In Defense of Elden Ring's Boss Design...

Today, I’m explaining to you why the Godskin Duo is underrated.
Just kidding, I'm not defending that garbage.
Join my Discord, or don't ► / discord
MORE CONTENT:
► 1 QUICK TIP for EVERY Unique Skill in Elden Ring! • 1 QUICK TIP for EVERY ...
► Dragonlord Placidusax, but YOU'RE the boss... • Dragonlord Placidusax,...
► Y'all Mind If I Rank The Elden Ring Catacombs??? • Y'all Mind If I Rank T...
I wrote the script for this with no intent of “responding” to any particular video or creator, but these were the videos I kept in mind when addressing certain points. These are great videos and they are all worth your time as a viewer. Yes, even the 72 minute one.
The Elden Ring Critique - Hard is the New Normal (feebleking21)
• The Elden Ring Critiqu...
Elden Ring Bosses: An Unbalanced Disappointment (theDeModcracy)
• Elden Ring Bosses: An ...
Elden Ring Bosses: A Game Design Discussion (LeKevDev)
• Elden Ring Bosses: A G...
A Brutally Honest Elden Ring Critique (Lextorias)
• A Brutally Honest Elde...
Mechanical Critique of Elden Ring (The Gemsbok)
• Mechanical Critique of...
MUSIC:
► ES_Mercy or Judgment
► ES_The Dark Ages
► ES_Till Ostersjon
► ES_It All Ends Now
► ES_Caterpillar
► ES_The Norman Kings
► ES_Kermanshah
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
03:03 Lore-Accurate Boss Design
06:58 The Point
10:13 Rykard
12:35 Duos & Duplicates
19:26 That Fight
23:14 The Conclusion or something idk

[@Rusty._]

This isn't meant to be a full-fledged analysis piece or anything. Just figured I would add another perspective to a discussion that probably won't end for a while. Also yes I know I need a new mic. EDIT: Guys, please quit downvoting other comments just because they disagreed with one thing I said. That's literally the whole point of why these videos are important. Let people discuss things.

[@arcanefire7511]

@@Kaliskot Didn't know Dark souls 2 had the best bosses!

[@leadfaun]

@@Kaliskot why? DS3’s bosses generally ask less of the player.

[@leadfaun]

@@Kaliskot I thought we were talking about the quality of boss fights, not how many times you can fight them. What do you mean 9? Do you mean 9 that only appear once and nowhere else? 9 that only appear as a boss once? Is Margit not unique because you can fight him multiple times? That would make Sekiro a pretty bad game. Almost all the fights get repeats, not even mentioning the ‘minibosses’.

[@kayhaich]

It's just your opinion, not really an analysis as such

[@kayhaich]

@@Kaliskot there's context to why bosses are repeated and the placement adds to a narrative *gasp* outside of your subjective gaming experience that adds to the art of the game. There's no mistakes with how bosses are placed and nearly everything is well thought through.

[@getit6775]

It's kinda fucked how the Astel in a cave just chilling is harder than the finale of Ranni's quest

[@ironmaiden93ofangmar]

To be fair, I think it depends on what level you reach the Naturalborn. It took me a lot of tries fighting him. I even had to leave and come back, and it was still hard when I came back. Stars of Darkness took me about 3 tries at the level I found him

[@freeziboi3249]

@@ironmaiden93ofangmar fr, two tries and the cave bitch was gone. Ranni's I had to like think about things and look up what he'd be weak to

[@HavikXIII]

I dunno man, I had to come back later and finish that dragon. It's ice breathe just (ironically) melted my health bar

[@JacobBite]

Stars of Darkness is more aggressive and uses more AoE and just has a much deadlier grab attack.

[@getit6775]

@@JacobBite I completely agree and that grab attack genuinely made me jump from my chair the first time I saw it

[@geordiejones5618]

One thing I really appreciated was that pretty much every item you get off bosses is something you saw them do or something that seems associated with their faction.

[@NateTheGreat368]

That's not new tho but yeah I'm happy they kept it

[@tinminator8905]

@@NateTheGreat368 Not to this extent, no. If you get a remebrance you can be sure that you can recreate the most iconic attacks the boss has. It really feels like I can BECOME the boss if I really want to. Even if in practice it is not even close to the strenght but just visually you can really become all of the cool encounters you see. Even the best items you can find in the overworld are usually used by very cool bosses.

[@sonicfan4511]

This is cool. But at the same time it makes it weird when it doesn't do this. The Leonin wielding the Golden Order sword is rad. So why aren't the Leonin that drop the Grafted Blade or Ruins Greatsword wielding those? I always find it weird when you kill a boss and it drops a weapon I guess it just swallowed at some point or something, rather than the weapon being used by them or even just in a chest you can only reach beyond their boss room or something.

[@bolson42]

@@sonicfan4511 Yeah i thought that was super weird. Why couldn’t they just model it in? And the AOW wouldn’t be hard to implement either. It just feels like they forced the weapon in to make up for the area or fight.

[@speedb.bernard5404]

@@tinminator8905 no not really aside from möre basic stuff the bosses do you cant really get most of the cool stuff for MOST bosses aside from a few

[@Noizzed]

The worst part about godskin duo is that it is an obligatory main quest boss. It would have been so much better if instead of them we fought a dragon in Farum Azula as a main boss.

[@boom-jr8vi]

I don’t know why Placidusax wasn’t the main boss of Faram, maybe I don’t know lore but it still feels like it would’ve been WAY cooler.

[@micha3l7]

@@boom-jr8vi for lore it doesn’t make much sense, because he’s kind of “out of time” (therefore avoidable) and doesn’t have any item you need like Maliketh does. He also doesn’t have any ties to the Elden Ring demigods/god(s) and isn’t in contention with the main character to become Elden Lord like Morgott and Godfrey. He’s also too big of a deal to care if the player runs past him (he doesn’t attack in the arena until you get close) and has no incentive to attack unless provoked. The player, therefore, has to instigate a fight for what is kind of no reason.

[@jancelpinales5228]

@@boom-jr8vi honestly, I think maliketh suits just right, but yeah, I honestly rather fighting placi 50 times that fighting those awfully made versions of ornstein & smough

[@mewsmeme]

honestly i prefer the godskin duo than a dragon. i dont know why but i fucking hate the dragons with every fiber of my being

[@Faint366]

@@micha3l7 he has no ties to the Elden ring _any more_ haha

[@mrrodjones]

For the godskin duo fight, depending on which one you took down first, it would’ve been cool to see the one that remained go over to his fallen godskin bro, rip off his skin-robe and then put it on over (or combine it with) the one he already had on - creating a brand new boss with an expanded move set. One can dream…

[@adnansaleem6167]

Then people would bash it for being a smough and ornstein remake. :/

[@lucasfazzi6408]

Cmon, we accept all the Sif fight Remakes with different colors, animals and speeds. We saw Sif fight as a Rat, a Dog, a Pet, Red, Blue, Invisible. We could accept O&S Remake if it was a good fight.

[@Squiddyize]

The Godskin falls. The other picks up its weapon and its skin. As he does that, more Godskins appear and clad him in more skins. A ritual happens, where the Godskins kneel and the figure drains the black flame from all of the other Godskins. What now stands before you is a pale young woman with pitch black eyes, clad in the skins of the demigods you have faced thus far. New boss phase: Avatar of The Gloam Eyed Queen, dualwielding the twinblade and the great epee.

[@Chunkyloops]

We can't be that lucky anymore. This ain't DS1. RIP cutting off tails and getting a cool item from it. DS2 tried to do the same but couldn't fully commit to it. We will potentially never have a game like DS1 and all it's janky glory from Fromsoftware again. At least Bloodborne and Sekiro compensate by adding a lot of cool new things we can do, even if they do remove some of the things we used to be able to do.

[@samf.s.7731]

I searched what works against them and boom! They're vulnerable to sleep. Got a couple of points up in int, used St.Trina's sword, and my mimic. I was planning on using St.Trina's arrows tbh but as it turned out, didn't need to!

[@Prakash-dn7vr]

This is just my take: I don’t particularly have a problem with repeat bosses but there has to be a limit 3 fallingstars is good 4-5 nights cavalry or rite birds is okay But 14 tree avatars is ridiculous that’s just way too many times I fight the same thing It really takes away from the joy and uniqueness of the boss

[@nebulouscat2210]

I like to think that the strongest version of each reused boss was their original vision and they put weaker versions in to slowly hone your knowledge of these enemies before throwing you in with the most powerful version, honestly it's weird. But it's also fine, considering you can easily skip all the previous versions without even knowing. But let's be real, by the time you fight each and every godskin encounter yeah they feel trivial because youve already learned all of their moves tells and weaknesses. Yet because of level scaling it renews the experience in a way. I also feel like it is specifically to show that there are factions with multiple of these entities. For example the fallenstar beast, to me it makes alot more sense for there to be many of these creatures instead of just one. Sometimes I feel like reused bosses just feel like an attempt to establish the fact that these factions or creatures are a real sect or group or species and just happen to be especially powerful. Idk I think all I'm trying to say is that I feel like reused bosses in elden ring aren't JUST a sign of laziness and could have been an attempt to either temper the player before showing their original vision of a powerful enemy or to simply make the entities feel like actual groups with multiple members (godskins) or an actual species of creature ( fallenstar beasts) or simply a peice of world building that recurs because it a thematic thing in the game (crystalians)

[@iota-09]

i mean, it makes sense from a lore perspective... until you remember about that one minor erdtree near the siofra river well. literally the only minor erdtree without either an erdtree avatar or tree spirit.

[@slimretro2659]

@Juan that's also how I felt. Just happy to fight a stronger enemy.

[@BARDI77]

@Juan let me tell you how you fix this problem for like 90% of the comunity... remove the boss health bar and bum its just a strong enemy that you fight multiple times

[@bananoul9242]

Personnaly i see elden ring as a realistic world. In our world there nearly nothing who are unique, for example there no species who can exist with one only individual. For the Godskin, did you imagine how ridiculous would be a sect with only one member ? And they can more influence to the world with more members. Same for the tree avatar, if life create something who work great, why bother create an another one ? Same for the nights cavalry and crucible knights, a order of chivalry with one member ? I think the world construction make more sense like these, and imagine the lore they need to create for each boss ! I prefer to have a lot more lore and history to explained a boss than just two lines of explication.

[@kevinoneil5120]

The Foreskin Duo's infuriating design would have, I think, been much less controversial had that been your only encounter with them in the game, and not your fourth or fifth bloody time listening to that soundtrack (awesome OST but every time I found a new Godskin it had less impact)

[@MrBuns-yi2hk]

My biggest gripe with the boss is that if you kill them both at the same time, they don't just outright die. Who is reving them I don't know.

[@KingGlizz]

I think they should have just made the Godskin Duo fight unique so it stood out over the previous Godskins we had fought leading up to them. A second phase or slightly unique moveset would have been so cool…

[@Apple80089]

@@KingGlizz or make the pillars more consistent I’d be ok with o&s 2 just not this bullshit

[@raptorxrise5386]

@@MrBuns-yi2hk No one is. Do you really think they are the same character? That is a gross misunderstanding of what the godskins are. There arent two of them. There are dozens. YOu never fight THE godskin noble you are fighting ONE godskin noble. They are a group. Now you might say they should have made them unique characters and while i disagree i can at least understand that. but saying "how is this one character constantly revived?" is simply wrong. They never are. The GS Noble on liurnias tower, in volcano manor and in farum azula are all different people. Thats why they dont have names.

[@prehistoriccreator9600]

If they did something like the duo combining into one being that'd be cool

[@ShiftySetax]

I kinda enjoyed the repeat of Margit because I felt that area was kind of a showcase for how strong you are now. Margit was an impassible wall early on, now he doesn't even warrant a health bar. The Tree Sentinel rocked you in the beginning, but now you're fighting his superior version AND WINNING. Was a nice little reward.

[@orionofvolga]

I thought it was a cool recurring villian scenerio and after fighting him as Morgott was AMAZING!!! 🤩

[@lightpoint4426]

Morgott felt like Ornstein and Smough for me, just because of his placement in the game, and the fact that out of everything I'd fought so far...this was a rematch. It was PERSONAL. And the fight is cool, I just wish his health bar was a bit beefier.

[@elitedonut1089]

Impassable wall? CoryxKenshin beat in 2 tries

[@dicklover4203]

@@elitedonut1089 for a lot of players margit was the first wall in the game

[@Faint366]

@@lightpoint4426 I wish most of the healthbars were. Idk if I did too much exploring and got over leveled but I rocked most demigods with some of them not even getting their second phase. I guess power stance really does double your damage lol

[@Pie_Smacker]

All I'm gonna say is that when players almost en masse feel elation that they won't have to fight a certain boss again instead of elation that they won and toppled a grand challenge, maybe the boss needs to be reworked.

[@cvampaul]

Perfect

[@jancelpinales5228]

Godskin duo in a nutshell

[@Patrick-bn5rp]

I'll give you godskin duo. Both the enemies display too much aggression. They should function more like Crucible Knight duo where one of them kinda leaves you along as long as you aren't in range.

[@Assassin21BEKA]

Perfectly said. They basically did it with Radan, made him much more fair and etc, fight became more fun. I don't know why they didn't do it with other fights like godskin duo or Milenia waterflow dance attack, why not make it dodgeble without some weird methods, i love fight against her, but this one attack makes the whole fight so unfun.

[@user-ns4zm8qe9p]

@@Assassin21BEKA I know it’s like the fight it going great, you’re weaving in your attacks to interrupt her combos, then she jumps up in the air through your attack and you just have to put the controller down because she decided it’s game over now

[@themambawarrior2290]

The poison mist from the dual gargoyles is a terrible attack, in my opinion. The color scheme of the arena means that the dull green doesn't stick out, it's semi-transparent so it's even less noticeable, and by the time you see it it's usually already damaging you. It damages you instantly, rather than acting like the gas which the Twin Demons have, which is just a warning sign. Most of the time you won't see the poison mist coming, so it's just some cheap unfair damage. And it's not even chip damage either, that damage feels significantly stronger than it should be for something that hits so easily. If that attack wasn't so bullshit, I think I'd have really liked the Valiant Gargoyles.

[@Wepospalient]

Twin gargoyles was far and away my least favorite boss in the game, the poison gas covering 70% of the room and killing you in a matter of seconds combined with often having both gargoyles rush and spam you with attacks at the same time is just not a fun time. Godskin duo didn't give me even half the trouble those damn gargoyles did.

[@dylanschmeichel2008]

@@Ab-he4vf “use a summon.” Ok, most people discussing difficulty don’t use cheap stuff to win, the gargoyles poison isn’t react able that’s the issue.

[@femi7631]

@@Ab-he4vf the mist covers behind them so if you're a pure melee build, all you can do is wait and hope they don't stay in the mist. I think the attack is good but making it do damage and cause poison build up immediately is ridiculous. It would be fair if there's a slight delay so you can react to it given the massive area it covers

[@bolson42]

Yeah, the poison plus the horrible arena made the fight so bad

[@WildBandit300]

Over 4 different saves I never once died to gargoyles, they are easy if you are patient enough but then again I didn't get to play before the MASSIVE nerf to double boss fights. I never use summons or BHS, yet their moves were surprisingly fair and didn't suffer from the usual BS frame-trapping combos like some other bosses. Even still, that poison mist remains one of the most bullshit attacks in the game simply because its very difficult to see and it murderizes your frame rate. I would rather fight two kindred gargoyles for double the dot damage instead of dealing with the stupid invisible-poison mist garbage.

[@EATSxBABIES]

I actually enjoy a majority of the bosses, even the repeats. The 1 thing I CANNOT STAND is Fromsofts love for a type of boss that I can only describe as "aggressively wiggly" lookin at you curse rotted tree spirits. As annoying as a Dragon? Check. Large but fast moving hitbox that fucks the camera? Check. Zips out of range the moment the game detects you pressing your attack button? Check. wraps half it's hitbox INSIDE A WALL making it functionally immune? Check. Texture and mass of writhing arms making it impossible to track it's direction? Check, check check I hate you now.

[@experiencemaster1743]

yeah at least the dragons are usually in spaces where them making distance isn't that big of a deal (except agheel and that one cliff the prick) especially with use of torrent But tree spirits, there's no real strategy outside of hit it till it dies, all the attacks look the same minus the "phase change" radial attack especially the putrid one in the Haligtree, it's red body and lack of boss bar means you won't be able to see ti's health on a glance, it's in the halligtree so 9/10 it'll one shot you or force you to heal, oh and they want you to fight it in a massive pool of scarlet rot

[@Krystalmyth]

Those were probably my favorite in the game. They're dynamic and telegraph their movesets really well.

[@Krystalmyth]

Those were probably my favorite in the game. They're dynamic and telegraph their movesets really well. You only need to look at their faces, they tell you what they're going to do by sight and sound alone and have almost no deception to them except for the grab.

[@Enigmashoot]

Aaah yes the bloodborne effect

[@AdamKirbyMusic]

Oh my god yes. It was one of the things that initially turned me off Bloodborne and made it feel MUCH harder than Dark Souls to me. All the flapping, flopping body parts that honestly makes tracking the enemy's movements hard for me.

[@breadlord2855]

I love when radahnn just peaces out just to rain down from the sky when you least expect it

[@jy1178]

Completely caught me off guard and obliterated me the first time I fought him lol

[@sonicfan4511]

My biggest issue with Elden Ring is just how insanely long some of their combos can be, and how said combos usually end with them jumping a mile away. There's so much that bosses can do that the player just can't engage with outside of dodging and I find it just makes long stretches of these fights really boring. The massive variance in strength between builds as well as things like spirit summons make me completely unsure of how hard this game is actually supposed to be and how much of it is just bad balance.

[@aryabratsahoo7474]

The thing that puts me off is that everyone i see only spans rolls like it's ds3. They barely use jumps, guard counters and crouch(yes, you can crouch certain attacks), these moves has quick follow up attacks to punish compared to roll attacks. No one ever talks about it.

[@chiprahn]

It feels like they took a page from Sekiro in adding all these long combos to so many bosses. However, they forgot that you aren't playing Sekiro's combat, you are playing 80% Dark Souls' combat. So rather than go toe-to-toe with them in an exciting exchange of blows, I just stand as far away as possible and watch the boss do their cool 15 move combo while I wait for my chance to run in and do one hit. Safe to say it wasn't a lot of _fun_ fighting many of these bosses.

[@dawsong5208]

@@chiprahn The bosses do combos based on your positioning and will then do another combo based on your positioning and distance from the boss. Instead of bosses just doing a combo and letting you hit them for free like in previous souls titles, now you’re forced to more so engage with their combo strings and get hits in between when they’re open, which there are openings. Playing slightly passive when learning their combos and then noticing a frame where you could attack next time they do said attack and rinse & repeat for all the combos in the game. Yes sometimes you will get hit when going for a punish, but that is also based on positioning and how fast you’re responding AND with what you’re responding with. I thoroughly enjoyed slowing gaining confidence, playing more aggressive as I got more comfortable with their combos and with my own build as we both tried to kill each other. Just my opinion on the combat though 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[@chiprahn]

​@@dawsong5208 ​ Maybe I'm just yearning for a different style of combat. The reason why I said it wasn't _fun_ to fight many ER bosses is because it feels more like work. Memorizing enemy's movesets and learning the exact frames of an animation and what your exact response during those frames should be feels so robotic to me. Souls and Bloodborne were a bit more forgiving with timing so it affords you more room for imperfection. Sekiro's combat is completely different. Sekiro has this intangible feel to it. The combat loop directs you to learn not just when you are safe to attack but when you naturally _should_ attack. There is just a really captivating back and forth rhythm that allows you to FEEL when you should attack and when you should defend. It's not about memorizing attack patterns to learn precise windows to capitalize. Of course you can do that in Sekiro and it helps, but once you (I can't believe I'm going to un-ironically use this term) "get good", you feel like you can go in and face a foe using your skill and wits first. The game just does just a good job of intuitively suggesting the pace of battle. The animation canceling in Sekiro also greatly helps with being able to respond to a situation on the fly. Being locked into most every animation in ER means you have to be certain of your window before launching an attack. There is much less room for response and improvisation. When beating a tough boss in Elden Ring, the key to success is usually just learning that boss's patterns. And usually those patterns you learn are only applicable to that boss and can honestly be discarded once you defeat them. This is something I think has always been true of From soft bosses but I only really noticed after playing Sekiro and seeing a different philosophy. I didn't base my victories in Sekiro on a specific boss's patterns, but on how well I improvised and responded to their responses to my responses to their responses and so on. In ER, you always feel like the enemy is dictating the pace of the fight and you are just along for the ride, waiting for your opening. Sekiro can be a lot more aggressive, taking the initiative and putting your foe on the back foot. Going into late game bosses in Sekiro, I always felt like I had a basis of skill that was universally applicable and made me capable of facing anything. I think overall, the difference is that getting better at a boss fight in Elden Ring makes you better at fighting that specific boss, but getting better at Sekiro fights will make you better at just about every other fight in the game.

[@dawsong5208]

@@chiprahn I can understand why you feel that way. Sekiro's combat was precise and specific, which I think was the major perk of the single weapon mixed with multitude of useful prosthetics. I'd argue that every soulslike made by From is a mix of learning those combos and reacting accordingly. I definitely agree that ER bosses are much faster and require more effort from the player, but I personally just find it so much more engaging and fun compared to their older soulslike titles. The bosses actually feel like they're trying to kill you instead of sitting in some neutral position, after doing a combo, for seconds at a time letting you know it's safe to attack now. That to me feels more robotic. It definitely sounds like you found something of a preference with Sekiro's combat, which is understandable. I wonder is it just Elden Ring that feels more robotic for you because of those steeper player requirements or do the older titles also give off a similar feeling since playing Sekiro? Also, I feel like the skills you learn by slowing adapting to the newer and faster move sets in every new souls game is something that you take with you into the next bosses. They definitely won't be performing the same attacks, but the reaction time and slowly getting more comfortable with your build is something that increases over the course of the game I feel. I guess obviously you could've already acknowledged those things, but don't feel they're as significant as mastering the skill curve in Sekiro, but I'd love the know!

[@115madmax]

One thing cool about Ornstein and Smogh is that they have a very interesting relationship dynamic where Ornstein deeply respects smogh but smogh fucking hates Orenstein, and they react to taking each other’s powers accordingly. The godskin duo have no personality they’re just faceless silent relentless killers which is cool in its own right but the game is full of those. Just would be interesting if the penultimate fight between yourself and that enemy faction had some more personality to it.

[@KingofAwesomness14]

that's actually the opposite. Smough hates Ornstein and Ornstein respects smogh. but yea you're right.

[@calebnixon4307]

I think you got the names mixed up

[@115madmax]

@@KingofAwesomness14 I did have that so mixed up. You’re right. I corrected it but you can take credit for that lol

[@thegk-verse4216]

Yeah, it looks like only the main bosses get some personality.

[@church6134]

If they had a cutscene (considering they are in reality a main boss) it would've been way cooler

[@franciscoestores3452]

Agreed with basically everything except that defense of the Valiant Gargoyle Duo. The fact that both can do a huge poison AOE (sometimes at basically the same time) combined with their insane aggression makes that encounter insufferable unless you have enough DPS to take down the first one before the second can do anything

[@JinFreeks]

Yeah, Valiant Gargoyle duo is one of the fights where I will 100% just summon a spirit, usually either Tear or BigDaddyDungeater if I want to get it over with or Skellie bros if I feel more like actually fighting, and will not respect the fight at all because I feel that that fight in particular doesn't respect me either.

[@franciscoestores3452]

Same with me. For all of its MANY faults, Godskin Duo is very possible solo due to sleep. Meanwhile the Gargoyles are resistant to every status effect & pretty resistant to most damage types. Had zero shame in calling in my twin for that encounter

[@Bannschwert]

I beat them by just overlevelling hard enough... I tried a lot and didn't get far. Then just returned a while later after learning there's a new area behind them. And Moonveil staggered them in 2 R2s, that helped a lot as well... Ahhhh Moonveil...

[@lightpoint4426]

It was a BIT better for my melee butt when I realized that jumping out of the poison AOE works better than rolling, and that they'll be less of a pain if you kite them away from the door...but I still used a summon to take the heat off me for 5 freaking seconds xD xD xD I still died many, many times...

[@incurabletrickster1191]

I absolutely hated this fight. While I died more times to Malenia than the Gargoyle duo, I just found the fight to be so stupid and unfair and totally not fun.

[@KulHadar]

I'd say the biggest problem with Elden Ring's bosses, in particular the endgame ones is that they can be difficult to interact with. Radagon has a spammable teleport which can damage and stagger you so he can smack you with a follow up, plus multiple soaring jump attacks. Placidussax can turn into a storm cloud and do like a 5 hit teleporting combo. Malenia can completely change the flow of a fight with Waterfowl dance or she can dash like half the arena away if you're actually getting a few hits in succession. Malekith can leap all over the place. And the Elden Beast can run for days while spamming magic. This is in addition to the heavy damage, loads of knockdowns, combo strings that can be wildly inconsistent and full of attacks with tons of roll catching wind ups. I love the design philosophy in concept for the main bosses but giving the bosses so many tools to prevent the player interacting with them is a massive flaw. I'd honestly rather the game removed spirit summons and tone the bosses down because balancing for mimic tear summons is probably one of the reasons the late game bosses have so many get off me tools in the first place.

[@americancontinental3607]

It's really annoying and frustrating when you get hit with endless combos from bosses/monsters. I'll never not be pissed for how they copied the red wolf of radagon from Raya Lucaria and took the sword moves away in moonlight altar (and I think the ancestral forrest near nokron). It just ruined the fight since that's when he usually pauses so you can punish him. And that sucks because I actually really like the one in Raya Lucaria. One of my favorites alongside Niall

[@ThatOneAudioTeam]

Dude Malekith and Placidussax are fine in my book. Malekith has crazy wombo combos, yes. However, his health pool is the size of my chances of surviving a trip to China during the pandemic. And you can parry him with a specific item during certain attacks where the tip of his blade glows yellow. His attacks encourage you to not get hit. Simple? Eh, not really that simple, but my point still stands. Placidussax is made to be flashy and grandiose! He is supposed to wow you with his mastery over the might of storms. Can’t hit him during is teleporting combo? Just dodge and take it the blinding tempest that is that incredible boss fight. Malenia is a fine secret boss who was made to dunk on you, though waterfowl is a little annoying. The health siphon is trying to encourage you to not get hit, learn her moveset, and play smart. You have to slow down during that fight, and yet you can’t because you shield cannot save you from her siphon. Even though it seems like it’s encouraging you to slow down, it’s actually encouraging to go FAST! You HAVE to stay mobile or she will punish you by slamming you into the ground. Then Impaling you. Radagon is close to being a good fight, but he’s too spammy with his magic so it gets annoying. I hate Elden Beast. All my homies hate Elden Beast. That is all. If you read this, then congrats! You have a greater attention span than the average zoomer!

[@Mrdest211]

I agree that the real bad decision of ER boss design was spirit summons. It creates this huge difficulty gap betwee with and without + a wide range of outcomes depending on which summon you use. The bosses are so aggressive without a summon, and their quick changes in moves that you mentioned make solo playing feel kind of RNG-heavy. The worst part of it though is that a spirit summon is a one-time decision for the player, and then it does its thing. Who enjoys a game where you watch the CPU fight itself?

[@garjian0]

I almost feel like it would have made more sense to be able to summon spirits in the opposite scenarios as you can now. They can help you clear out caves and travel the open world, distracting golem archers and stuff, but they go away when it's time for a real, crafted challenge.

[@man-iz4ml]

​@@ThatOneAudioTeam Actually that not playing behind your shield is false it can still play behind a shield but it'll take a while In any way yeah that Is justification of millenia makes no sense Oh if you don't want a struggle with her don't get hit This is the thing people say as an ironic joke

[@ShanesSlothMunchies]

I had no issue with repeat bosses I enjoyed the struggle with the super hard endgame bosses What i hated was the attacks that seemed to take 3-5 business days to wind up

[@poisonrain87]

I do agree. Margit should try amazon prime for his attacks instead of USPS ground....

[@timmoody5466]

The repeat bosses are horrific.

[@lazinator8285]

The fact that every boss had them made every boss a little bit more boring.

[@randorookie8587]

Especially since it feels like if you decide attack during them they suddenly happen at the speed of light and oh look at that half your health bar just ISN’T THERE ANY MORE

[@theophany4935]

People seem to not understand that those long wind-up attacks are PERFECT opportunities to punish bosses. You can hit Margit like 2-3 times on some of his longer wind up attacks if you're able to recognize them.

[@ddubsquizzee2158]

My biggest problem with Malenia is the fact the she heals when hitting a shield and doing no damage. I feel like every aspect of her fight was designed to be unfair and that making any one of them easier would've made it enjoyable. At least spirits can help with the godskin duo

[@grill6411]

they did that to counter people trying to cheese her with a greatshield

[@pascalsimioli6777]

@@grill6411 That's them trying to fix their own mistakes by making another mistake. I don't understand why players have to accept to be victims of this flawed philosophy

[@grill6411]

@@pascalsimioli6777 im being victimized by a video game folks

[@pamelotms5867]

Idk i enjoyed every seconed of getting my ass beat by her. And figureing out how to doge her blender atack was wery satisfying to me.

[@alphadron4073]

@@grill6411 Read as: I have no argument but feel the dire urge to ridicule the other guy for having a different opinion than me. There, fixed that for you.

[@chasethecringewolf2195]

Just gonna mention that despite boss damage i found out that if you use any of the dragon shield talismans they provide alot of defense. Pair it with prawn god damn you can trivialize alot of boss damage.

[@clrl936]

Also, armor does make a lot of difference. Unlike what a lot of people have been saying.

[@rhysofsneezingdragon1758]

@@clrl936 scaled armor is a good recommendation.

[@prehistoriccreator9600]

@@rhysofsneezingdragon1758 not too heavy and good stats.

[@BARDI77]

thats the thing the late game is strong but you are way more overpower with all the crazy amount of spells, potions, even food that you can use to buff, the problem is that a lot of people dont want to try look for example monster hunter in that game you do a lot of preparation before a hard enemy here most of the players (included myself) only go to the fight without proper preparation

[@wilfredwayne7139]

Screw the prawn crab is better.

[@Korgano]

The upgrade costs are a little prohibitive for the kind of experimentation you describe here. Yes, you can get bell bearings. But switching to a new weapon (and getting that weapon up to par with your previous weapon’s upgrade level) is pretty grindy and kept me from swapping often. I felt like it took me until the end game before I could confidently swap away from my main handful of upgraded weapons. Elden Ring is amazing, but it overstays its welcome a bit. I was pretty fed up after my seventh tree spirit. Once I hit Maliketh and my build stopped working, I was so worn out that I Taker’s Flamed my way to the Elden Throne.

[@jimbodestroyer1324]

My build started working at maliketh, or more accurately, fire giant and I love the game 10x more than I did before.

[@jaredarmstrong385]

I despise swapping weapons in this game. And so many of the weapons hit a complete brick wall.

[@davidbarsemian6715]

I would agree entirely with the item uses being perfect as in Sekiro, the malcontent ring can be used to lessen the difficulty of the demon fight, however, it’s use is capped which aides the player, but still provides an insanely hard late game boss, and that’s what I enjoyed about some of the elden ring bosses is that sense of the fight being made easier to a certain extent

[@TheIshakuro]

I agree with a lot of this video, however there is one thing I disagree with. The exploring to find new tools and abilities that can counter the more difficult bosses, while good in theory, with the strict stat requirements on most gear, it discourages experimentation, as stat respecs are a rare resource. Also, and this is just me personally, but when I did find a tool that worked well against a certain boss, it often felt more like I was cheesing them rather than fighting, with the battle coming down to which one of you had the stupider gimmick.

[@shmekelfreckles8157]

Pretty much everything showed in this video doesn’t need big stat investment. And if it does nothing stops you from, I dunno, maybe LEVELING UP

[@scorpioneldar]

there are 16 stat reworks in this game without even considering making a new build. and even without using a single one I am barely level 100 and I can use basically the entire inventory by end game. (had to use some items to hit str or faith depending on the weapon but those hats and talismans are there for that.) and you can get litterally 713 levels. you can use everything. on any build. Is it chease IRL to use a Boarspear to hunt a boar? no. that is using a tool designed for the task. same with a hunting rifle. you don't use the same weapon or tool for everything IRL and you shouldn't in this game either. the game WANTS YOU TO read descriptions and it litterally tells you hey this was designed for hunting a serpent. this was made to bind morgott to the earth. this was made to purify the blood and let you survive fighting a god. don't fight this guy alone bring friends. here is an entire festivel full of friends to throw at him. use this spell on those who live in death.

[@olp3850]

@@scorpioneldar did you really just compare real life to a video game lol

[@thegamesforreal1673]

The one tool I really liked to use was the parry item against Maliketh. It takes some learning to get use out of, but once you do it makes the fight easier, without trivializing it. It only works on some of his moves - the ones where his sword glows yellow - and even those moves you need to time it properly. It mimicked what the silver pendant did for Manus' fight very well without making it (almost) mandatory like silver pendant for manus.

[@TheMuffinManIsHappy]

@Алексей Сафронов nothing stops you from leveling except the tedious grind of farming. And if you’re out of school, that probably isn’t how you wanna spend the 1-3 hours of leisure time you have at home.

[@catiminiclergus537]

A though I had while fighting the final boss: The game basically encourages you *strongly* to have both melee and distance attacks available to you -If you can fight radagon fully distanced, my respect, but one cannot deny his spell/heal punish are insane -meanwhile, if you are full melee for elden beast, well, enjoy running

[@rudalph529]

Yeah, radagon is so good until his second phase, which seems to always last 3 times as long as his first and melt all of my flasks, just because of how much he teleports and is out of range for a melee build.

[@thegk-verse4216]

Yeah he has a spell parry, that has NO LIMITS. He can spam it forever, has 0 vulnerable frames, never miss, can parry out of an animation. If he wants to, your magic is utterly useless. That's the kind of bull we're having

[@pyoveli2637]

The fact that the elden beast encourages you to have melee and distance could have been a really cool choice IF it was consistent through the game, and was introduced much earlier. Like a game that make so you'll need to (for exemple) master the sword and the bow ? Really cool ! A game that allowes you to roll on all his bosses with a katana and on the second phase of the final boss make the fight last 20 minutes cause the big slug fly away ? Not really cool

[@Kaloffee]

I feel like that goes directly against Fromsoft’s game design though. Elden Ring is my first though so correct me if I’m wrong, but they want you to specialize in specific builds. And their core player base usually end up with that full STR melee build. Introducing bosses that demand flexible builds directly conflicts with that archaic leveling system. Not to say it’s bad, it’s just old. And it doesn’t really work in Elden Ring

[@shmekelfreckles8157]

@@pyoveli2637 to be fair, many bosses have attacks that can be properly punished only by a ranged weapon.

[@fellowgmers932]

The summon thing really resonates with me. As my first souls game, I decided I didn’t wanna deal with some of the bullshit that the late game bosses provide. However, it also lead me to missing out on some experiences. I one tried Mohg without ever hitting his second phase. I didn’t even know he had one till this vid :/

[@dootmarine1140]

There's nothing wrong with Elden Ring's idea of rewarding exploration. The issue lies therein when the ability to experiment and play around is either entirely dictated by end game farming so you're not running into an endgame boss with a +0 or a +1 weapon. There's tons of weapons in Elden Ring, sure. There's tons of tools and tons of ways to play the game. However: until you get to Farum Azula, somber 9s and Ancient Sombers are a limited resource. I don't wanna spec into my strenght intelligence build and then have my only option to win be a dex endurance spear combo. That doesn't reward exploration, it limits build variety. I like Radagon being immune to bleed for example. However, I would like it if my hand of malenia still could swing fast enough to hit him between his 15 hit combo and his teleport-into-another combo. There might be better weapons, but I put in thousands of runes to get the sword to +10 and I'll be fucked to respec for one boss and go farm enough runes to go and get one of the maybe 5 meta weapons + builds that work against this one boss. The same goes for Mohg's little physick tear. It's a reward for the end of a questline. Questlines in Elden Ring without guides are borderline impossible to follow. You need to realise Yura is not Yura when arriving in the Mountaintops (I did not on my first playthrough), then go to an out-of-the-way location, defeat an invader and at that point you might not even know who in the hell Mohg is and what the tear does. It leaves you with possibly hours of other content between finding the tear and fighting Mohg. It rewards penning down everything and writing your own game guide or looking one up just as much if not more than it rewards exploring.

[@pinballforlife7948]

Yeah, I think an issue is just how oppressive the game can be depending on your build. Gideon is actually a really good example of this despite being a huge joke. Gideon will send you back to the nearest grace in an instant if you allow him to get his spells off. His rings, his projectile, his comet fucking Azure. Of course the first time you fight him you have the best chance because he allows you to take the first move. if your build is slow, or focused on lower damage then Gideon is hard. Same goes with both Radagon and Elden Bitch. If you've focused on build the whole game, well sorry hope you like dealing chip damage. It also doesn't help that the game hopes you've put 50+ levels into vigor , other wise most end game bosses 3 shot you even with some of the heavier armors and buffs. I think the devs wanted you to try out a lot of different things hence why respeccing is so easy compared to other souls games, but as you pointed out dropping your +9 weapon because you hit the equivalent of a brick wall with a rubber mallet when resources are limited till end game can be very disheartening for alot of people. This is why I think Elden ring is done best when playing with a friend, I have tons of criticisms with how the system is handled especially with invaders, but playing with a friend can be just the way to break down the game since you can coordinate with your friend and build accordingly to counter things they can't. My first ever full playthrough was with a friend, I did int, he did faith and it was pretty fun.

[@seanborell]

This says exactly what I was thinking. I felt trapped into my build just due to how much investment any change to it costs.

[@pinballforlife7948]

@@seanborell Yeah I have a cousin who has the same issue with these games. I think if respeccing and it was easier to gain upgrade stones (like a system where you can trade an item or a good amount of runes to transfer upgrades to an item) would be cool

[@insentia8424]

"You need to realise Yura is not Yura when arriving in the Mountaintops (I did not on my first playthrough)" There is nothing to 'figure out' there though. He literally tells you he's Shabriri, not the person the body belongs to, so it's just a matter of paying attention/reading, as valid as the rest of your points are. Though, the rewarding penning everything down part... that's gonna be different for everyone, as everyone's memory is different. And it's not an ER issue, it's an open world game issue in general.

[@hickok3]

@@pinballforlife7948 There are 4 smithing stone bell bearings, and 5 somber smithing stone bell bearings that you can turn into the Twin Maiden Husks in the Roundtable Hold which will give you an unlimited amount of smithing stones 1-8 and somber smithing stones 1-9. That will allow you to upgrade as many weapons as you want to farm runes for to +24 and+9 respectively.

[@IMDAMP2]

To add onto how the Serpent Hunter spear "levels the playing field" with Rykard, if the player somehow never saw and picked it up they still can kill Rykard rather easily with lore-accurate damage types like Black Flame and Destined Death. Ice Spear also works wonders against Rykard.

[@Ghorda9]

you can also heal like crazy and just wail on him close up for second phase, first phase you just wait for him to reach out.

[@TheMuffinManIsHappy]

@IMDAMP2 Aris from Avoiding the Puddle spent 11 hours beating Rykard with dual morningstars. It was hype af when he did it. His Elden Ring playthtrough is genuine gamer-god shit.

[@---iv5gj]

i just slashed around with dual weapons while my feet were burning and hoped for the best

[@timmoody5466]

Terrible fucking boss

[@christianlangdon3766]

Also it still makes the fight to easy spamming the first part of the ash of war stunlocks the boss, the hardest part is remembering to move two steps back since it moves you forward into his lava.

[@wealthknight6375]

"Lore accurate problems require lore accurate solutions"

[@wispy893]

1. You can be lore accurate, consistent and fair. This is like saying that in all of my shooter games I should take forever to reload because that's what life is like. But that doesn't make the gameplay enjoyable. 2. Just because you have options does not mean I should be forced into certain options. Yes, bloodhound step solves a lot. But if I want to use a cool weapon that comes with it's own ability, I'm screwed. That's not fun, nor interesting. 3. Yes, duo fights require something different than normal fights. But taking twin gargoyles as an example, just because you play it differently does not mean that it's automatically better. It's different sure, but that doesn't mean you solve the fight in an engaging manner.

[@ZarkAttack]

I get where you're coming from, but if this was what they were going for, it's sort of odd that they included single weapons and summons that can wreck 99% of the game by themselves. If you want the player to find the specific gear that solves each boss, adding a single gear set that trivializes the entire game is a strange move.

[@davidjackson9680]

Eh you gotta look at the past to see why it the way it is now so many shitty bosses until DS3 and bloodborne

[@epsilon1372]

Nah even dark souls was like that. Balancing a game this big is hard and I think it’s clear though the updates that even if they won’t make huge changes to bosses, they are willing to make many small balance adjustments to make things slightly more fair

[@ZarkAttack]

@@epsilon1372 a pocket summon that will literally allow me to sit on the ground and watch the boss die is not what I'd call a small balance adjustment in the name of fairness. Past games had similar mechanics, but they went too far here. That's the point of my OP.

[@epsilon1372]

@@ZarkAttack you missed my point. FromSoftware has released multiple balance patches that are fine tuning how powerful some of these tools are. Powerful summons and weapons have received nerfs such as the mimic tear whereas weaker weapons and spells have received buffs so that the overall experience of the game is more balanced. That’s what I meant by small balance adjustments

[@ZarkAttack]

@@epsilon1372 they probably should've done that before releasing the game then, cuz that does nothing to retroactively fix my experience with it.

[@gamingbean6440]

My main problem with the bosses was past the halfway mark their HP bars started to get insanely big. To the point where weapon variety or what you wanted to use went out the window in favour of the things that hit big numbers consistently or can stagger or both. Bleed, Frostbite, Dual Katana or, (and this is the one I see most streamers using) Dual Great sword. I can deal with dying in a couple hits. But when its that plus a fight taking super long just because I decided playing with a rapier was more enjoyable than two comically oversized swords or hammers... starts to feel like the game is forcing you into a playstyle. Which is something I didn't feel with any of the other souls games or bloodborne. And it's a shame honestly. Because there's a lot of cool stuff I want to use that the game seems to actively try to dissuade me from using with bosses like this. But c'est la vie. or rather c'est la souls. I still love Elden Ring. But replayability is hampered by some choices they made with it in my honest opinion. PS. If you wanna make the godskin fight super easy? Just bring sleep arrows or Trina's torch. Sleep one. As long as you dont hit it once it sleeps it'll stay sleeping for long enough to easily kill the other one. After that their spawns can stay pretty staggered turning it into a godskin gauntlet more than anything. I hate the fight, but this makes it more manageable.

[@zanderclark1461]

In PVP i agree that build variety suffers. You can basically do anything you like in PvE though. Meta doesn't matter, long as you level your weapons and play well anything is possible.

[@keskeyy]

Want to make it even easier??? Cop any two curved swords, dual seppuku, and just use jump attacks, if you fully commit with talismans and armour you can drain the entire health bar in 4~6 attacks

[@tinminator8905]

I have played the game many times with many builds and optimized all of them. What you say only applies if you don't specifically build for an item. All my builds were so broken at the end of the game that I could easily deal with the tankiest bosses, no problem. Numbers in the mid thousands for one spell or one Ash of War are common practice if you build correctly. Strenght, Dex, Arcane, Magic, Faith and any combination of the mix has at least 2 weapons that are really cool and really powerful. And even the weakest weapons can easily deal 1000 damage in one hit if you build around them completely. The weakest thing I have tried were bows and even those can be insanely powerful against very big bosses with rain of arrows. The tools the game offers you for any given build are so diverse and powerful that everything is broken and can make the game very easy. If you have trouble with the bosses past the half way mark, it really does just mean that you need to go out there and find the right items for your build.

[@fdevaa]

Meta always exist, its just that desire to end things quickly that lures you into that mindset of min-maxing the shit out of everything simply because you know it's available to you. Also given how large Elden Ring is, it also makes you not want to get stuck on a particular boss for too long. That and playing the game DS-style isn't the way to go and by that I mean using mostly R1 attack. Gotta use everything this time.

[@YetiCoolBrother]

@@tinminator8905 Was gonna basically say this exactly, if anything I felt like several of the late game bosses health bars were too short and this is on both my STR/INT playthrough and my FAITH/DEX playthrough. Maliketh specifically is notorious for this.

[@jakubborowski8428]

I feel like the problem with the "just go explore" argument arrives from how ultimately pointless fighting a lot of the enemies in the open-world is. Sure, in Limgrave, when you fight a couple of enemies you get enough souls for a level up or a couple.. As soon as you reach levels that are written in double-digits, this gradually loses value and when you hit 30, something that's really low level-wise all things considered.. Becomes at best a chore. So yes, while its true that you can find that one Dungeon with the game-changing tool or weapon, its likely that you will run into one of the many dungeons with a weak spell or incantation, something your build can't even use or another spirit ashes to throw on the pile of useless summons because we all know the named summons, like the Headless Knight lady, Tiche or the Banished Knight summons are a better pick 90% of the time. I don't think I know anyone who went out of their way to fight the patrols, or even enemies guarding the ruins later on in the game instead of just rushing for the downstairs bossfight or moving right pass them, and its for this reason. The amount of souls we get is retarded, the red froggo from Morg's pocket dimension is worth more than most mid-game and late-game enemies while genuinely difficult fights give scant resources to improve with.

[@jamesruth100]

Non named spirit ashes aren't completely useless, there's just so many of them that the good ones are drowned out by all the bad ones. Demi human ashes can do dipshit damage if you set the time to night because they, like normal demi humans, get the red eye damage buff and are more aggressive. When it comes to the soldier ashes you have the shield squad (which are honestly hilarious and trivializes some fights), the raya lucaria soldiers who have a good mix of range and melee damage with some magic support items, and the redmanes can be nuts on anything weak to fire. The ancestral archer is a lot like the albinauric woman named ash in terms of doing really good ranged damage except he can move around. Sure, Tiche, mimic tear, the mausoleum knight, etc are all SUPER strong and are typically better than non-named ashes when you want just one REALLY strong ally, but non-named ashes still have a niche for when you want to prioritize splitting the boss's attention since many of the better non-named ashes summon 3 or more dudes.

[@viggen88]

Idk, I often go out of my way to clear ruins, patrols, etc, because I simply find it fun. No other reason really, I just enjoy killing regular enemies. Regarding spirit summons, I feel like a lot of people optimize the fun out of them. I've found it really common to see people look up "what is the strongest summon in ER?". And exlusively use mimic and/or Tiche for the rest of their playthrough. I personally use Deenth and Amon as my main summons, not because they're super strong, but because they're fun and I like them, while still lending me a helping hand, without trivializing bosses

[@jakubborowski8428]

@@Ab-he4vf The problem is that these patrols aren't worth enough. And of course, I'm well-aware that there are other materials in the caverns. As I said: its not that all of them are useless, its that there's some that are really good, some that are alright and some that are downright useless where sadly, the useless category is quite large. The only time this whole "Just go back to exploring" actually works and has a real impact is possibly The Fell Omen boss-fight as yes, it'll take you a couple of hours at most to clear out most of Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula, you'll return much, much stronger. But alright, let's say you're struggling with Radahn.. What do you do? Do you just murder the patrols in his area which are gonna be worth like 1500 souls in total when you're approaching 15 000 per level up? This is why people have taken to farming routes and don't care to explore much beyond what they need.

[@jakubborowski8428]

@@viggen88 Yeah, to an extent I can see the point. Honestly, I wish their scaling would be level-based and not something you have to upgrade as people aren't going to go back to the Round Table Hold to upgrade Ashes they can't bank on but instead switch between the two or three they have upgraded. I feel like it'd be nice if we could simply swap them out more at will so things like.. Oh, the Demi-human buff at night thing would be more feasible. Or equipping a summon that applies a certain status to a boss we know is weak to it, that kinda stuff.

[@jakubborowski8428]

@@zerkalo2861 They.. They literally have a shopping list of items with a website that has all their locations on in the background throughout the entire run.. They only hit up the ones they need, which they know from a pre-prepared list of things they need to get.

[@goblinsuburb]

i honestly didn’t have a huge issue with the number of repeat bosses, mainly because there are still just so many bosses. i also kind of liked the tree sentinels and night’s cavalry bosses cuz it felt like there was an actual reason for them. like, the idea of being hunted down by an ancient organization of highly trained knight assassins sent by the king to kill you is rad as hell imo. even some of the godskins were fine, because it was kind of cool knowing there’s some midsummar-type cult going around skinning people (duo fight was still obnoxious). My big issue was with the sheer ridiculous quantity of tree spirits, as well as the second astel and ancestor spirits. both the ancestor spirit and astel felt incredibly special and unique, it felt like they really had a place of genuine importance in the world. like, the idea that there is a group of subterranean minotaurs who find this ghost moose just as important and godly as the elden beast is to us (although granted, they’re not trying to kill it) is fascinating, and really adds a sense of realism and depth. and then you just randomly find another one and all of a sudden all that meaning is gone. same with astel, it really cheapens ranni’s story. like c’mon, you’re going to make the final boss of maybe the most significant quest in the game a repeat? you’re telling me i manage to pull a literal godess after whooping her divorced mom’s ass and killing her dog and my reward is a repeat boss? smh

[@hamaru7642]

For me, the problem with Astel is not that there are two of them, it's that the remembrance one is so much easier. Why not give us the "juvenile" and weak astel first and at the end of Rannis quest the real deal.

[@dogf421]

i think of repeat bosses as just really big enemies that happen to have a health bar, just as in the early game you see things one would definitely call a regular enemy as a boss (like the pumpkin head or beastman of ferum azula) basically the line between boss and enemy is highly blurred and i kinda like that

[@snipercomrade3059]

I think Sekiro had a really nice balance in spectacle and combat design. Bosses and minibosses had a multitude of attacks that varied in terms of continuos attacks, thrusts, sweeps, etc. The thing is, the player was empowered alongside the bosses; when enemies performed strong attacks you could counter everything while dealing damage to them. So even if the player doesn't have that strength in movesets and damage, you can obtain it through sheer skill and through the flow of the game. Both defensive and offensive actions made short work of an enemy. You also had prosthetics to aid you in battle with each having their own unique aspect. But the one thing that I really liked about Sekiro is that you could counter enemies' movements as well, not just attack patterns. For instance, you can throw a shuriken and perform a chasing slice to close distance, you can thrust them with a spear and yank them back, you can jump back or sprint to create and close distance without having to worry out stamina; but you still have to keep an eye on your posture. What this allows is for the player to feel strong and competent through skill and mastery of the systems the game provides. The problem I have with Elden Ring is I don't believe the player is properly equipped to be fighting against the demigods. I've personally completed Elden ring a total of 15 times, and I still feel our character is just weak. you get better at the game the more you play, just like the other titles, but that sense of insignificance is still there even if you achieve a high amount of skill. I understand that the demigods are supposed to be fearsome beings with unique abilities but Fromsoft could've at least given us faster movement to compete with these beings. I always feel slow and unworthy when fighting these bosses from a mechanical standpoint. I don't have a problem feeling that way in terms of the lore, we're just a regular human going up against these cool af warriors but I would've really liked to see the player being able to challenge the demigods throughout the entire fight while actually making you feel like a true lord contender. But leaving aside the spectacle of the Elden Ring bosses, visual clarity of certain attacks could be better communicated to the player. Attacks such as the Noble Presence of the Godskin Noble, is something that I dislike about this title. You have to deal with moves that come out faster than the speed of light while losing a considerable amount of health, especially in ng+7. When a case like this happens, you as a player get reinforced to play passive-aggressively in anticipation of that specific attack. This becomes more of a problem when you use heavier weapons and results in the player getting punised for correctly punishing the enemy. Anyway, these are my thoughts on this subject, thank you for reading.

[@therookie4881]

Dude you put it perfectly. I kind of wish you could use god like attacks like Dragonlord Placidusax lightning nuke attack without it being watered down to foot soldier level. I wish you could start weak as hell and eventually become a worthy contender for the demise gods

[@bigboi8028]

Sekiro is just the peak of Fromsoft games, at least from a mechanical perspective. And no fight has been able to reach the perfection of both Isshin Ashina fights, both for story significance and the actual fight

[@therookie4881]

@@bigboi8028 agreed the soundtrack, spectacle, arena, combat, and story significance made isshin the sword saint the single most badass fight I have ever done in a video game.

[@bigboi8028]

@@therookie4881 Even Shura Isshin felt amazing. Just the image of an old man desperately trying to stop you from becoming fully evil was so badass.

[@therookie4881]

@@bigboi8028 the stops that old man pulls out is terrifying even on his last day. When he side steps your slash it is almost like his body language says "I am old for good reason boy".

[@Ramblering]

Your point about the spectacle is somewhat similar to the one I made elsewhere -- Elden Ring was designed to be closer to high fantasy concepts and therefore both the world and the player have access to a multitude of tools and moves that can be described as "flashy" or "overpowered", particularly in comparison to the somber, more grounded tone of Dark Souls. Obviously I agree. I disagree, however, in how much that excuses the lack of balance in the game. Modular difficulty in the Souls style can only take you so far in such a framework before the strategies you use start to feel like manipulating the game too much to get what you want -- in other words, feel like a cheese. This is a design issue. And the reason why you had to spend some time discussing the Godskin Duo fight: because it is one very prominent moment in the game that shows how the different design philosophy either was not ready to be displayed in a tighter way, or maybe that it has less to do with design and is more about trying to make the game challenging without much concern to how ("don't worry, they will figure out something"). That said, I really like Elden Ring for what it is. It is a mess of balance but it works more than it had any right to, because From Software excels in many other ways.

[@Way2MLG4u]

Very eloquently put I completely agree, I have never been against games prioritizing a single aspect of design (Spectacle in the case of Elden Ring) however I don't think it's worth it in the case of Elden Ring, I can't help but not be impressed most of the time since bosses are MOSTLY ( I emphasize this so that nobody replies with one or two exceptions ) either dead easy, an absoulte chore or require a item or specific strategy this would be fine if the game didn't have a 100 plus bosses the game is simply too long to be doing the same thing over and over especially with how boring the exploration can feel towards the end of the game exploring the same catacombs over and over again for items you will more likely than not never use is outright mentally draining the and bosses are the worst they have ever been balance wise, leaving what was once one of if not the best and most consistent parts of FromSofts games as a blemish on Elden Ring which makesme extremely sad as fan of the studio especially since this game was preceeded by Sekiro which may be their second best game to date. P.S: Forgive any grammatical errors I am writing this at an absurdly late time.

[@opgroundzero2.0]

these bosses never felt sastisfying to beat, atleast for me.

[@JACKALTOOTH100]

@@opgroundzero2.0 Same. I beat Malenia twice without tools like Bloodhoundstep. Never again. Most of the bosses were terribly unfun.

[@johnstajduhar9617]

That's the problem with the "answer" to Malenia so often being touted as getting out a mimic tear and one of a couple absurd Ashes (Blasphemous Blade, Giant Hunt, Prelate's Charge) and spamming. Sure that's a way of using all the tools the game gives you, but it doesn't feel like you're mastering that fight (in the way that beating Artorias or Demon Princes or Fume Knight did), it just feels like you're beating it down with force that the game can't deal with. While that can be cathartic to a certain degree, it just leaves me feeling relieved that it's over, not hyped as fuck that I overcame it (like first time beating Sword Saint Isshin did).

[@judekaraki1650]

im gonna be honest man. you can be lore accurate while being CONSISTENT. my main issue with the boss design is the crazy rng involved with getting an opening when using this that arent strictly meta. you, by principle, have to get at least a decent amount of good rng to beat malenia with an off meta weapon, it makes most deaths feel completely undeserved when i lose the coin toss of whether she will extend her combo or run away 5 times in a row. its not reactable and its not fun. imo, the best boss in the game by a considerable margin is radagon because, while godly and powerful, he feels FAIR. i lose that fight because i mess up, not because the game decided to do 5 attack cycles in a row.

[@joshuaoommen4617]

Radagon can spam his bullshit insta teleport away to teleport directly into you mid attack thing like 5 times in a row which is infuriating but otherwise yeah was a solid boss

[@mayo5004]

@@shimapanzer9930 they’ve done this in other games too

[@varsoonhks3211]

You're fucking up if you're still trying to play a game of 'reacting' to get your hits in. Be more proactive. If you can't find an opening, it's because you're either not approaching the encounter correctly or you're so meta-cucked you insist on not summoning a spirit ash.

[@judekaraki1650]

​@@varsoonhks3211 lmao. you really typed that up and thought "hehe I got him so good with this one." Have you considered perchance actually reading my comment? or perhaps any other extremely similar critiques? get miyazakis knob out of your throat and realize that what I said is completely valid and has almost nothing to do with your reply.

[@antoineguerrier2965]

I have a strong distaste for Radagon. From the moment I got my hands on the Dark Moon Greatsword, I used it as my main source of damage complemented by spells when I needed more range / AoE or wanted to style on enemies with Ranni's Dark Moon. Radagon can and will cancel projectiles, including the Dark Moon Greatsword's. I had to resort to Carian Slicing his ass which wasn't hard since it's the best spell in the game, but it wasn't a fun or stylish fight. It felt like the boss made me cheese him which I didn't enjoy. At least Elden Beast didn't pull this kind of bullshit and I could happily use my whole arsenal against it. Still a shit fight.

[@Gh0st652]

It's a shame they weren't able to get the roaming Nights Cavalry to work because that would've made them so much more interesting. I do agree, however, that they aren't quite as egregious as the Tree avatars and the Ulcer boys. I also like the Tibia Mariner from a design pov.

[@slammer1017]

I like the exploration and tool discovery aspect of Elden ring, but I don't necessarily want to use every tool I find on every build. Sure a faith spell may be really effective against a certain boss but I may not want to use it on my sorcerer because I'm a role-playing nerd. On my first playthrough I beat everything with the trusty Zweihander but I was really handicapping myself.

[@Bannschwert]

That was the reason I wanted to stick to heavy INT Sorcery for my first playthrough. And boi... was that hard (I didn't use either infinite FP Flasks nor the Meteor Sling). Every Boss after Liurnia had an attack that would take 80-90% of my health, because I just didn't invest in Vitality all too heavily. Every Boss had ranged attacks to interrupt my spell casting, every Boss could move across the arena or use ranged attacks, so keeping a distance was useles... But I went to Caelid early and immediatly got Moonveil (playing completely blind), so I had that going for me. It wasn't really playing a Sorcerer though, more like a magical Ninjasamurai. But Boss design was really annoying me, especially in the end. It's hard to admit when a FromSoft game burns you out... it sucks. Btw: Comet Azure is only selectively good, as most Bosses can just dodge it. Malenia in phase 2 is very stationary in her Lotus though. That's the only time I really felt that spell.

[@catiminiclergus537]

@@Bannschwert just 80%? XD I was a full mage too in my first play through, and boy if it weren’t for the shielding flask that gives one hit immunity, I d have been forced to invest in vigor. Ranni’s full moon op tho xD

[@Bannschwert]

@@catiminiclergus537 I was guessing at the lower end. I'm pretty sure there were enough attacks that went over 100%. Radahn (who I fought as the second Shard Bearer) had a lot of them... But the fight was fun and epic. And only mildly bullshit compared to others :D

[@lllXanderlll]

I had the freaking clarifying crystal tear for Mohg and I completely forgot that I had the damn thing because I got it about twenty or more hours of play time before getting to Mohg. So I just had to brute force heal through the nihil, I really think it would've been a much better idea to have it be a key item of some kind. That way you wouldn't need to remember to equip it or run the risk of forgetting you have it

[@yeid44]

That's what happened to me too. An ingame message in the boss area or before the boss area would have been great

[@aaronspagnut9546]

I pointed a comet azur at him, he died before second phase.

[@lightpoint4426]

I only found out that thing existed recently, and am grateful, because I'm REALLY going to need it when my glass cannon sorcerer gets to Mohg 0.o Honestly ranged is nastier than melee in some ways.

[@theresnothinghere1745]

I had it but never used it because I honestly didn't see the need. I already knew the first phase from fighting Mog in the capital so the attack just felt like an interesting gimmick where I needed to do the fight with 2 less flasks.

[@haydeng3541]

Or had some way of avoiding the attack without the item. The best example I can think of is Manus in Dark souls one with the dark spell attacks that could be negated with the silver pendant, but if you didn't find the pendant, or forgot you had it, there was still a way that dodge each spell

[@AbyssViber1028]

From a lore perspective too, the Nights Calvary were a group of knights that served under Morgott so I made sense why they were a constant throughout the journey. Though I know a lot of people going in didn’t care about the lore so yeah.

[@1oace768]

I said this awhile ago on a different video. But I think the thing about a lot of the bosses is they are portrayed in as stated a heroic light. In that when you enter their arena you are as much a boss to them as they are to you. Which is why Radahn's fight is full of summonable NPCs. Not just because of the story of the festival, but also because he is a warrior of cosmic power that must be brought down through great force of will and combined might.

[@weebto]

I think it's a lot more simple than that: elden ring bosses are indeed more cinematic than ever before, but your character's agility is virtually unchanged from how it used to be in DS3. Granted, you can jump, you can crouch, you can ride a horse, you can dual wield weapons and ashes of war are infinitely more viable, but the input queueing times, controls and essential, underlying framework are the exact same as what they used to be. Meanwhile, bosses have faster combos, more aoes, enhanced tracking and input reading, they deal more damage and they sometimes cheat for the sake of it (I think we all know which video title I'm referring to). Just think about the way Sekiro did it: hyper aggressive bosses? Well, your control scheme gets completely reworked so that you can immediately have more suitable ways to deal with them at your disposal (mikiri counter, dodge into a sprint, instant button presses, fast deflects etc.). The bosses are drastically reworked, but so is your character. Even something as mechanically simple as the demon of hatred, which people hate because it's "a dark souls boss within sekiro", would be absolutely impossible to defeat without being able to jump or use the grapple hook. That's because the boss is still essentially built around the combat system, in spite of everything. It might've been a scrapped dark souls boss, but the designers did their best to make him fit, and the same thing can't be said about Tomo- ehm, Malenia. Let's say a boss in DS3 does 0.8 actions per every player action. That's your baseline, that's what makes fights work. No matter how strong they may be lorewise, they may be a literal god of war and lightning, a giant dragon housing an an abyssal nuke, a stray slave possessed by the dark soul itself or the literal incarnation of all the heroes who ever linked the flame. They NEVER feel artificial for the sake of it. They speak the same language as your character. I've completed both games at level 1, dying many, MANY times against both DS3 and ER bosses and I'm sorry I have to say this, but what I just wrote above does not apply to elden ring in the slightest. Elden ring bosses do 1.2 or 1.6 actions per every player action, throwing the balance off by a huge margin. I agree with you about the game wanting you to rely on tools to make it, but in my opinion this shouldn't come at the cost of core design integrity and balance. Steamrolling a boss isn't fun, but neither is getting your ass kicked for hours on end. It's basically horizontal (as in "how honestly does the boss behave") versus vertical difficulty (as in "the boss is bs, but so are my dual +10 rivers of blood and maxed out mimic tear, so let's kic their butt"). The two approaches do, in fact, accomplish a similar goal, but by entirely different means.

[@JP-ob8sx]

To add to your point about Sekiro, hyper-aggressive bosses worked in your favor due to deflections and the posture system. Being aggressive is key as evidenced by Isshin stating “Hesitation is defeat”. Malenia’s waterfowl dance is a perfect example. In Elden Ring if you dodge incorrectly you’re dead 95% of the time. Whereas in Sekiro mastering the deflection timing would almost certainly break her posture. It turns what I consider a bullshit move by a boss into the ultimate risk/reward scenario.

[@weebto]

@@JP-ob8sx yeah, there's no flow whatsoever. In sekiro, deflecting still somewhat counts as attacking, as filling that posture bar is bringing you closer to the kill. The boss keeps attacking even after kamehameha moves but it doesn't matter, you sti got something out of the exchange, and perhaps more importantly, you came out unscathed. Malenia behaves the exact same way, except the whole deflect/posture element is taken out of the equation. Take a look at nameless king or soul of cinder and notice how their most dangerous attacks are ALWAYS followed by a few much needed seconds of downtime. Sister Friede's 3rd phase and Midir's laser show, and the way they respectively react to backstabs and head ripostes are egregious examples in this regard. Meanwhile, there's no flow to Malenia. She leaves you no downtime. Her attacks are rather poorly planned too, you can avoid all of her phase 2 clones by simply staying far enough, or you can deal with them the hard way. And yet, you gain nothing out of either scenario, lmao. Again, she would've worked in Sekiro, she would've been garbage in DS3. Elden ring is much closer to the latter, unfortunately

[@felipetartas5434]

@@JP-ob8sx The difference is simple, defense is attack in Sekiro. You can kill some enemies only defending. So, when some one are attacking you, you are also playing against the enemy, you are doing a action like Vittorio say about DS3 and Elden Ring.

[@scottbecker4367]

It was the same for Bloodborne to a lesser extent. Faster enemies? Faster player plus the rally system. I've never understood the argument that ER has a different combat system and we're just not used to it. It's not that we're not used to it. It's that it's not optimized for the game it's in. From has already revamped the combat system twice (three times if you count the faster DS3). Excusing the poor optimization because they changed things up a bit isn't really an argument.

[@Possume]

I think the godskin duo should have been something unique like a pumped up version of one of them or like the "Godskin King". I think the reason they didn't do the same as ornstein and smough is because you already encountered at least one noble or apostole so it wouldnt make much sense to have a completely second phase

[@1Drakorn]

They could have had a "Godskin Priest" or something, an ancient being that remained in Farum Azula to watch over Malekith and the Dragon Lord.

[@Eshtian]

It wouldn't make sense to give the story version of a boss a unique second phase?

[@oldcowbb]

wasn't there like a queen or something related to the godskin folks in item description

[@adamreplogle6803]

@@oldcowbb Yeah, the Gloam-Eyed Queen, an Empyrean like Malenia/Marika. Buuut she's presumed dead by the time the game starts (would've made for a hella cool boss fight tho)

[@r-d-v]

My one argument against the gear you find being useful is the upgrade system. “Ooh new weapon, this could be useful against this one boss I’ve been struggling with - let me just invest way too many resources into upgrading it so it’s ACTUALLY useful.” We need a weapon respec system. Let us refund smithing stones - or just ditch the upgrade system OR levelling system. Both restrict the player

[@kaizoaudio1798]

The Astro creatures and explained as fully mature/ evolved form of Falling Star Beasts.

[@earlll811]

I generally agree with what you said. I feel they should’ve stuck to a rule to not repeat any rememberance fight; Margit is different enough from Margot so I’m fine with that, other than the Margit that appears in Altus. One of the other fights I think repeating hurts are the dragon fights, the first time I fought one was one of the most fun moments I had in the game, but then with the additional fights just becomes tedious. One other thing I think is that the game shouldn’t have any unavoidable damage, I think all types of damage should be avoidable. For Mogh, I’d say if they included the damage reduction crystal in the Moghwyn palace area, I’d be fine with it, just makes it more likely for the player to find it and just makes more sense in general. I also feel some bosses just have too long of combos, by the time they’re done with it I’m already out of stamina. What I’d change for Malenia’s fight is that she can’t lifesteal of off shields and that she uses Waterfowl as a gap closer, I don’t think she should be able to use it right on top of you. My general opinion on Elden Ring’s main bosses is that they’re all really close to being great, but one aspect of the fight lowers their quality

[@orange-st2je]

What do you mean by unavoidable damage? Like the kind of damage maliketh has after you get hit?

[@yannengrevier]

​@@orange-st2je I think he meant by "unavoidable" one that you can't roll,, or jump or block with a shield, or that can't be i-framed in any capacity. The only one I can think of is the nihil from Mogh (please correct me if I'm wrong). I don't think the life drains from maliketh counts because you have to take a hit from one of his attack to recieve this effect, so in my book it's not unfair.

[@orange-st2je]

@@yannengrevier yeah that's what I was thinking. So now I think when people say unavoidable the actually meant that some attackes are way too fast to the point where you have to predict it to avoid damage, kinda like when godrick surrounds himself with wind before rolling around you.

[@ivanlagayacrus1891]

@@yannengrevier nihil, waterfowl, godricks wind shit, elden stars

[@Asrlex95]

I don't really get your points. Apart from Mohg's ring punishment, there is literally no unavoidable damage in the game I can think of. Also, how are any of the main bosses' fights not great (Obviously other than the stupid duo)? Rennala, Godrick, Morgott, Radahn, Fire Giant, Rykard, Maliketh, Godfrey/Hoara Loux, Radagon and EB are all great design, mechanics and OST-wise. What aspects lower theis quality? The only exception I could find is maybe your WFB criticism. But still then it's meant to be the hardest fight in the game and you don't even need to kill her to beat the game.

[@shorddy1668]

Tbh all this game needed was to take a more Bloodborne approach to player speed. They could have also gone full action game like they did with Sekiro but in a different way. I just think that with the way that the bosses have evolved to be much more insane, a similar evolution should have been done in terms of player combat. Ashes of war are definitely a great start tho.

[@joshuaoommen4617]

If we were faster the bosses would actually be so fun. Seeing the boss do some anime shitfuck combo and having to perfectly dodge all of it or die in two hits just to see the boss finish the combo by literally just jumping all the way back to the other side of the arena before I could even get a hit in is just boring af. Even worse sometimes they chain the combo with the same combo again and then jump back lol. Like what was the point?

[@thephoenix4093]

this game would have been much better if the gameplay wasn't dark souls type, imagine if you were as fast as malenias's waterflow dance, allowing you to dodge it.

[@varsoonhks3211]

It's an RPG, not an action game. People like you keep forgetting that. The answer is often not 'Action game better' but 'solve the RPG' instead.

[@RaizanMedia]

@@varsoonhks3211 It's a pretty bare bones RPG then, mate. Static, rather dead open world with very little way for the roleplay part. Decent NPCs but not much in quests, immense amount of repeat bosses, etc...

[@varsoonhks3211]

@@RaizanMedia Yeah, such a bare bones RPG, only over a hundred spells and weapons to choose from, a world with its lore co-authored by one of the most prolific fantasy authors of our lifetime, multiple questlines, multiple endings, full character creation, etc. The open world isn't as dynamic as I would like but factions are actively engaged in combat, patrols roam, you liberate multiple fortresses, and a meteor crashes into the ground to allow you to visit a forgotten underworld. There are more unique bosses in this game than any of this scope that's come before it, too, so your complaint that there are 'repeat' bosses only serves to highlight your own mental shortcomings as you gargle the poorly-formed detritus that is the most popular weak take. None of those qualities you mention render the game as a 'bare bones' RPG. The game also rewards exploration with build options; has dynamic interactions with enemies and bosses and even the environment as a result of wielding those options; features over a paragraph of text on every item you can acquire in order to situate it within its world. Narratively, it is an RPG. Mechanically, the core system that you engage with is an RPG--upgrading, personalizing, and progressing your character as you explore the world is the central feature of the game. I'm not claiming it's a masterpiece by any means--quests and dialogue are as esoteric many prior FROMsoft RPGs--but 'bare-bones' is not an adjective I'd ever couple with Elden Ring.

[@BlackHe4rtQueen]

I don't mind the repeated appearances, I'd say it does a sort of benchmark in my brain like "hah, this is cute. I used to die to this" and makes me happy about my progress.

[@steelerfaninperu]

I know I'm mad late to the party, but 100% agree. It's nice to get several attempts on a similar enemy, and the small wrinkles thrown in do keep it interesting. I was getting my booty clapped by putrid Avatars because I liked to stay close. And there's the one that clones itself. That felt like a completely different fight. It feels good to master their patterns over the course of a playthrough.

[@yurifairy2969]

ppl have unrealistic expectations, no way a game this big could ever not reuse bosses

[@DLCSpider]

When I first found Malenia I used the Fallingstar Beast Jaw and noticed that two Ashes of War plus a regular attack staggered her. Obviously, I tried to do three ashes imediately the next time I went into the room. But it didn't do anything. Even worse, her stagger meter seems to go back to zero and you're left with nothing but a little bit of extra damage. I go punished for trying to figure out the fight... never happend in a FromSoft game before and felt EXTREMELY cheap.

[@kilroywashere5816]

I appreciate this perspective, and I’d say that it is accurate towards the type of game Elden Ring is. However, I don’t think that just because the game was “designed” around exploration and item discovery that means it was a good decision. For me, From’s combat and bosses have always been so memorable, even when not the best designed because they focused on honing the skills of the players. In my opinion, asking the player to find better gear instead of refining their skills to beat a boss just isn’t fun progression. More than anything, it makes encounters trivial after the first play through when it is less about skill and more about knowing the right spot on the map to find the best gear to kill them

[@gdn5001]

But the point in the video is that it doesn't. The purifying tear doesn't trivialize Mohg, it just levels the fight more. That was the point of the Rykard analogy.

[@leo-shun]

They encourage you to go out there and comet azur the Fuck out of bosses

[@arcanefire7511]

Getting gud is still as valid as ever, it just also rewards exploration in many ways, as a good open world game should.

[@kilroywashere5816]

@@gdn5001 I’m kinda talking in absolutes since I don’t want to make my comment 50 paragraphs long. Mohg is one of my favorite bosses ever and Elden ring has some other really fun encounters too! I do wish that in general game balance was considered more since on both ends it can get sloppy. Both in terms of boss move sets and damage being overtuned and player tools being overtuned in some cases

[@iota-09]

it's simply more of an rpg than the souls games, really.

[@mingQWERTY]

I've talked about this in the past and have made several comments regarding this topic (the balance and abilities of bosses). The conclusion I've reached is that this game is not Dark Souls 3 or Bloodborne which is why more of the newer players to Elden Ring find it less 'frustrating' than the 'Souls veterans' who have been around since Demon Souls or Dark Souls 1. However, there's also a problem and this is something FromSoft has failed for ER. Let me explain. FromSoft has a new design philosophy in this game that seems to be very deceptive. From the start you are given the UI and feel of Dark Souls 3 so many players automatically assume that you can just roll through everything. While that is still true, it is much more difficult compared to Dark Souls 3. The game wants you to do more than just 'roll and r1'. Ashes of war, a customizable weapon art system has been implemented, you can now jump, guard counters and the ability for your character to run or walk. Elden Ring wants you to not rely on your reflexes as much and positioning is much more crucial. This is because if you just spam roll like you did with Dark Souls 3 and similar games you're going to find yourself be caught in hitboxes of combos or aoes. There are some bosses with some attacks where you can literally just walk to the side while they're winding them up (Margit/Morgott, Mogh) and some bosses that require you to think and move in the right direction. Maliketh's a prime example of this. I often see people get hit by his Destined Death weapon art but what people don't latch onto is how if you are not close to him while he comes down and stand on his sword, he will flip towards you to activate the weapon art and what you're meant to do is walk or roll towards him as his attack appears at the front. As for long combos, you've got 2 options. Roll at the right time (this is difficult to master in ER) or run away and come back after the combo is finished. I think I know which one is the better option for avoiding the most amount of hits. AOE's? The same thing, you roll at the right time except this time you need to roll towards the right direction, typically towards the aoe as the hitbox spreads or run away (like with Astel). But there are some AOEs and sweeping attacks that can simply be jumped over. Prime examples are Maliketh (he has 5 attacks that can be jumped over in the 2nd phase), Godfrey, Radagon and Elden Beast. Remember this list later, it'll be important for me to explain the problem with this new design philosophy. Now, let's talk about the problem and that is how FromSoft failed to tell this to the player. Remember the list of bosses I put down for the aoes and sweeping attacks? Well, they're basically the last stretch of bosses you've got to fight before the game ends and that is a problem. If you don't get the player to get used to this, they're not going to learn. Margit is a great teacher with his delayed attacks, input readings and combos. However, his combat lessons are overshadowed by his lesson of 'go out and come back later' so what people will do is just go do all of Limgrave and Weeping to return with like 50 levels ahead and wipe him off the map. Sure, Godrick can teach the player to jump over aoes but that's pretty much the only early game bosses that tells you that. It's not 'hand-holding' to tell your players what to do in fights because they've still got to master their skills on their own. Tutorial bosses like Ludex Gundyr work because Dark Souls 3 is a significantly smaller game and it's less mechanically complex. And that is what I believe to be the root of the problem, From's lack of ability to adapt. They've added so many things into the game and changed or improved existing features from previous titles but they don't fully try to teach you about them. Edit: I want to talk about repeat and or duo bosses and just so we're clear I have almost nothing positive to say about the latter. I believe repeat bosses are fine, it's an open-world game and it's bound to happen. You're not going to have 165 completely unique bosses and some repeats work well. But as many have said in this comment section, too many are not good. I am sick of fighting the Ulcerated Tree Spirits over and over and over again. As for gank bosses... man oh man, it pains me to say that FromSoft completely dropped the ball on this because Dark Souls 3 had some of the best multi-enemy bosses in the series from the Abyss Watchers to Sister Friede to Demon in Pain & Demon from Below. In this game, however, FromSoft just placed 2 individual bosses meant to be fought individually in a room. So what do they do to balance it? Make one attack you while the other just moves around and keeps its distance. This would work if the 2nd boss had ranged attacks which are well telegraphed but they don't have that so it'll just become a normal 1v1 and then another 1v1.

[@derrickcrowe3888]

I agree and have argued the same thing. To compare to Bloodborne, I started the game with the Dark Souls mindset/playstyle, and by the second boss I had the realization "Okay, this isn't working. I need to rethink things." In Elden Ring, I played it like Dark Souls (no ash summons, modest weapon arts) as well, but I didn't have that "This isn't working" realization until Maliketh, basically the end of the game. If From was trying to communicate that ER isn't just open world Dark Souls, they did a horrendous job.

[@voidbow9964]

Couldn't agree more. On top of that, the last stretch of bosses acts in total cotradiction with the "struggling ? Go explore and come back later" philosophy, because of the unreasonnable damage and HP spike. By that point of the game, players have probably explored most of the map already, so they can't get stronger "by the numbers" anymore. I'm still certain they put the farming spot in Mohgwyn's palace by design so that players wouldn't get stuck. It's either "Go respec" or "Use the best weapons in the game", or use spirits. Same thing with powerstancing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but afaik, it's not told anywhere in the game, even tho it's an insanely useful tool that can basically double your damage output.

[@mingQWERTY]

@@voidbow9964 Agreed. By the time you reach the Mountaintops, the 'explore and come back' philosophy would've become pretty much redundant as you've probably got all that's required for your build save for a few legendary spells or weapons. However, I think powerstancing is *partially* balanced by the fact that guard counters exist and if you play very aggressive with that mechanic with a heavier weapon you can continously guard break bosses so it'll be you not giving the enemy time to breathe instead of the other way around.

[@shizukousapostle1stapostle710]

Yep there are so many bosses and Enemies with attacks you literally can't roll out of safely because they are so fast that if keep rolling you will get hit... obvious examples are the 4 armed guards who go mental...you all know which one...they want you to take different approaches which sometimes work sometimes doens't

[@darrenmwa]

YES finally someone gets it.

[@thegoose8663]

I would say FS simply failed with their bossfight design. There being so much discussion around it is the main proof of it. "If you do good nobody will notice if you do bad you get a 0 on metacritic" or whatever. Like with anything in video games its not about how something works its about how something feels. Godskins can "read your inputs" just like every other boss, but it feels bad because they act immediately, with inhuman reaction. It feels wrong. Malenia's ability to randomly act out of light stun is not an explained aspect of the fight, it feels wrong to get punished for a guaranteed punish attempt. Godrick's, Morgot's, Gurank(?)s, Radagon's instant low damage "fighting game grab level near unreachable" attacks. Waterfowl dance making you feel like you can never be sure in anything during the fight, Mohg's nihilnihilnihil. Gargoyles' poison attack which is just a much worse version of Demon Prince poison attack or Fride's ice floor attack in both visibility and reactability. Boss having huge damage, combos, flips and dips on top of life steal and life limiter isn't bad in terms of balance (Maliketh has like no health and only half the fight) it just FEELS bad.

[@katimations123]

On a boss related note, for most of my first playthrough I did bosses with spirit summons but when it came to the final boss I had to accept defeat and get help from my friend because of how anxiety inducing I found the whole thing.

[@Bubba524dtm]

"I'm practically scraping Crucible Knights out of the grill of my Honda at this point." Is probably the most hilariously accurate, based, whole ass mood.

[@gaiatiful]

the thing with duo bosses is that very few seem to work "together", they seem like two children trying to butt themselves as the focus of the fight

[@Melficzeero]

I disagree completely, I find the duo bosses (with the exception of valiant gargoyles) to be very consistent in terms of one of them trying to be the Main enemy while the other stays back and uses ranged moves. Godskin duo in particular is mostly trivialized by this, I find it very easy to get one of them spamming fireballs into a pillar while I fight the other one-on-one.

[@SomeUnkindledAsh]

I didn't mind the repeated bosses at all. I really especially liked the Crucible Knights and the Godskins. Lore says there are 16 Crucible Knights that kinda went their own ways after Godfrey's exile. Finding them made me think about their story, why they were where they were. Same with the Godskins. Things like the Avatars/Tree spirits are things that exist in the world that have a purpose. It makes absolute sense they're identical.

[@SaHaRaSquad]

Sure, but the godskin duo fight is still badly balanced. I must say I really enjoyed fighting the Apostle and the Godskin Noble is okay I guess, but both at the same time is guaranteed to be a bad experience no matter what. Oh, and the Crucible Knights and Godskins just feel unfair when they instantly attack you from any range as soon as you press the button to heal, those bosses are otherwise well-designed and deserve better than cheap tricks.

[@SaHaRaSquad]

@@EpicLegend1337 No. The Godskins, Crucible Knights and Zamor dudes are specifically scripted to instantly attack you when you heal. In many of those situations you can safely attack them, but not heal. Your comparison with PvP would be fine if their reaction time wasn't below 16ms. As a point of reference, the minimum conscious reaction time of humans is about 10 times higher and in the range of pro gamers and race drivers on a good day. Malenia, Radagon, Morgott etc are excellent bosses and can make it challenging to heal, but all of them have safe gaps that you can use for heals if you have enough practice to identify them. Malenia might chain 3-4 combos if you're low on health, catching anyone not cautious enough (which btw is a great alternative to scripted punishes), but she'll always end up giving you more than enough time to heal and signal it visibly.. Same with the Nameless King: he wasn't exactly easy, but very fair and his second phase had at least 3 different combos/attacks where you could safely heal afterwards. Triggering an attack on the first frame of a heal is cheap, period.

[@minerman60101]

@@SaHaRaSquad They fixed the healing thing, try fighting them in current patch. It feels far more like they see you healing, and then try and hit you, as well as that sequence not easily interrupting other actions they're doing. You can actually heal to bait Godskin Apostle to throw fire at you, dodge it, and get hits in; it's great

[@kingcobra2858]

My fav and probably most difficult duo fight was against the misbegoten beast and crucible knight. Its a surprise first time seeing the knight land to fight you too and they almost have completely different behavior. The beast is just uber agressive and has a 1 track mind while the knight is cautious and tactical despite being the stronger among the 2. I also always go to this area way too early, Caelid is so much fun at early game.

[@DrunkedOwly]

In my opinion, the only fight I think really stems problems with this design philosophy is malenia, my first playthrough was a simple quality build with mostly a bastard sword, maybe a katana or any other compatible weapon along the line, but still. While fighting malenia you do get in fact the feeling that she is overwhelmingly skilled, but feels inconsistent, sometimes you can easily thrown her off animation, others she just ignores your attacks, she can immediately activate water fowl that can catch you while swinging and worst, she heals. Compared to godfrey, fighting him with only a sword feels like you're at a disadvantage with this 4m man fully covered in muscle, and he is challenging yet you can take advantage of his size and slow moves to roll through him and get some attacks, you feel like fighting a colossus but not an unbearable fight

[@promc2890]

Malenia makes demon of hatred look like a fun fight

[@juwe7143]

Demon of Hatred IS a fun fight

[@promc2890]

@@juwe7143 nah it distrubs the flow of sekiros combat instead of deflecting you gotta dodge and can't deflect at all while the other bosses have a bit of both,its a bloodborne boss in sekiro

[@juwe7143]

@@promc2890 just like the guardian ape. It's a necessary mix up on the combat we've came to know. Used to hate him, but with time I realized there's really no huge flaw in this fight.

[@GuyWithTriangle]

@@promc2890 you can defelct all of DoH's attacks like you can all the other enemies in the game

[@astraelys]

@@GuyWithTriangle flame chip damage would like to know your location

[@bardiboi1517]

First time I fought Mohg I didn't know there was a physic for it. So I rawdogged his phase transition by trying to dodge the bleed procs and heal if I got the timing wrong.

[@jake.klusewitz]

I totally agree with a lot of your points! I loved the vastness and feeling of raw power in ER. At the same time, it’s hard for me to not want to revisit Sekiro for it’s streamlined and more linear combat/progression. Then there’s Bloodborne’s mood and atmosphere... From really proves themselves by taking similar concepts and putting entirely new twists on them.

[@orlando5789]

The problem with Elden Ring's incentivizing players to explore is that, often times, you don't even know there is a way to deal with insane boss moves. For example, on my first run, I thought Mohg's nihil attack was simply meant to drain your estus and I simply assumed the boss fight was designed around the player having less flasks.I only found out about the crystal tear after reading about it online. Which begs the question: how did From want players to take on this boss? If they wanted players to use the crystal tear, why isn't there SOMETHING, ANYTHING AT ALL to tell the player about its existence? Am I supposed to simply stumble upon it?

[@a.nonyme2532]

There is Yura's questline for that specific one... but the quest design of the Soulsbornes games are... well, very specific to that kind of game. ( And i really love that design and seeking for the next location of an npc after taking note of their dialogues and lore... but for most players it will just be boring and very unintuitive. )

[@orlando5789]

@@a.nonyme2532 Who is Yura? lol

[@a.nonyme2532]

@Orlando A samurai from the Land of Reeds and close friend of Eleonora, the bloody finger that drops the Cleansing Crystal Tear. They both traveled to to the Lands Between together, but Eleonora lost her mind in an uncontrollable bloodlust when she tried to control the power of the Dragon Communion, a powerful magic that implies for anyone who learn it to one day lost all form of humanity. And so, Eleonora tried to appease that thirst by joining Mohg's dynasty and kill peoples. The quest of Yura implie to hunting down some Bloody Fingers, including Eleonora, but he will be killed by her.Then, his corpse will be possessed by Shabriri who will use it to try manipulate the player to achieve the Frenzied Flame ending. ( Some cut dialogues implies that Shabriri have started to try take over Yura's mind even before his death, and is some kind of worm implanted in his brain... ) If you want to do that questline, it must be done before accessed to the Mountaintop of the Giants or Shabriri will take control of him. You can start it by fighting the npc invader named Nejirus, a bloody finger who lurk in a ravin close to Agheel's Lake.

[@boom-jr8vi]

@@a.nonyme2532 *Misses some dialogue* *Has to search up guide because I’m assumedly fucked*

[@AnimatedTerror]

@@a.nonyme2532 fromsofts approach to quest design is dogshit. Npc says cryptic nonsense. Player finds npc on other side of map in random location. Npc says something cryptic that may or may not actually progress the quest depending on wether or not you’ve found the random mcguffin they want that you didn’t realize was important and forgot about hours ago. Go find npc in yet another random location. Npc says yet more vague and random nonsense. Fight an enemy that’s kinda connected to the npcs story. Find npcs dead body and loot corpse.

[@mitchelrowe6915]

I get how bosses were supposed to feel like demi god's but the fun was learning their movesets so you could dodge them flawlessly for 5-10 mins not learning their movesets and hoping their AI gives you consistent openings. Nameless King (excusing the first phase which could have been good with tweaks) achieves solid difficulty and felt BADASS. All without compromising fun gameplay Also Maliketh's second phase is awesome and I'd much prefer it if it was his whole fight. He is tough but doesn't feel like shit to fight like many of the end game bosses

[@darkindragon]

I live both of Malikeths phases I just wish he had more health

[@lightpoint4426]

Ditto to Maliketh's second phase needing more health. He's a bit of a glass cannon, and given how crazy the lore is for him, he deserved more time. Same thing goes for Morgott (still one of my favorite fights, but he needs to be a bit beefier).

[@katamariroller2837]

Dark Souls is always about this "you get to kill gods" fantasy, only to run into them when they are decaying and almost dead, which basically downplays your achievements. But then you reach Elden Beast, which actually feels like a god, and... it doesn´t feel good to fight it because it is as powerful and unkillable as a god should be... unless you resort to cheap shit like bringing along Black Knife Tiche, the only summon with a bullshit attack that can kill a boss like this. It´s like being a feather-weight boxer going up against heavy weights throughout a tournament, fighting Mike Tyson in the finals, and getting demolished so comprehensively that in round 3, your coach hands you over the only thing you can use to win against him and which for some reason is totally legal to use... ... a gun. In both cases, victory feels completely hollow and unrelated to all your previous successes. Might as well have ended the game at Hoarah Loux, who at least felt like the Dark Souls bosses of old while still having something impressive to bring to the table (his extreme aggression and spectacularly silly throws in his second phase, and his Ashes reward which are some silly shit but really, really cool).

[@darkindragon]

@@katamariroller2837 elden beast was piss easy, he is just Placidusax if you know how to fight him you know how to fight him

[@davidson6738]

@@katamariroller2837 victory is completely hollow in both cases? What planet are you living on lmao I felt more victory from these games then almost anything else

[@coomslayer493]

Elden Rimg gives you crutches, then breaks your legs when you refuse to use them.

[@AlastorAltruistGaming]

And still punishes you FOR using them.

[@evilmac9623]

I think one thing that is missed is the bewitching branch. I missed it on my first play through, but if you use it on the god skin duo it makes the entire fight a breeze.

[@lucilfer2635]

surprised that the bosses input scanning wasnt mentioned in this video, many bosses or even some regular enemies will lob a projectile at u or lunge at u when u press the heal button, such as the godskins and radagon

[@Bannschwert]

Or when you try to cast a spell with a longer animation... They also tend to dodge a lot of projectiles, making them pretty much useless.

[@lucilfer2635]

@@Bannschwert exactlyy its why ive started running night comet and ambush shard, the only projectiles npcs and bosses wont auto dodge 🥲

[@boom-jr8vi]

@@lucilfer2635 is Ambush Shard actually good?

[@Bannschwert]

@@reggieisnotadog4841 Yep... it's horrible. And it applies to spellcasting as well! Which means you always need a Spirit Ash, as the Bosses can't cancel attacks on the summon to punish you. So it's even more waiting for your turn ;)

[@lucilfer2635]

@@boom-jr8vi only early game, its damage is pretty low and for some reason it doesnt get boosted by the staff of loss, which boosts night sorceries, even tho it literally says in the desc that its a night sorcery ?? 😭😭 i just used it early on for thematic purposes and i also just love the cast animation. night comet is crazy tho, such insane damage and utility

[@theyo9619]

No one’s saying they don’t understand why these problems exist they’re upset that they do exist

[@justvibin2196]

Never thought about the whole explore for better weapons kind of thing, Makes me appreciate beating my first playthrough without looking up a thing

[@cincameron]

I think the biggest issue people have is how most bosses are duplicated or reused as normal enemies, but in a lot of cases, I find this acceptable. A Crucible Knight being a boss before being shown as a normal enemy in the mid-game is alright for me. We have duplicate bosses like the Black Knife Assassins, but that's fine because we are informed that there are several of them, and the leader (Alecto) has some unique attacks to spice it up a little. I also like that there are stronger versions of each boss. The Falling Star Beasts or Magma Wyrms. the first Dragonkin Soldier is sadly the most unique of the 3, but they were all solid. My biggest issue is that there are main bosses that are reused, and this is for the majority of them. Some are acceptable (Gold Godfrey vs Real Godfrey or Margit/Morgott), but others really have me wondering what the devs were thinking (Godefroy, Ancestor Spirit, Astel, and so on...) Edit: Also, there are ways to minimize Mohg's Nihil without the Purifying Crystal Tear, such as perfume barrier, flask barrier (forgot the names), using healing incantations after the last 2 ticks (if you have enough HP) to minimize the amount of flasks you are using. They are less practical, sure, but it's what i did when i learned of his Nihil attack. Perfumes are underappreciated.

[@aluminumbeluga]

Magma wyrms are one of my least favorite bosses. He wasn't interesting, they never got more interesting, the numbers only got bigger as you fought more of them. Also he had the lame gaping dragon dash move

[@cincameron]

@@aluminumbeluga I liked the Magma Wyrms at first. You fight one in Caelid that only has one phase, then the others get a phase 2. Sadly that's something they do for many mini-bosses. At least some of the bosses like Crucible Knights have varying moves (the ones with the sword can have 3 variants for their special attacks afaik) Too many repeat bosses, despite some being different. The Misbegotten Warriors are gross despite some having different movesets

[@alexberube5269]

It's not the difficulty of the bosses thats the issue imo, its the absurd damage

[@sirith9157]

That's why shields exists? You can dodge, that's a riskier option and you have more stamina after the fact. Also every single endgame boss in Souls games is capable of two shooting you. That's not surprising here

[@thecoldknight7980]

If you find it to difficult in the late game just use rivers of blood

[@leo-shun]

Damage and health. Bosses are designed with the assumption that players summon spirits to help them. You are at a disadvantage if you don't summon and if you're a pure damage melee character with nothing but flat damage and no summons you're as good as fucked. I wish they give up on that philosophy in later games

[@Oknahidwin]

I don't know why people keep talking about the balance being off. I'm been using radagons soreseal for the entire game and still havnt been one-shot by late game bosses or enemies. A strong attack will get me to very low health but still not one shot me. I have 44 vigour and radagons soreseal .

[@n14lard17]

Level vigor trust me

[@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514]

I view certain "bosses" (erdtree avatars, nights calvary, golden knights, crucible knights) as a new way to handle elite enemies. I have a problem though with Godfroy, the blood omen avatar guy, the 2nd fight with margot, the godskins, Astal, the ones that felt unique the first time round.

[@user-pl7ch9lo1g]

Thank you for this piece, allow me to disagree. Intro. ".. it feels like you are fighting against someone who is just as determined to win as you are". Don't have anything against that statement, but I just don't understand it at all. In all souls games bosses tried to kill me, mostly successfully, what makes these ones stand out? "... and tree spirit still add to the world-building, in my opinion", maybe I don't quite get what world building is, but wouldn't any kind of boss add to world building? Like if there was some random zombie there, that would mean that somehow a random zombie got to that place for some reason, which would add to the world-building. Again. I don't see what is so special about these bosses that gives them that special quality. "...when you just saw a field boss out in the open somewhere minding its own business it kinda felt like another discovery to me, in the same way you discover a secret item or an illusory wall", glad that you had that feeling, but to discover an illusory wall you have to carefully pay attention to your surroundings, while field bosses are just constant encounters that you will get by just traversing the world. They are kinda like random encounters in pokemon and such games, it's a blessing upon everyone's soul that you can just run away from them and not fight the 15-th cool horseback rider you meet. Considering that the items they drop are usually useless to me, they just felt like a chore. "...you've got jumps, you've got counter attacks...", I never understood this point, how does this make combat that much different from DS? A jump attack is basically a normal attack that does great stagger damage, so basically an R2 attack, not to mention that DS already had jump attacks. as to counter ttacks, if that's referring to guard counters, It just gives you more damage if you are playing with a shield, you could play with a shield in past games too. I guess you can use jumping to dodge now, but that is inconsistent and most of the time there is no need to do that instead of the usual roll. Lore-accurate boss design. "...this game is teaching you one critical lesson: 'you don't have to do this right now, explore and take things in'." Sure, but let's not forget how the game also disencourages exploration by making it tedious. The first 30 hours might be great, but going through repeated assets over and over again can really exhaust the player's ability to care about exploration. I would say, that is the lesson the first, let's say, half of the game teaches you. The lesson that the whole game teaches you is more akin to "You don't have to do this, summon the mimic tear and use comet azur", as it is the best way to avoid going through the same catacombs for a 1000th time and suffering through an unbalanced boss. The Point. "...what better incentive is there to find all these weapons and tools than for you to find this extremely practical use for it 5-7 hours later?", there is no incentive to do that if you've already found your broken build. I found rotten breath pretty early on and had no need to change my build after, the bosses that wouldn't fall to rotten breath fell to my mimic tear. How would a player find a practical use for, idk, a treespear or how would a player figure out a counter to a boss when they have already countered every single boss with BS? "... you don't have to answer every single late game boss with something as broken as bloodhound step...", of course you don't have to, but the players that found these broken builds mostly will. In order not to do that the player has to limit themselves and essentially create their own fun, this is not a sandbox game, there should be a goal that requires you to engage with the game mechanics. Even mohg's phase transition does not require a counter, the game gives you so many estus flasks that spending 3 of them to tank the transition is nothing. At 9:45, for example, you block physical projectiles from the clergyman, which is cool and tactical and uses a special shield, but I just hid around the pillar and breathed on the clergyman to kill him and the game didn't stop me, the only reason I would even consider a different tactic would be if I just decided to challenge myself. Not to mention that the bosses being suspiciously balanced is far from the only complaint. Rykard. "the morgot shackle can only be used two times" (sorry for not making an actual quote, I'm lazy). Sure, but how does the shackle level the playing field? While Morgot is immobile you can either scarlet rot him which will trivialize the fight or deal a little damage which won't change much about the fight at all. Like, I feel that my judgement is severely clouded by the fact that I used rotten breath a lot, but I just can't get over the fact that a lot of people will just have Rotten breath which is busted, mimic tear which is busted, bloodhound step which is busted, comet azur which is busted, bleed weapons which are busted and so on and not have to engage with bosses at all. It's like the game has an easy mode incorporated into it, I would just prefer the game to have an actual easy mode so that I could pick the normal one and not fall back on cheap tactics, which I do, because the goal of the game is to beat it and challenging me is the game's responsibility. Duos and Duplicates. "FromSoft are not tone deaf, they know what we want to see...", firstly, I don't think we want to see a nudred bosses, DS2 was an experimental proof of that fact, we want to see well-designed bosses., secondly, FromSoft shouldn't focus on what people want to see, DS1 was so great because the focus was on what we should see. I understand why with such a fat number of bosses assets would be repeated, but that doesn't make repetition good. "Going out and finding these obscure weapons is what incentivises us to go out and hunt them all", so to obtain these cool weapons that I really want to try out I have to suffer through killing the same awful boss over and over again? I can only view that as a negative. Interestingly enough, a durability system could potentially incentivise the player to try out different weapons and builds, like in DS2 boss weapons had very low durability, so you had to work around it. Like, imagine the death's poker only had 5 pokes, so you would use it to do some great damage in the beginning but use a different weapon for the rest of the fight. I shan't respond to the duos part, as I feel they have been covered extensively already, but the main complaint isn't that you mostly fight two variants of the same boss, it's that all duo fights are just two mono bosses thrown together, and the problems that come with that decision. That being said, don't diss Godefroy, he is my favorite boss and character, I have a shirt with him even. That fight. I mostly agree, but it's kinda funny how they actually represent your point from the Rykard section the best. Yes, they are very difficult and shit, but you can level the playing field with sleep pots, to get those you need to explore a lot and use the crafting mechanic. What's even better, if you run out of lillies, you have an incentive to go out and explore even more. It should be a great fight by your standards, heck, if the player viewed bosses as puzzles, like you suggest, instead of viewing them as DS bosses, these are quite good. Though I still cheesed them with two summons and rotten breath, but that's more of a problem with exploration being flawed, which, btw, also goes against the idea of bosses incentivising exploration being good. Conclusion. I like it when hairy men cover themselves in oil.

[@minijimi4954]

One of my least favorite fights besides the godskin duo is the sellia hidden cave trio.

[@toxic_icecream]

Yeah you just run and scream at the game to let you do anything.

[@tinminator8905]

That is my least favourite fight of all time. Thank god there is literally no reason why I would ever have to fight them again.

[@DarkCT]

the godskin duo... honestly, it reminds me of the Demon encounter from the Ringed City... but as you said, no true second phase. if there any failing, it's the lack of that. if we think of even that encounter.... each demon had roughly the same moveset, and kept you constantly on the backfoot, but they'd also cycle between on and off periods. depending on the order of which you took out, they gave new moves to the final phase of the encounter.

[@micahgraff8998]

i personally loved most of the elden ring bosses, even the repeating ones. they all felt like they served their own purpose. burial watchdogs were like a skill check to make sure you could still roll tricky attacks and last out an endurance fight, erdtree avatars were always just fun to fight due to the fairly simple moveset and the consistency of them- less of a challenge, more like if you just turned the time investment of a dungeon into a boss with some neat little rewards. ulcerated tree spirits all suck except for the volcano manor one. horseback combat makes them perfect to fight and the lore makes perfect sense- the erdtree near volcano manor was burned and destroyed, the fields used as killing grounds. the erdtree avatar found there isn't gonna be okay, and the rumbling you see beforehand just cements the experience and gives you a great open field for a beast fight. night's calvary was really cool, but i wish they'd have added other version that roamed without a horse or that could be found as tough enemies, same for tree sentinels. deathbirds were always a fun challenge that came out of nowhere most of the time. my biggest problem with every single one of these enemies, however, is how they never tried to mix things up past maybe two or three variants with the big repeating ones like avatars, and for the avatars they made a single version with a slight varaition on a single, easy to dodge attack. give erdtree avatars golden order greatswords or treespears, let them use rings of light or holy fire, make them fight groups of nearby omens, anything to give them some uniqueness. tone down the tree spirits in terms of number, give them giant arenas, maybe some could burrow underground or some could bite down from a ceiling or be afflicted with the curse of death. let the night's calvary use the rune of death or ghostflame or deathblight or all three on different variations and let us find more without horses, perhaps even accompanied by a black knife assassin capable of more ranged attacks and with less of an affinity for melee. give the burial watchdogs with staves more spells and don't let them use every single move that the normal ones can, give us holy ones or ghostflame ones or ones that are cracked and ruined or overtaken by the omen curse. i'm genuinely just upset by how many little things could've been used to make some bosses into memorable experiences, and while i'm glad that they used that time to polish other parts of the game, i would give as many years as it takes to polish up these bits.

[@gdn5001]

Exploration and item discovery can trivialize bosses, but I think was Rusty is saying is that this isn't totally the case. The purifying tear doesn't trivialize Mohg for example, it just levels the fight more. I think that was the point of the Rykard analogy.

[@saunterberry4772]

I think the comparison of exploration vs perseverance really wrapped it up nicely. It made me realize the game as a sort of... Throwback to Greek heroic Epics, you don't beat the Gorgon with brute strength, you find a mirror. You don't batter down the walls of Troy... You build a trap. The whole of Elden Ring is trying to be this... Greek battle of wits, and that's great, except they spent 4+ games teaching us to beta our heads against a wall until it gives XD

[@TheSniped117]

You all need to remember it's a different game. You don't play Dark souls like Sekiro, and you don't play Dark souls like Bloodborne. Sekrio was my first souls game and beating my head against the wall until I raised my skill level high enough to become an actual Shinobi. I came into Elden Ring without darksouls and I definitely got the sense the game was telling me to experiment with my damage types and use the tools I could find around the world. I had a faith build on my first playthrough, and It felt great to switch from holy damage to fire damage on radagon and the elden Beast.

[@mateuszswietosawski4845]

Good video Rusty. I mainly have issues with repeating fights of "unique" bosses. Why do we fight Margit, Mogh, Draconic Tree Sentinel, Astel, Loretta, Godrick and Godfrey twice? It takes away from their special place in the game's lore. But my main gripe is with lack of my favorite duel style fights like Artorias, Iudex Gundyr, Velstad, Fume Night, Abyss Watchers, Maria, Gherman etc. The only ones we get are Malenia which is super hard and Crucible Nights which are generally hated.

[@Cthululululu]

You know what I thought waa really cool about not just how strong and cool the bosses were, and yet also how OP you can get, was that it led to end game fights feeling like battles between equals, in a sense- real clashes of titans.

[@promc2890]

How can the same people who made OnS made godskin duo

[@i_CuBy]

basically change your build just to beat this specific boss? great idea

[@Gensolink]

about exploring I vividly remember struggling to margit, then I went to weeping peninsula, found a randomly dropped pickaxe, upgraded it and folded margit thereafter. Made me feel good

[@ForgedinPrint]

I think I know what was going on with the godskin duo. I think they wanted a similar effect to orstein and smough, but they wanted to teach the player the movesets of them before the fight (hence why there's a bunch of them before the duo). Because of how often the duo were out in the wild they didn't want to throw in that mechanic again, and wanted to reward exploring as well. The problem I think is that there is literally zero indication that they are weak to sleep (While I knew about it I literally didn't encounter sleep until after I killed the duo). I also feel like they meant the big boy seem like tank while the skinny one be damage, but it got botched pretty hard for obvious reasons.

[@connortraynor6055]

I think the hitboxes, aoe attacks that seem super random, and some attacks doing crazy damage are not great. But after playing through the game a lot, I kinda got used to it. It's not a perfect game and there are some other minor issues that people don't talk about, but it's about as good as it could have been for the first open world souls game and I'm thankful for that.

[@Waferking420]

Genuine question, what hit boxes haven't been great for you? Personally for me I always see pixel perfect hit boxes, so much so I accidentally have jumped attacks.

[@WildBandit300]

@@Waferking420 Take a look at them with some of the new modding tools that came out recently, it will change your mind real quick. Some have ridiculous hitboxes just to ensure they can combo you into other hits, or get an unfair hit due to slightly bad positioning. Not all the enemies are like that, but it really shows which ones they gave more attention to while others just got the "yeah that seems alright" treatment.

[@thegk-verse4216]

@@Waferking420 Go play fists

[@JesusProtects]

@@Waferking420 your lower torso becomes invulnerable for like a second after jumping. That's why so many low swipe attacks can be avoided by just jumping on the right moment..

[@catiminiclergus537]

Hit boxes? Hit boxes in this game looked extremely on point to me tho?

[@EspyMelly]

The godskins second theme is the most wasted musical masterpiece in souls history.

[@yab3146]

Living failures takes the crown for me, best OST in bloodborne and its wasted on those idiots

[@tomisalonen8029]

In my opinion only boss fights are the fights that gives you remembrance. the others are just enemy encounters with a big health bar to signal to the player that there is some fixed drop item for that fight.

[@blrolz3544]

Have a buddy who kinda bum rushed to mountain tops area and is struggling hardcore. I didn't get to that area until like 130- 140 hrs in at like RL 125- 130 with no real difficulty spike troubles. He's 100% right when he says Elden Ring rewards players who explore and take their time.

[@bobfttw]

My issue with bosses and well, a lot of enemies, comes down to damage. As armor can't be buffed you're really relying on damage negation talismans and crystal tears to help negate damage. Even then it feels as though I'm getting clapped. I am in NG plus 4 and I'm level 379 so maybe I'm under leveled relative to where I am in NG plus 4? I don't know. My dragoncrest greatshield is only doing so much for me and I hate having to be stuck with an armor set I consider ugly just to tank some hits.

[@david_kingori]

You are over leveled

[@bobfttw]

@@david_kingori That's what I thought too. My damage out put is great I feel.

[@thisismyyoutubecommentacco6302]

Great video honestly. One thing I would add (and this goes all the way back to DS1) is that From Software, more than any other game developer, is aware that gamers share knowledge now. I'm not even talking about just the messages but something like the Fextralife wiki or the Map Genie Interactive Maps are a thing, and anyone having particular trouble with a fight or mechanic can at any time pull out their phone or open up their desktop browser and get recommendation after recommendation on how to deal with it. So having niche solutions to certain mechanics isn't the brick wall people pretend it is when shared knowledge exists. Where I think Elden Ring shines the most is forcing players to continue to be flexible when doing their builds. You can go Dex/Int or whatever stat focus you're doing but you need to have an awareness of what ashes of war do and which times it may be useful to swap weapons to employ them, or maybe change affinities on weapons to maximize damage. You mentioned the variation in difficulty with summons and honestly that was the part that really makes me annoyed when I watch uninformed bumfucks complaining about the difficulty of this game. You have a difficulty slider, it's called ash summons, NPC summons, and other players summons, all three of which you can bring into any fight you choose. The game gives every player multitudes of ways to lessen challenge but for some reason some people are incapable of understanding this unless there's a "difficulty mode" setting in the options menu. I won't pretend to be a master gamer god, but I've beaten the game 4 times now, three times without using any summons or outside assistance. Now my standard policy is just to sleep arrow the godskin duo to make it 1v1, bloodhound step Melania with an extra equipped dagger (assuming I'm using a weapon that has a set ash of war I can't change) and the rest of the time standard dodging and fight knowledge will carry me through just fine.

[@enman009]

This. I used a pure melee build on my 2nd playthrough and once you master the fight, they become really satisfying. The typical op weapons aren't even necessary, they're just another tool in your arsenal.

[@derrickcrowe3888]

Sure, if you engage in information sharing. I don't play online because I find the messages obnoxious, and I tried to keep wiki checking to a minimum on my first playthrough to preserve the discovery aspect. And I have to assume I'm not the only person who plays this way. But if you play like that, a lot of these things are ridiculously, frustratingly obscure.

[@Ghorda9]

@@derrickcrowe3888 npc hints and item descriptions tell you these things.

[@derrickcrowe3888]

@@Ghorda9 Yeah? Which NPC or item descriptions suggests Godskins are weak to sleep (their armor is actually quite resistant to sleep)? Or which one tells you you need to wear one of the glintstone crowns while doing the Erudition gesture? And even if it's true that everything has a hint somewhere, playing the game offline without a guide basically guarantees you will miss items and NPCs along the way, so hiding obscure hints to obscure puzzles on obscure items doesn't really fix the problem.

[@aluminumbeluga]

@@derrickcrowe3888 Those are not required to beat the game, the solution is playing online and seeing player messages. If you opt out of online play you willingly lose helpful knowledge

[@TheGayling2]

In defence of the 2nd Astel in Yelough Anix Tunnel there actually appear to be 8 "Astels" in the game at various stages of maturity. Fallingstar Beasts appear to be larval stages of Astel and Malformed Stars appear to be in the pupal stage. Lore wise there seems to be more of the same creature that Astel is in the world so it makes some sense that there is another fully matured one out there in the world.

[@ClikcerProductions]

To me OG Astel felt like he was meant to be the first of these creatures, he felt so ancient and beyond the lands between that it really felt like there hadn't been time for another to mature to that level, but even if there was another, even more ancient and powerful (second Astel), why the hell is it given so little significance as to being a cave boss?

[@myko7014]

i am probably only human in the wolrd that actually kinda like Godskin Duo, for a very peculiar reason... now ER has a LOT of ashes summons and sometimes NPC summon for certain boss, i will always use summon for multiple boss fight, but sometime it doesnt feel too good to beat them like that, but I feel no negative feedback of using both strongest ashes and NPC summon to destroy Godskin duo, it was actually very fun and satisfying experience

[@cata_henny2456]

I guess my main critique with Elden Ring’s bosses is that most tend to encourage players to build their character in the same way, namely a spell blade. Trying to go through this game without a fast bleed weapon or spell/incantation help is rough and I think this is where Elden Ring fails. It’s still a great game but I think either more weapon types/playstyles should be viable without jump attack spam or the game should make more bosses that counter the “spell blade/bleed dex” builds that are meta

[@SorowFame]

I mostly lean towards incantations but I’ve not yet made a character that doesn’t use some variety of spells.

[@tinminator8905]

Every Build in ER can be made broken in the late game if you know how to build correctly. I did full quality with a longsword or bloodhounds fang and killed everything very easily, hitting in the 1500 to 2000 damage range with the weapon arts. I did strenght Arcane and demolished everything with dual occult spiked clubs with poison mist. I did dragon breath only and did upwards of 8k damage if I got the full breath off. I did strenght/int and focused on a cold Giantcrusher with war cry and all the roar buffs, did 3.5 k damage a hit and frostbit every enemy in just 1 hit, staggering everything in 2 hits at most. This game makes everything broken if you know how to build properly, it has infinite buildvariety because the tools you get are so diverse.

[@bumberquest3031]

I think Elden Ring encourages exploration but it also, for the most part, encourages build diversity, until the endgame. Great Shield builds don't only have a hard time with Malenia, they are almost completely invalidated because she can out heal and out pace your slower play style because she still has life steal on shield hits, even if the player takes no damage. With Mohg you HAVE to use that tear, especially if you rely on having a bit more Cerulean Flasks than other players and you can't really afford to use up 3 Crimson Flasks for a phase transition. If you are a player who likes using a wide array of multiple tools, you'll probably be fine, but some people have tailored their builds to fit the play style they like most. Captain Bull-Goat Finger Print Shield probably isn't gonna want to zip around an arena with bloodhound step, wheres the fun In tanking damage if you just aren't gonna be hit ever in the first place.

[@minefreakout5595]

Taking that idea of finding an option elsewhere to make a fight easier. I remember doing the radagon/ elden beast fight, played the whole game with my friend the first time. We got to the second phase a couple times but couldn’t beat it. So we decided to step away and rethink our approach. My friend upgraded a new weapon that was slightly faster and let him wear heavier armor, and I respected my spell. Then I remembered I picked up the godskin spell book way back in storm veil. At that time all I saw was another flame sling that had dot. But then I realized the odvious and selected the god slayer spells. It took us 2 more attempts and we won. That moment of realization was amazing to me. And the fact it worked felt like I had out smarter the game. I know that isn’t true at all and it was designed that way. But it felt wonderful to work it all out and see results.

[@lostnemesis]

I didn't mind some of the reused enemies because they actually had a reason like the crucible knights.

[@moley249]

can't wait for the malania and elden beast duo fight in the new dlc

[@anagoth9]

Elden Ring is a 10/10 game with a 3/10 game added onto it. The amount of unique content that you get from Limgrave through Leyndell puts it head and shoulders above pretty much any other AAA game in recent memory. Unfortunately it's obvious that they build the map first and then ran out of time filling it up. They would have benefitted immensely delaying the game another 6 months to properly fill out MotG, Consecrated Snowfield, and Haligtree, as well as working on the balance of the game. I think the game would have felt much more polished and landed even better if they'd actually scaled it down.

[@rudalph529]

Couldn't agree more honestly. Especially on the first line.

[@arcanefire7511]

I don't mind the Mountaintops being more empty, it's a dead area with very little activity. It's fine for some areas to be different from others, and it even some really unique dungeons. The Haligtree is as good as any other legacy dungeon. Even then a 3/10 feels like an exaggeration lol.

[@slimretro2659]

@@rudalph529 the game was just not hitting the same after leyndell.

[@tinminator8905]

I don't think you know just how time consuming this game was to make. It is practically a miracle that a game like Elden Ring was possible to be made at all. The amount of unique high quality content is insane compared to any other game that has ever existed. 6 months is absolutely nothing and they would have maybe been able to make a small piece of the map, a few small enemies and 3 half decent unique bosses. If you wanted to fill out those massive areas it would have taken years, that a studio can't afford. Making games is really expensive. Elden Ring took a long ass time to make and it is almost unheard of to see a decently sized studio put in this much time to make a game. Taking longer would have for sure brought them to bakruptcy.

[@scottbecker4367]

@@tinminator8905 then make a smaller game. Not having time doesn't excuse poor quality.

[@DuelistRL]

When you kill either the Godskin Noble or Apostle the other should have had a cutscene where he absorbs the other and becomes the like Godskin leader or some 3rd type. You've fought like multiple through the game at this point and having a 3rd combined version would have been amazing.

[@Thegoldenwatermelon]

The real first Elden ring experience was respecing 5 times just to test out all the fun items I picked up along the way. After exploring a huge chunk of the game you really can turn your character into whatever you want and that's a great way to play the game.

[@tommybell3334]

I like what you’re saying about all bosses having a counter, but the problem is that it is impossible to find the specific ones for specific bosses on a first play through without looking it up. If you play the game through without looking things up you are bound to end up getting one massively OP weapon and it will be pretty much the only viable weapon you can use to beat the game.

[@Rigel_6]

Yep, Moonveil carried my sorry ass through most of the game. Mountaintop and forward I just got fed up with the bullshit and just deleted the bosses with azur comet

[@63skarduken]

like freezing pots being the only thing that can interrupt waterfowl. who would have guessed? not me

[@darrensucksatgames]

Throw out that idea with From Software. They build that knowing everyone and their mother looks stuff up online. It’s kind of intentional if not a bit frustrating because they really will intentionally hide the item you need after the boss or enemy you need them for just to be a d*** sometimes.

[@Rigel_6]

@@darrensucksatgames Not exactly. Both the cleansing tear for Mohg and the talisman for Maliketh I found way before facing the bosses, and after first encounter went "Oh hold up, I think there was something related to this boss". How well they worked, on the other hand... I just ended up tanking through nihil with chugging and just pulling Tishe on Maliketh and spamming comets from behind pillars when that squirrel on crack was distracted