden Ring, but I think what most people are complaining about when they refer to input reading are the times where the boss isn't doing anything, so they try to heal. And then immediately after pressing their heal button, the boss punishes that. It's certainly an annoying feeling at first, but hopefully one a player can learn from. A second form of input reading that annoys me more than estus reading is how enemies are able to automatically dodge arrows fired from a bow constantly. In those cases you tend to need to have them committed in a retreat or attack animation that can make the fight much more tedious and challenging.
After a while you get used to healing right next to the boss's face when there's an opening. Hell, depending on the boss, you can be safer there than several meters away.
For arrow dodging, you can get some enemies to dodge into the arrow by shooting next to them. I've seen it on video, but I usually don't bother. Plus, I don't think it works for all enemies. I've noticed the lions with the leg blades dodge to their left if you shoot to their right and vice versa.
Very true. Enemies that idle long enough so you can heal and immediately spring to life with a forward attack feels a bit unfair. Spells and bows use limited resources so it is a shame they are usually dodged by smaller, aggressive enemies. There’s a way to deal with both of these but it feels tedious.
Oh the projectile dodging is the WORST. Arrows are super annoying to farm up, and you can only hold so many. I don't really know how they'd make it fun to deal with instead without having enemies just take it.
@@jokig - IMO, craftable normal arrows are only meant to be used in a pinch. Bought arrows are extremely cheap and some merchants even sell special arrows.
I really don't see the problem with that either. Take away the fact that we're in a videogame for a second- the bosses can see you. If they aren't doing anything, and you go to heal, they can see you heal and react accordingly. It's more realistic than them just standing there watching you heal. And it's not hard to get around, you just need to wait to find an opening where the boss can't react because they're already in an animation.
It can get a little ridiculous with some bosses like Godskin Apostles, but they're in the minority. I see that complaint a lot with Margit and his punishments are perfectly reasonable.
By input reading, people mean that they're trying to drink estus, and the exact moment they do that, the boss reads that input and goes super agressive to punish that heal. It doesn't matter if the boss was in its passive AI phase, or if the boss is 10 meters away, they still go super aggressive or use ranged attacks that will hit you as you're drinking estus. That's input reading.
Do people see this as a bad thing?
I mean, yeah, you drink a flask, the enemy is going to try to punish. It's super obviously input reading, but it's also not hard to work around. You have to dodge attacks and find a safe time to heal instead of just running away a short distance.
Yes and that's why you bait or evade an attack, create space and THEN heal. Never just heal in neutral, because most enemies have attacks that even without input reading, are fast and long ranged enough to catch you healing with no time to react. I learned this lesson extensively playing Monster Hunter, which has a MUCH LONGER healing animation (flexing animation, anyone?) and it still applies to all Souls games.
It's a problem when you run far away to heal during the boss' downtime, and you still get punished because they have a really far-reaching attack or a ranged attack. You can, however, just run even farther away, such that you're out of the way of the attacks, and be safe while drinking estus.
Or rather - it's not a problem, it just feels cheap when you are far enough away, such that you're out of range of every attack the boss has, and you think you can drink without getting hit, but no, the boss uses an attack that nullifies all the healing you did, forcing you to run even further back and essentially disengaging from the fight completely (as opposed to partially, which was the case with most of previous souls game bosses) if you want to heal.
@@Ashlevon I see why it's annoying. But just kayfabe wise, a super boss that can fly and teleport around.... Makes perfect sense theyll punish healing too close to them.
I'd say more of the problem is that Elden Ring doesnt facilitate aggressive combat naturally as Sekiro did.
I always felt the souls games have had the input/proxy reading but it's just increased with new games. Ds1 didn't have a lot of it but it was definetly there. ER seems to have it with nearly every boss and even some common enemies at a much greater level.
A lot of enemies in Elden Ring have egregious input reading (including Crucible Knight) when using the flask. That is not position based attacks, it is pure, cheating input reading.
I get that it's annoying but... as a player I would do the same to an invader, punishing if they use a flask at the wrong time.
@@vonmeier As an invader you wouldn't be able to act the same moment the opponent presses heal. Stop defending this crap.
@@paytonestrada7746 Then they could solve it with adding a 0.5-1 second delay on the enemies input reading.
Also the tail swipe attack, that's definitely an input reading and has nothing to do with position reading. If you dodge his combo and attack him right away he will follow up with his tail attack all the time but if you don't attack he will almost never use it. The stupidest thing about that is if you are holding your attack but not long enough he can still follow up with his tail swipe attack which is 100% bs.
It actually isn’t input reading.
Zullie the Witch made a video which explains that when certain animations play the enemy reacts the moment that the first frame appears, which while not true input reading is incredibly horrid design nonetheless and practically has the same effect on the game.
Speaking of finding punishes-pretty sure you can safely punish the "powerup burst" crucible knight does after a roll with a jumping R2 with any weapon class.
Power up punish is how I beat the famous late game boss "Stomping John" who fights as Greta Lou.
@@saintriot Yeah, few of the WWE moves it does is a great way to instill terror in a non-cheap way that doesn't one shot you. Was a noice boss for sure.
@@saintriot that move is one of the only opportunities to actually land a charged barbaric war modified R2, which means it's good and cool
Gundyr is a pretty good example of an enemy attacking based on your position in a previous title.
Staying mid range to bait long range attacks to punish has been a strategy in all the games
The input buffering is what really annoys me. You're not just punished for 1 hit by mistiming a roll, you're often just outright killed because you mistimed a roll by a few frames and the next move is designed to roll catch if you roll immediately, which you will because of the absurd input buffering. It makes a lot of fights feel needlessly frustrating and cheap.
I honestly think Elden Ring has some of the worst combat of the series. A veritable regression from BB, DKS3, and Sekiro.
At first I had trouble with understanding the "position based attacks" as it's called. I realized the game wants you to read micro-movements and reactively respond to the boss's small differences in order to realize if a mixup is coming or not. Eventually you realize where your punish windows are and where the game will also punish you for assuming or making the wrong read.
I still think the Fire Giant is a terrible boss that doesn't really follow any of these rules, but regardless, the rest are great.
i just hate how the fire giant rolls away from you constantly. Annoying af.
You're absolutely right, it took me a while at first until I understood that almost all of the bosses' moves have like little tells before them, and that a lot of the time the difference between a tell for a punishable attack and a 1 shot AOE that you need to run away from is very small but that it's actually there, fromsoft have been expecting faster reactions from players with every new game now, yes elden ring isn't faster than sekiro, but tell me that alecto isn't just the assassin guy from sekiro with a shorter sword and you're supposed to fight them with a much slower less agile character, leaving so little room for error
On a dueling anime level Margot is soooo good
@@spackmoose6002 I think the way Fire Giant works is if you stay in front of him during phase 2, he won't just constantly roll away. It just happens to be much easier to beat him by whacking his stump, even if it takes longer, but that means the boss is going to do one of the two things it can do - fireballs or roll. If you stay in front you get more damage by hitting the hand plus the stagger to hit the eye.
It's like Midir in DS3 but less severe.
@@spackmoose6002 He has a bug where you can just randomly take 1500 damage after his cutscene too
My problem with Elden Ring combat is that it's essentially just DS3 combat turned to 11 for most bosses. Incredibly long combos with a few mix-ups and delayed attacks so you have to wait until he does a combo ender and gives you a second or two for a few hits.
Rinse and repeat. For me it's getting stale compared with things like Monster Hunter or Nioh where I feel like I'm on an even playing field finding opportunities and workarounds and not just dodging while the boss does his thing
Godrick also has a good example of player position reactions, with his slow 2 hit axes combo. If you're mid range or went far away as he was doing it, he'll just stop at two hits, but if you close in, he'll do a fast follow-up. Beast Clergyman has a lot of this stuff too, as well as Loretta and even the Bloodhound dudes.....Malenia, not so much, she's more about the get off me moves, as to compensate for her very low posture and for how easy she is to stagger I suspect
Overall, I think in Elden Ring From wanted us to really observe and study how the bosses operate if we wanted to beat them in close ranged combat. In games like Bloodborne, Sekiro and DS2 you can pretty much find an opening and impose your will on the boss, like erase them, but in Elden Ring these enemies have a lot of tricks up their sleeves......gotta show 'em 'especk
I've always been a big fan of 'dudes with swords' for bosses, so the CK is perfect.
the duelists spread across the world are also an amazing example of this, it's amazing how this approach to enemy design makes encountering rehashed versions of old enemies feel exciting and refreshing compared to past games where you kind of roll your eyes when they give you a buffed up version of an old boss
Biggest cope I’ve ever seen for unengaging repeat bosses
@@lewispooper3138 i mean if you overlevel and beat everything down with bleed/spells of course it's going to feel unengaging
@@lewispooper3138 thats most people do these days, they just cope lol
@@lewispooper3138 of course rehashed bosses aren’t great no matter what you do but the facts battles are a lot more dynamic now compared to previous games makes them more entertaining at least to fight again.
Man like feel however you want but it's extremely funny that you're trying to casually imply the frequency of repeated bosses in elden ring is in the same galaxy as what previous games have done. I get that people find satisfaction in applying their knowledge of how a boss works and understanding how to fight them more or less perfectly, but it feels like a tiny little bit like "i suffered and had no fun at all until I did a book report on this enemy, now I fight it specifically to validate my efforts and retroactively apply fun to this experience"
input / animation reading... if you need to heal, you wait for an attack, dodge it and then heal, the red wolf for example, will hit you instantly. 100% sure.
I played dark souls, yes the enemies work different but you had your time to heal. Those readings or at least those snap motions where a 1000 pund beast does an animation which is faster than light just to hit you no matter where you are, is just unlogical and unfair.
The two problematic input reads are the dodging on spellcasts or bowshot, and the heal punish.
The dodge is weird. These enemies will dodge a glintstone pebble 100% of the time but will never dodge a rock sling or a glintblade. A charged lightning spear is always dodged, but uncharged is never dodged. If you aim next to an enemy they will dodge into it. I don't think this is making the enemies too hard or too easy, but it certainly reminds me that I'm playing a video game instead of actually raining magic on my foes. The best fix would be to keep enemies dodging around spells but make the timing random so it's not so obvious that it's just an AI reading your bumper tap.
The estus punish is along the same lines. I think it's great that you need to find a good window to heal in neutral, but the enemy's attack animation will begin before your character reaches for the flask. Really kills the immersion that they react before they could have known what you were doing. The best fix would probably be to delay enemy reactions but also to make the flask animation take longer.
just backup more to heal, if you know it's going to happen then just put that into your comboat and space yourself properly so that they miss.
I think making these types of dodges and estus heals, having .... Almost something like an LFO. A frequency range so the enemies dont just do their actions right on time. It could either rush/drag.
This is where Sekiro's posture system (its called Stance in Elden Ring) could really be helpful in gameplay evolution. Like if the more posture/stance damage they have, the worse their timings become.
@@Vipertooth007 The issue is not that it's too hard but that it's unrealistic that a crucible knight reacts to someone flasking before their flask animation starts.
@@n-dawwg2570 I feel like it's unrealistic that he can fly too but we ain't seeing anyone complain about that.
@@Vipertooth007 Guess GRRM forgot to tell Miyazaki that they shouldn't have added wings.
Fighting "Stomping John" near end-game and later watching Zullie's video about jumping lower-body s completely changed my life. I immediately started the game again with a curved sword + black flame blade build, and had the time of my life jumping and weaving in the black flame buff between stuff.
Originally I was playing the spacing game with my partisan like it was ds3, it was alright, but this is truly a blast.
Love the dramatic zooming at the end with the phantoms lol
i miss the "intimate" combat of sekiro A LOT, but elden ring is a noticable improvement of the dark souls formula on vs dude in armor fights.
fuck the walmart bloodborne enemies, though.
Like the revenant? I, as a strength int spellblade, was told "lol just heal it" after faux raging about it for a bit.
The faux slipped a bit on that one..
@@Sojo214 the revenants can definitely feel a lot like the centipede giraffe enemies from sekiro without being able to use tools sekiro gave you at times
@@Sojo214 best case is to either spirit summon or just go apeshit on them with stagger attacks or bleed when they first start to spawn. They can get hit while they crawl out and I do this every time. Also, don't roll backwards, roll to side or diagonally left or right to avoid their Star Platinum combo.
@@i-eat-moss roll behind them instead of rolling away and they charge right past you with their combos.
@@AdamSmasherReal will keep that in mind!
I swear to God if 75% of the elden ring subreddit had it their way the bosses would walk around and slowly swing with a blindfold on.
I really like how reactive the bosses and enemies are in er. the only one that looks a little silly to me is when they roll the second you cast any spell and not when the spell actually heads their way. just looks a little silly haha
Edit to clarify: This is not me saying git gud. I'm not even gud. I got my ass beat up and down the whole game, still like that the bosses are incredibly reactive.
They should be grateful they don’t immediately come for you if you try to heal like DS2. Getting a heal in seemed to be harder than the fight itself.
@@ganghaskong4530 that Fume Knight thrusting attack whenever I chug my estus, gives me conniptions
Yea the NPC rolls are silly, especially when it's a slow spell and they consistently roll into it every time.
@@iHF95 healing on fume knight is easy. You get close enough to bait a combo, then run backwards and heal while he does it. The same tactic doesn't work as well in elden ring, because when the boss is doing a combo it spazzes out all over the arena.
Ppl are finally starting to get it. Now.....combine input reading with a broken camera, and shoddy collision detection.....and what do u have?
I used to get so angry fighting these guys it drove me crazy. After learning how to parry and how to actually fight them, you’ve never seen someone sprint towards a fight with these guys quicker than me. Mostly because it’s a fun duel now that I know the timing. Same with the bell bearing hunters. Fun duels.
1:50 and this is exactly why the fights feel crap and it breaks the whole immersion imo. it feels like you technically have to cheese every enemy ...
my *only* issue with the input reading is how obvious it can be sometimes. for example, the other day i was fighting malenia and she managed to knock me to very low health (one hit away from death). knowing she would punish me if i tried to heal immediately, i instead waited for her to give me an opening to heal. she literally stood there and just looked at me. i put my controller down and she still just didn't do anything whatsoever. she watched me for a good 15 seconds before i realized that she was waiting for me to heal.
i don't mind the input reading, but sometimes it feels very unnatural and jarring. thankfully this doesn't happen all the time, so it's not a big deal.
melania wasn't attacking you because you were to far away from her. she is very passive in phase 1 and will only attack you if you try to heal whilst being too close to her (that's the input reading part) or if you are too close to her in general. The fact that she wasn't attacking you wasn't due to you being low on health and she was waiting for you to heal, it was because you were to far away from her. What you could have done is gone very far away from her (probably about half the size of the arena) and then safely healed
Seems like proximity attacks in this one are less punishable than it used to, and tighter cue times. I remember 90% of my Gundyr fights only being about me running to his back, then waiting to space his kick for a punish - he could even do a 5s move pushing him far away and then kick a random fly because you ran to his back right before, fun times
You should have a ton more subscribers Saint. I haven't seen anyone else put out this kind of quality
That was a gorgeous invasion, saint. Each of them got killed by a different magic sword.
There's a ton of input reading when using estus flasks
Wow cuz I’ve played this 3 times thru and you really have this shit down damn! Well done tarnished boi!
I hate how this game punishes for rolling, too much roll catch
Simply don't roll bad, Jesus.
@@saintriot The input buffering/input eating is what's jarring in this game and the only thing I have an issue with. Miss the roll in time by a millisecond of an attack, the stagger could last 5 minutes and have you auto-roll afterwards anyway even if I'm not touching the button anymore. On the other hand, we have moments where you wanted to roll in time or attack, you press the button, and your character keeps running or just stands there, even when you're not preoccupied with another action.
These seem more like technical issues or mis-tweaks rather than intended game design.
They added an ash of war specifically for you called bloodhound step
@@AndrewBrownK BHS is a solution for bad roll skills in the same way Cheat Engine can give you invincibility and you can just beat the game by pressing R1. As in, it's breaking the game and you won't get better.
@@saintriot nah, I roll well. The problem is that every boss feels like nameless king + with crazy, fast combos that gives almost no window to attack.
crucible knight is the best enemy in the game, its hard but it has zero cheese bs, it doesnt make you fight your own instincts, very enjoyable enemy
The cruicible knights are extremely difficult until you learn how easy it is to parry them
The quick tail doubles as his combo finisher as well as 'get off me'. If he whips it out while comboing, it signifies that he will end the combo and reset, just as you said. It is an excellent opportunity for a close range dex fighter to get a poke in. I like to use the get off me moves as a mid-engagement punish. Margit's tail is the same way: he will always pause just long enough to get a katana poke off before starting another combo.
I went in a thirty minute rant last night to my boyfriend about the nuanced way ai responds to stuff, and what do I see in my notification bar but saint laying it on the line? Thank you for this vid man, I hope more folk start to pick up on the action response loop the ai uses. Super engaging once you figure out how you can game em.
The input reading and position reading in this game is much heavier regardless. This is why you can easily exploit the AI here.
Heck, the AI somehow decides to dodge a Freezing Mist/Poison Mist despite using from far away or they dodge a casting of Magic Glintblade and won't bother to move out on the projectile.
Some moves like Wild Strikes break the AI because they somehow fail to recognize the attack that is still going and keeps resetting on hit (Obviously it depends on what gear the invader has, if it has a shield, it can reset and starts blocking but because the invader is on your face most of the choices are to attack you)
Either way many enemies have fun patterns to learn and you can exploit them to loop them (enemies using lunging attacks that can be punished etc, pull back and repeat) and so on
“Guy in armor, perfected” is really good
I want to see everyone's opinion on the combat after they use a slow weapon lol
Build variety my ass
@@AntiSocialismo50 lol yep. Straight swords and greatswords are absolutely useless. Not entirely sure about colossal weapons
If you did you Scrub Dojos for any bosses, I think it could be for ones that are certain "Walls" so to speak. Like Margit or Malenia for example.
hey saint, what’re your thoughts on bosses that have certain combos that you can learn to avoid then punish at the end of it, then the boss being able to extend its combo (which doesn’t happen if you don’t punish) due to it reading your input of attack at the end. for example, i know margit has a long drawn out combo that if you dodge normally and don’t attack the combo stays the same, but if you decide to punish him half the time he will decide to extend it with quick knife slashes into another combo. now i’m not entirely sure if i’m correct but i genuinely did some testing and found that the option for the combo to be extended is only if you were to punish the end of the first combo, personally (if i am correct and haven’t fudged anything) i find it pretty weird and leaving some parts of fights with certain bosses to be incredibly passive
It's really interesting because for a build using a fast weapon or a quick escape skill (BHS or Quick Step or Mist Raven) that punish is still viable, triggers a follow up that can then also be punished. It's really "make your own boss adventure" and I love that. One thing I would encourage you to do in your testing is see if you can find the "load" times for combos. This is something I noticed Crucible Knight and one of the big Omen bosses has. You can actively watch the AI trying to decided what it's input will be. 1. Return to neutral or 2. Follow up attack and that can inform your decision making on punishes.
0:50 as an example
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but Malenia also extends some combos if you attack during her 2nd phase. You can actually delay an attack by about a second or two after her combo instead of punishing normally and she won’t extend her combo.
@@saintriot i’ll definitely look more into that and try to notice it! and as i think about it a bit more, it doesn’t seem necessarily too bad for a quick weapon but does nullify some slower, bigger weapons to some punishes which i can’t remember happening in the older games but at the same time that’s probably the cost of doing a lot more damage each hit. i’m just undecided on how i feel about the safest attack in most situations 80% being a jumping attack but maybe i need to figure things out more haha
@@ganghaskong4530 i think i’ve heard about that too and that’s really interesting, i wonder if having to delay your attack is intended or is a strategy to get around the ai being in its “deciding-if-i-will-counter-the-punish” mode. either way it’s just another way of learning the boss fight itself, intended or not
In the play through I'm uploading here when I get the (spoiler) Dark Moon Great Sword (/spoiler) it really made me rethink how boss fights would be approached, but I still ended up using a lot of charged heavy attacks simply for the frost bite build up + posture break. I haven't done colossal weapons yet, so I can't say one way or the other but I suspect the time is still there for those as well.
Something I learned with crucible knight is if you keep attacking it’s shield when it’s held up you can bait the shield bash and essentially keep it in a loop
"A conversation in the form of a fight" -- that's an actual factual.
"position based attacks" is literally just input reading at different distances.
-He doesn't perform the "get off me" tail attack if you don't hit him after his standard attack chain.
-He only performs a second tail whip if you dodge the first one.
-If you attack him when he's not doing anything he will perform his shield bash.
-In phase 1 if you attack him at the end of his standard combo he will follow up with an additional attack. If you performed a heavy attack with a slower weapon he WILL hit you first.
It is well known that if you drink a healing flask enemies will become momentarily aggressive to catch you. This "extra aggressive attack" is a queued action (just like how you can queue a dodge roll while you're attacking). If you drink a healing flask and finish drinking it well before an enemy finishes their long animations they will still perform their "extra aggressive attack" because it was qued to happen due to input reading.
Example. . .
You're low on health, but you wait for the opportunity to flask. You see that the enemy is going to perform a long, drawn out close range attack, so you run away and flask as the enemy is performing this attack. You're done flasking and are re engaging the enemy as they finish their long, drawn out close ranged attack. Since the enemy had input read that you flasked it queued one of its aggressive attack and will perform it. . . despite the fact that you had already flasked and are attacking the enemy.
The fact that you can be attacked by an enemy's "anti flasking attacks" well after you've done flasking is blatent evidence that the game input reads HARD. There is no "position based attacks". It's just what kind of input reading can occure at what distances.
Technically speaking, its not estus reading. Its just the pressing of the item use button. This is actually exploited by speedruns, where they equip something they cant use to cause a butt scratch animation, cause boss to aggro, boom free parry bait.
Calling crucible knight "guy in armor perfected" is so accurate. I also explained to my friend how his one of the first guys to just say no to your bullshit you just gotta fight him. His immune to bleed, you can't summon against him, he's shield is nearly always ready and he punishes ruthlessly if you heal too close or panic. Considering how early he is available your resources may also be limited and me and my friend fight him the same way, dodging and opportunity strikes.
@@alvin4422 oh yeah it is satisfying as all hell to finally read both phases to the point of victory either handedly or just barely making it.
Finally got to dig into Elden Ring. It was this fight itself last night that made me wonder whether a friend of mine who claimed input reading was a thing. I don't really mind it as crying about suspected input reading in a souls like game is like complaning about actors who claim they don't take steroids. I almost had a cry about it myself whenever he got me with a lunge when i was healing, but I managed to get my timing and distance right so he never got me with that after a while.
It was when i was getting punished for being greedy in attack windows that new moves reared their head and actually made me appreciate the frustration (love to hate it). Never really looked into what this was termed, but postional based move sets make sense and it seems to be a thing in all the games anway, just this is cranked up to eleven. I managed to get some feingning of attacks at the right distance and baiting going to get the moves I wanted. Real learning curve but made me appreciate the game even more.
there's input reading in all of these games to a small extent, like when you attack an enemy in a parry stance in ds1 or the carian knight in elden ring at the academy who will parry most attacks (that are parryable ofc) if he has a shield out
"there's input reading in all of these games... the carian knight in elden ring"
What game do you think we're talking about?
@@Kydos37 I specified ds1 right before. It's just a matter of being overly specific because people in the youtube comments tend to be stupid
@@MrSlaughterrific You said there's input reading in ALL these games and gave one example that wasn't Elden Ring lol.
my big problem with Elden Ring is much as I love it is when the input reading shows up it's some of the worst input reading from soft has made to date.
it completely ruins bosses (aside from their overly high stats and damage output) like Melania Malekith and the Fire Giant imo, it also ruins a big handful of some of the more normal enemies like any Black Knife or animal/most beast typed enemies.
other bosses have input reading you can cheese pretty easily, (Carian Retaliation against a godskin noble as long as you have good distance is a really good way to cheese them)
There's also input reading when you try to drink a flask during the fight.
Almost any enemy changes it's moves depending on the range you are standing. It's makes combat engaging from the moment you start a new character to the 200th hour.
Malenia is currently beating my ass.
I firmly believe that Malenia is just very slightly overtuned, and if FROM had spent had more time testing her, she would be an all-time great fight.
I eventually beat her, but I'm hoping they patch the fight a little to make it fairer and more fun.
@@CharlotteMimic
It's very fair if you just roll when she does an attack, she even rewards aggression by getting staggered easily.
I am finding that unrelenting aggression is the theme of her boss fight.
The problem is Waterfowl Dance, you either break her out of it by attacking as soon as she jumps or roll perfectly (which I am getting better at).
I am not even using Bleed or Cold (though I am powerstancing two Flame Heavy Thrusting Swords)
I dont know if you would keep your opinion if this knight started to jump with crazy combos, giving to much damage and using AoE attacks, with status effect. "Perfect"
90% of what people call input reading is actually input reading. No one will confuse position reading with blatant input reading.
Oh! A spellsword character! Awesome!
Great points about how the later bosses teach us about how enemies behave. I didn't even notice that enemies had optional attack extenders until Malenia made me pay attention to them.
You can jump over crucible’s flying attack?! Whoa. I wonder if you can jump over his big tail whips as well, and punish with a jump attack.
some attacks, like godskin fireball, seem to be able to be triggered via reading position OR reading inputs
Yeah that is absolutely input reading. Also, the Godskin dodge is input reading. In both cases you can use that against them if you get a little creative. If you just want to melt them, throw a throwing knife, wait for dodge. Wait for fireball after dodge. Carian Retaliation. Rinse, repeat.
@@saintriot Yup, but here the input read is done in a way that spacing and reaction can save you. Dodging those by the skin of your teeth because you cut something too close is amazing and getting hit causes barely any salt. Damn, that Godskin Apostle is a great fight.
"if you're just beating the crap out of them"
*Hits boss once*
GET OFF ME
ALL spellcasters should have a CQC option in their pocket to trigger the AI to create space, so they can cast more spells.
This is one thing the pure mages don't understand.
Likewise, all heavy weapon brawlers will benefit from a simple light crossbow / knives to create free chip damage to ensure their trades are worth it.
You can tell a "got gud" player simply by how they manage their spacing / positioning.
Great video Saint
You should put a hat on him.
Boss fights are the worst part of Elden Ring. I want to like them, but they are so obviously balanced around spirit summons that a lot of them just end up not being fun. Malenia is the worst fight in this game by far, the best way to fight her if you have a big weapon is to just stun lock her and hope you aren't too close when she does her flurry. Its so fucking tedious and boring, so so so fucking boring. With how good the bosses are in Sekiro it's such a disappointment how a lot of them turned out in this game.
Hey, huge help to me as I like making a lot of builds. If you're on PC you can copy your save files and essentially have as many characters as you want. Maybe wretch start to have the easiest time with levels over all builds. You start at your desktop -> power/windows button -> type "%appdata%" -> Elden Ring -> copy all the files to a different file -> move those files back any time you want to play those builds. You need at least some larval tears, I suggest 2-3+ in case of mistakes or tweaking a build. Unlock all the bellbearings you'll need like the smithing stone ones(I highly recommend the gravity stone bell bearings as the fan gravity stone can be nice in pvp with aggressive opponents) and you're basically set for whatever build you'll need. I hope this helps make your videos at least that much easier to make.
I learned this against Malenia. I was initially frustrated that sometimes in phase 1 she would stand around doing nothing, and yet jump away as soon as I swung, punishing me after.
Turns out she is coded so whenever you get point-blank, she either swings fast or dashes and then swings. So now instead of standing at midrange looking at her, or running in, whiffing, and getting punished, I walk close to trigger an attack and then roll it, preventing downtime and helping me build up bleed and posture damage.
Waterfowl dance is still dumb tho. No attack should be that unintuitive and specific to avoid.
No amount of reading can save you from the later game bosses it’s honestly just rng for some of them
I just cant help but wish they did more to iterate on the actual moment-to-moment combat like they did with bloodborne and sekiro. I do like the game but its _very_ literally just big dark souls, which is exactly what i was worried about when they dropped the gameplay reveal
That's exactly what I was hoping for
@@AdamSmasherReal to each their own
I honestly think it can with some tweaks. Adding passive abilities to Great Runes that help movement. Making stance damage visible like sekiro's posture. Give guard counter s like ashes.
@@vj7248 not even need s; just make it so more attacks bounce of shields so the guard counter is actually viable against more enemies that arent just trash mobs
Ah yes, just make enemies throw out attack chains that you need to memorize to become successful rather than mastering any sort of mechanical complexity.
For me the most egregious example of input reading was Moonglum in Raya Lucaria mans will never miss a parry unless you do something jank to throw it off like dead angle your attacks.
Input reading makes casters without summons impossible to play
I got so mad at loosing to him when I started that i can now parry the sword 1 almost perfectly
Finally, someone acknowledging that different builds fight in different ways and that there are multiple ways to tackle the same enemy or situation.
"Just cast heal on revenants."
"Just parry."
"Just use [spell/incantation/ash of war/weapon]."
No. I'm gonna _roleplay_ in this _roleplaying_ game. My character will find a way. All characters are viable.
As for input reading, you can eventually get into the enemy's head and bait out stuff you can punish. Feels great too.
Funny enough, I've seen people complaining that some bosses are "unbeatable" with their roleplay builds. Go figure.
The term RPG is a two sided coin. One is that traditional "role playing" and the other is the game oriented (j)rpg, where the player is expected to adapt and be flexible.
the actual strategy for fighting revenants is to roll to their side. rolling back is a good way to die quickly, while going to their side gives breathing room.
@@belldrop7365 - So far, I've never had to adapt, especially in JRPGs. In FromSoft games, I pick a weapon I like, a fashion I like and just play. And maybe it's because of what I like (dex, dual wield, daggers), but I've never really struggled against a boss like in the various horror stories that circulate online.
@@punacea2045 - Yeah, like with so many enemies, you gotta roll into or through the attacks. That said, after practicing on the ones in Elphael … a mistake can still prove lethal for my 8 poise rogue. What I like is that my daggers shred them fast too and the bleed stagger is 😌👌
lol, "a better player than me" parries, jumps and punishes the knight over and over lol
Imo proximity-based moves and true input reads (like CK lunge stab and godskin black fireball on heal) are way better design than the more or less complete RNG we got in previous titles. Also crucible knight is a fantastic boss
Saint just curious what you think about colossal/super slow weapons? I feel like they slowed them down a lot and they are overall much worse than they were in any other souls game. Finding a single opening that isn't a trade is a huge struggle with practically any boss, but colossal weapons clap normal mobs as even the strongest ones can be stunlocked to death. They just don't feel as good to play IMO, the second I switched to a faster weapon and began to be able to actually punish bosses way more often my experience was improved dramatically
Technically they are the strongest they've ever been, just due the fact you can jump attack and put bloodhound step on em. But, they definitely don't compare to the damage output of bleed weapons or moonveil.
I'm about to just change to something else. I don't have the patience to use collosal weapons in this game. The damage also doesn't justify how unbearably slow they are in a game where everything is faster than you
@@vl.wolnir6267 Yeah I swapped to an estoc and I was hitting bosses literally between the attacks of their combos, sometimes even TWICE between attacks. Colossal weapons just feel far too slow IMO.
after playing elden ring and 100% it with achievements i went back to ds1-3 to 100% as well, and this explains so much why they feel so much easier, very interesting
the game read inputs 100% Malenia doges attacks like crazy she doges light attack from my banished knight sword and any incantation I throw at her all I can do is jump attacks nothing roll and run that is it there is no teaching, no punishing, just the game forcing you playing with doges and katanas and bleed aka forcing the meta
Game of the year
The cruicible knights have this extremely annoying attack im pretty sure they only use once you're far away from them and you're healing where they poke you with extreme range its a gap closer that gets me evey time
Honestly loved the first CK fight using my own bloodhound fang WA playstyle. It's fun to bait out his shield bash by intentionally hitting him with the first cast of the skill when his shied is up and following up to the second cast to get a guaranteed hit and dodge the shield bash at the same time.
Awesome Saint
Yeah it does seem like enemies have many more positional triggers than anything else.
Quick question do bosses learn from your methods of fighting over multiple attempts? Or does the information they have on your playstyle reset after each attempt
Really incredible vid btw, I love listening to people who really pick apart boss fights and analyse it. It’s really interesting
Everything u said is sound advice and all, but what i think when i hear input reading is when u for example, dodge that crusible knight attack and just stand there for half a second not doing anything, and he just stand there too, doing nothing, and then u do delayed punish of his attack and then he input reads it and does his follow up even tho so much time already passed and the combo simmingly ended, i fought this knigh for almost 2 hours, i used two handed mace so my only option was dodging and punish, so i've seen alot of that stuff on this specific boss, its not a big deal when u learn all his attacks ofc but still annoying, after i won, i killed the one in stormveil castle with the same tactic first try so that practice payed off. Btw, u can bait his shield bash consistently by just attaking while he blocks, then with the right timed dodge u punish, rinse and repeat, another advice is to not go too far when he two hands his weapon to bait his full combo, u can then hit him 2/3 times while he switches hands, at the second phase always watch for the tail follow up and only attack after he does it(shield bash and two handed combo still the same without a tail) if u want to heal, either bait one of those attacks or run away while locked on until there is enough distance, he will always pursue with trusting attack to catch your heal, but eventually there will be enought distance that it would not matter.
"These bosses suck they just spam"
*insert super long comment from FromSoftware fanboys trying to justify that input reading is not artificial difficulty, meanwhile it is considered characteristic of a game with artificial difficulty in any game genre, mainly hack and slash and FG*
And of course, anyone who claims the game has "build variety",
probably played with just any fast attacking or ranged weapons.
The entire game is geared towards just builds with this type of weapon. Any weapon that attacks slow or Weapon Art slow, are entirely useless, worse for breaking enemy poise and useless for guard counter.
Insane input reading of enemies in Elden Ring gives me Omega Rugal boss fight flashbacks.
Any tips on beating soldier of godrick? I've been stuck on him for 23 hours now. He input reads me and one shots me every time
just skip him bro he's way too hard
I don't think crucible knight is the best example, as he doesn't have input reading the same way margitt does, for example. Margitt has estus punish akin to champion gundyr's in untended graves, and with his same pseudo-infinite stamina. Combine that with long attack strings that he can stop at any step, and both the knife attack "get off me" and knife throw that he can weave at the end of any attack string makes him too hard even acknowledgimg that he's a "vibe check boss". Of course you can come to him with a +9 weapon, lvl 40, and the shackle to obliterate him, but I think the vibe check boss should have been a little more forgiving to new players.
What I want to say is, Margitt could have been an amazing challenge to test all your game knowledge (I mean, he technically is later in the game?). I know there is value in the "go explore" lesson he gives, but right now he is either a piece of cake or too difficult. I think there should exist a middle ground that is missing
PS: relying on my thousands of hours spent in the other souls to parry his every move (like I did with my early crucible knight kill too) doesn't make it a "challenge" imo.
i literally told my friend this after he was getting his ass handed to him by margit. elden ring is based on reaction not timing you have to literally watch the boss the whole time and pay attention to what and when they’re going to attack with
yesss my first character went through 90% of the game with the warhammer, can't wait to see how you use it in pvp!
also, I'm kind of surprised that there's even a debate to be had about input reading and elden ring. the bosses operate in basically the same way they always have. I think that, if you're using some semi broken tactics in pve (bleed, rot dragon, etc) you end up not learning a lot of this simply b/c the ranged responses are a lot harder to glean out, at least for me anyways.
My issue with the gross input reading isn't with the bosses; the bosses, by and large, are fantastic
My issue is with NPC invasions and every "human" npc you fight; you can turn around and Barrage in the opposite direction and watch them dodge 10-15 times in a row until you run out of arrows or stamina; initially tested on Nerijus
I love your perspective on elden rings bosses. Fromsoft keeps getting better and better at their enemy AI its so interesting to look closely at it. Position based attacks and "input reading" only serve to improve and enhance the experience, the feeling of fighting an enemy that thinks and strategizes. For example, when you roll away from Godskin Apostle and drink estus in front of it, of course its going to fireball you. Its the game telling you thats not how the boss is supposed to be fought. There are many good openings for healing and attacking but rolling away defensively and drinking in front of it is not the right way.
People are rolling way after the attack and they don't get hit when I roll in time and still get hit. Even in this video it's times you should have been hit but nothing
I love the Crucible dudes, and honestly I'm pretty sure the reason people bitch about them so much is that they seem similar to many bosses on a surface level but actually work really differently.
When someone beats Melania and they hear all about how she's the so called hardest boss in ER, they assume that means that anything they can't beat must be unfair. But Mel is basically just a patience test, walk backward and wait till she does a super obvious tell that her combo is done, walk up and hit her a little, rinse and repeat a hundred times, heal whenever you feel like it. Whereas a Crucible knight has a very varied move-set and you have to actually get in-between their moves to hit them with clever spacing and baiting out different attacks. Plus they often try to punish healing attempts and are often successful because of how agile they are, so people read this as the boss being unfair because they've internalised the idea that combat is a waiting game.
This video showed far more understanding than most videos at the time. I hope Fromsoft still improves this active system in the expansion. The game punishes you since Margit for playing it like DS3, and in Mountaintops it becomes far more punishing, and you know why? Because, like previous Souls games before, it's teaching you the rulesets and to expect. Combo branching, attack baiting, posture pressure, jumping, counters and other things add depth that the game expects you to master.
Sure, enemies attacking you while healing can be annoying but, since that was patched, if you're getting interrupted for healing while on melee range and neutral, of course you'll be punished.
Amazing analysis saint!
When it comes to input reading, the only things I know are nearly 100% consistent in what causes it is flask usage, spells/incantation activation, and weapon arts. Everything else I don't really know how people can call it that. Don't get me wrong tho, the level at which this game utilizes it is (believe me, I love this game, I currently have over 180+ hours in it) honestly pretty annoying, especially with how punishing some attacks are in both the damage and the wide range they come out, considering literally almost EVERY boss/enemy makes use of input reading
Oh, yes, I love that the bosses react to your actions. Seeing them counter your strategies and working to counteract you, instead of turning helpless against circling to their back is the best part of the newer souls bosses. When I first saw this in DS2 with the turtle armor dude falling on it's back to punish your shameless butt stabbing, I shouted out loud in luls and joy. But like the amazing middle finger that the shield back armor dude in DS2 was to cheap strategies and the common suggestion of shield on your back giving backstab immunity, not everything is perfect, like these enemies pretty much turning on a vinyl to follow your movement.
What I don't like here, however, is them input reading (not position or action reading, like most either is or is well made to seem, depending where you look) your actions for almost certain punishes. Not for being in wrong place, timing something wrong, or reading something wrong, but actually daring to give the wrong input in a wrong arbitrary situation. This is most commonly seen with either ranged attacks for cheesing or heavy attacks during combo ends. For the most common example of the ranged one is lion guardians dodging ranged attacks, while not aware of you. The melee is a bit more difficult one, as most input read punish reactions are things they use otherwise. Here, the Crucible knight has an input reaction towards heavy attacks with the hastened tail incantation during ending parts of a few of his combos. He uses it in other ways too, of course, but also specifically in reaction of you making a heavy attack input (not for light ones, though). The first phase of the final boss also has a few and this in addition of some attacks requiring illogical trial and error approach was the biggest hurdle when facing him. Was a real nice boss outside of those few gripes, though, and contrary to apparently the rest of the internet I absolutely loved the following phase. As a whole it was easily the best designed huge boss in the game.
And the sad part is that you don't feel exhilarated or accomplished for mechanically learning those input punishes, but somehow defeated instead. You have not learnt to best a difficult foe By learning to read their movement and time your actions, but a dog that has been trained not to do some arbitrary thing at some arbitrary moment.
The hard input reads with no veiling (the game input reads a lot more than discussed, games pretty much all do, but it's veiled and buffered to hide it most often) or intermediaries are probably much rarer than many seem to claim, but cases where it blatantly happens do very visibly seem to exist and suck every time it's perceivable. I might be wrong on some of this, however, as I haven't seen any of the actual AI mapping and don't even think they're available anywhere.
What could they do instead, you ask? As the design decision to commit to attacks you make is and stays in the game (as it should IMO), you cannot make the getoffme/punish be just slower: Then it'd just mean you could punish and then avoid the oncoming repercussion. This is a working and dynamic interaction for some situations, but not what they are looking for, which is a way to prevent you from punishing certain actions _with_ certain actions. However, they could make the input read a prematurely detectable standard part of the combo, forcing you to back of for a reset. You stay? Your mistake you could have seen coming. The final boss does this in all of it's phases in one way or another. The boss could also take initiative in the intended outcome -which is putting some distance between you two- and have it dash or skip away from you a step or two, if it detects you doing no-no things. It would still be an input read most likely for consistency between weapons and builds, but a much less egregious one than a rolled newspaper to the metaphorical dog's face. They could also make a variation of this by either relocating or somehow protecting the boss from this unwanted action and then presenting a threat with a reactionary attack or something. As a final straw, they could leave the input read immediate response, but have it relocate you (knock you back or smth, I dunno) in a disadvantageous position, instead of slapping the dog's snout with the newspaper. Everything is better, than damage/death that solely prescience can avoid in an encounter like this.
As a side tangent, this same also applies quite neatly to rulebreaking done by non-player entities in games like this. You can have the scary boss or game logic defying monster break some established rule, but you have to leave the player time to respond to that breaking of rules. If you don't, the player doesn't get left shaken or scared, as the threat of the repercussion has already passed and only the bitterness of the pulled bs remains. The boss doesn't die from having 0 hp to signify how though it is? Then don't have it swat the player dead the very same second, but play for a tiny bit of time to let the player process this and fear the coming. Shapely Fidus does this great in Grime. Just -shameless promo- an example.
The input read punishes you mentioned are certainly not arbitrary, the Crucible Knight punishing a heavy with the tail is anything but arbitrary as the AI knows you can't recover from the animation in time to dodge (in some cases, I am sure quick weapons like rapiers, swords and curved swords can dodge or block as soon as the animation ends).
Some of their best bosses in previous games have featured heavy input reading Orphan of Kos(m), GeniCHADro. Malenia first phase can use her input reading to catch you between panick rolls with her Penetrator stab (which is really impressive to me as that attack would not hit if roll spammed through in other bosses from the previous games)
I think the worst input reading can be seen in late game npc invaders like okina, they dodge on command to almost any attack.
@@quinnmcpherrin7131
I wish more NPC invaders had better AI like that.
@@quinnmcpherrin7131 - In my game, Okina seemed to do a lot of brain dead backsteps in neutral when I wasn't doing anything other than walk and observe.
I don't feel like I've ever fought an NPC invader as good as a sub par human. In my eyes, they always use their insane HP bars, infinite fp, and often huge poise to go for trades and hope to win via attrition.
That said, I don't expect serious fighting game AI that accounts for 3D environments, terrain anomalies, etc. NPC invaders are good enough and enjoyable to fight. I wish there were more of them or that we could fight an infinite number in places like the Caelid colosseum. It'd be like practicing with the CPU before fighting real humans.
knight kicked my ass for hour. I learned every single move and beat him easily after
While I don’t dislike the endgame it does have some poor design: Elden Beast feels like he was designed with the horse in mind and they just forgot to let you summon him in that fight; Waterfowl is just bs; the enemy reuse in endgame was so common it feels like the devs didn’t realize how many different enemies they’d need in a game of this size; the ganks feel like they were designed with ashes in mind, but those same ashes trivialize most nongank bosses; and damage can be a bit all over the place for example the big dragonlord aoe with 30 year windup doesn’t one shot you, but the near instant death-rite bird aoe does.
I have one question , it is possible to disable keyboard input delay? Cuz it really messes up ALL interactions
To me everytime i swig the boss attacks