What Shadow of the Erdtree Shows us about The FUTURE of Souls-Likes

[@Mugthief]

Seen some comments saying that Miyazaki said they wouldn't do open world again. He said that shouldn't be the expectation, not that they wouldn't. He also commented on the number of projects, designers and directors, and how they want to be creative and experiment all in an interview I've put in the description. As for the incessant comments from challenge runners saying that beating the DLC with just a Straight Sword was the most fun thing they've done, you should understand that it being possible and you finding something that is inherently a challenge to be fun does not mean that the bosses were designed for the 1% of people willing to challenge themselves to this degree. They were designed for people to use every tool, which is different from how it is in base Elden Ring. If that weren't the case, it wouldn't make the bosses easier. It's not a bad thing, it's just different and not something I consider the game to really support in it's mechanics. Also, for the love of Miquella, they need to update the UI and camera. Should've said that in the video, but forgot.

[@angelamengualcortinas3614]

The conversation surrounding bosses has been exactly the same as when the game launched (''they have too many attacks, and too many health!'', ''you can't be agressive with them!'', ''they're balanced around summons''!), and the design behind them is exactly the same in the base game: use every tool. Malenia wasn't programmed with the intent of using a straight sword naked against her, nor was Maliketh, nor was Godfrey, nor was Radagon, etc, etc. They were designed knowing full well that the majority of players would use summons, buffs and hard-hitting builds. That's not to say base game bosses aren't fun to 1v1, they are, but so are the dlc bosses. You absolutely can be aggresive with them if you know what you're doing. Then again, you have to know what you're doing, and the learning curve for that is brutal. Not everyone is gonna enjoy having to beat your head around against a boss for hours just to understand that that supper attack that is one-shotting you every time can actually be jumped for a heavy hitter on your end, and not everyone enjoys summoning spirits or doing a respect to make their lives easier. They simply don't enjoy the sistems From provides them to level the difficulty. The reality of the situation is that if From made the bosses easier to 1v1 but eliminated sistems like summoning, multiple builds and the multiplayer the bosses would be much better received (ehem, Sekiro), but that's simply not possible to do in an open world RPG (enphasis on RPG). I've always though that the next game they would made after ER is an open world (maybe smaller) but without the RPG elements and a progression system similar to a Metroidvania or Sekiro. I could be wrong of course, but that seems the logical follow-up to me.

[@BigDBrian]

I just do not see the disparity in base game design vs dlc design that you're talking about. They're pretty similar. The DLC is just harder, and that's the only difference. Of course this has been the case for previous souls games and their DLCs as well. I think the bigger difference is our familiarity with the base game's bosses by this point. We've had multiple years to learn and understand them, while the DLC bosses are still fresh and new. Do you not remember when the game was new and everyone thought Maliketh's moveset was impossible to deal with? Some people still do.

[@ColorsFadeGaming]

@@angelamengualcortinas3614 The problem with the "use every tool" argument is that a lot of the DLC bosses are setup to attack as soon as you zone in, to the point where summoning spirit ashes gets you destroyed. The DLC seems designed to thwart "all the tools" and instead focus on forcing the majority of players to overhaul their build to utilize the new tools (shields, proc fists). "Who cares what build YOU want to play! This is what you WILL play if you want to beat Radahn!" That's the DLC's attitude. I mean, just watch Fightin Cowboy's attempt at it. I started a fresh base game playthrough just to see how everything "felt" in a level-appropriate way after doing the DLC, and honestly it's quite a different feel. Bosses, even in small rooms, give the player time to summon and approach, and their move sets allow for time to respond (though to be fair, certain bosses leaned more toward the DLC style "relentless attack, no response" style of play that is so frustrating). I don't think @Mugthief is wrong on any of this, I just don't know how you go about building a game when player skill is a huge determining factor in encounter difficulty and it's also the largest delta in the whole equation. I thought the base game did a pretty great job, because if something was too hard you could just go adventure elsewhere, level up, and get stronger, or you could choose to adopt more of the tools. My argument has always been that in the base game of Elden Ring there really is a difficulty slider - it's just hidden behind all the tools. Use some of them, all of them, or none of them, and that determines the difficulty. But the DLC threw that all out the window, and now it's just a creepy dude standing in the corner holding out a greatshield saying, "This is your tool now. Others are waste." And that's not fun.

[@Jonontoast]

Isn't expecting the game to be the exact same difficulty for all play styles a massive fallacy? Asking for a friend.

[@Jonontoast]

Isn't saying each Souls game has to get harder (you use the term "escalate"), not reflected in reality whatsoever? Asking for another mate!

[@shrunkenderp]

So fromsoft either has to link the flame or step into the age of dark? We’ve come full circle boys

[@Feedmequotes]

Underrated comment

[@FayeRantTheStrong]

Oh my Gwyn

[@austinteed3248]

The amount of people who will not understand the significance of this comment is saddening.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Such is all things... Evolve and improve. Or be left behind. That doesn't mean to make things "bigger" but to do it better next time. Hone the skill and witness true potential.

[@erliLila]

Best thing I've ever read on this site

[@GameBooAdvancePlus]

what constitutes "cheese" anymore? Using rot (is actual weakness) to deal damage over time is cheese. Using a spirit ash who gets shredded in a few seconds is cheese. Using a shield is cheese. Using an offhand fist to parry him is cheese. using a paticularly strong ash of war is cheese. using endure or an ironjar and tatically trading blows is cheese. I think the "hardcore" crowd have co-opted discussion where it's only acceptable if you rollspam a boss and using actual strategy is frowned upon for some reason. This is an RPG, not a boss rush.

[@DatAsianGuy]

Cheese are tactics or builds that require minimal effort and/or skill to deal a lot of damage or be effective against the boss. Greatshields are cheese, because they take very little mechanical skill, except the process of buildcrafting, which let's be honest, most people probably just looked up a guide for these builds. (Even then throwing together a half descent greatshield is truly not that difficult.) Rot can be also seen as a cheese build, if you just prock your rot, and stay back and watch as their health slowly dwindles down to nothing, only to engage with the boss to re-prock your poison. Parry therefore is not a cheese, because it is a high risk, high reward skill you need to learn. You need to know the parry window and be consistent enough to land parries. If you fail, you take damage or outright die. dodging attacks with a roll is not "cheese", because you need to mechanically engage with the boss. Learn his timing, attack patterns, chains, transition phases and figure out how to beat him. Unlike a lot of people I, as an example, purely won against SOTE's final boss, because I was trying to analyze by myself how to beat him, and how to dodge his most menacing and frustrating attacks. once I did that, it became a walk in the park, where it would take me not long to beat him. But I have the patience (and time) to do that.

[@seanb2995]

The problem is ego. This guy put a list of things that the player can use to fight these " overtuned bosses" but left out summons. Then, labels half the other options as cheese. Because skill. Miyazaki didn't put a disclaimer in the game that said if you beat the game any other way than what's exceptable by the community, then you didn't beat it. I understand what he's saying about what comes next, and myazaki addressed that already and I agree that it would be exciting to get new stuff. I love the game, and I love the puzzle aspect that the bosses have, strategizing to find the answer, and I love having the options to beat it as I see fit. It's not perfect, but nothing is. I'm excited to see what comes next.

[@poutineausyropderable7108]

Dude. Shut up. Just because reddit dumbass talk about cheese, doesn't mean it's cheese. Summons are still cheese because the boss aren't meant for split aggro and magic is still cheese because boss aren't meant for range only. And finally youtube min max dps build are cheess because you kill the boss before it can do every attack once. Now if the source is fixed, Like the summons last ~

[@poutineausyropderable7108]

Imo, half of these aren't pure cheese in it's full glory. They are half cheese. Cheese lite. Easier to use strategy that skips a part of the difficulty rarher then confront it head on. Imo, if you know how to fight a boss, how to dodge all his atttacks, but can succeed maybe 20% of the time, and you beat the boss due to your heals and damage, then you didn't use cheese. And from there to 100%, it's just self imposed difficulty, but not cheese. Chesse isn't the right word though. It leads to missunderstanding. But a great shield and just tanking a hit rather then dodging it, is skipping the difficulty. What can you do naked, you can roll, you can straffe, run and jump. You can dodge all attacks in the game using these strats and rolling is very rarely the most efficient or optimal btw. Using tools that lets you skip these, is "cheese-lite". Some people do not like that. And the point still holds. Beating the current boss without skipping any of the difficulty has become insane. Radahn is judt bad. Rest is fine imo, but I haven't rl1 them yet so I can't say for sure. On my first playthrough, I did cheese lite with a frost longsword and used my mastery of posture and aggression to trade and regen. Playing well is just doing so without trading, but Idk if rather then being 5x harder, it may be 100x harder in the dlc. Idk. --- There's nothing wrong to use these things. I'll 100% judge you though if you hyper optimise arround these things and then call the game easy, or difficult, or litteraly say anything about difficulty, to anyone in any context, ever. A shield vs Let me Thank him are two different things. And again, noone needs to play the game for the difficulty, the challenge or the engaging combat.

[@valentinvas6454]

In my book cheesing is any tactic that barely involves any skill to defeat a boss. Using status effects, spirit ashes, or any ash of war is not cheesing when the boss is brutally tough like Consort Radahn because you still have to be very careful. However when I used a greatshield and a bleed spear and rot combined I felt like I was cheesing him because I could just mindlessly poke behind my shield, barely taking any damage. I only needed to look out for my stamine a bit and that was all.

[@swordguy1243]

Lords of the Fallen did casting right : you hold L2 , your character goes into casting mode then you press either square, triangle, circle, R1, R2 etc... for different spells on the go . It works fast and seamlessly with melee combat

[@Mugthief]

I have many deep complaints about LotF, even after patches, but how they did spellcasting and ranged is still the thing I point to of “this was smart. More of this please”

[@solofox9426]

I would also like to see a system like this for multiple weapon skills (ashes of war) in the future.

[@Scowleasy]

FromSoft seriously need to implement button shortcuts for spellcasting

[@prinnydude5864]

​@@MugthiefI think it works good in LotF thanks to the speed of the game, but in fast pacing games like Elden Ring or Bloodborne? No thanks. I say that because i played as a frost mage with the darkmoon gs and some spells, and the time i would lose to "enter" on ranged mode would make impossible fast changes like "i would shoot a spell, but i rather use the sword"

[@Sohelanthropus]

They also added 1H into 2H attacks and vice versa Like the transform attacks in Bloodborne, but just with normal weapons

[@bighat8794]

FOR THE LOVE OF MARIKA THE ETERNAL, please Fromsoft give us a more horror oriented souls game, bloodborne ambiance is well known to be unmatched among any souls, we need more of that.

[@JF-vz1ju]

Did you play the DLC?

[@bighat8794]

@@JF-vz1ju Hell ye why ?

[@co2_os]

We just need a spiritual successor to bloodborne. WITHOUT SONY cause f them.

[@JF-vz1ju]

@@bighat8794 I thought the Abyssal Woods were a cool horror based zone with some Bloodborne vibes. Not a full game but maybe a taste of something they're cooking up.

[@peacefusion]

DLC has corpses on spikes, piles of bodies, disgusting sewer critters, guess you're looking for more gore than horror.

[@genxfrood]

In one of his recent interviews Miyazaki had said (I think in reference to Sekiro and Bloodborne) that they could ramp the combat up one more notch. He also said that he hasn't yet made his ideal fantasy RPG so we'll be seeing some interesting stuff coming in the future.

[@doraafelfedezoofisol]

If by that he meant increasing the bosses 12 hit combos to 15 and increase their hp then I will be disappointed

[@nayyarrashid4661]

​@@doraafelfedezoofisolYeah the bosses can be hit or miss but that has always have been the case with From Soft bosses. Some bosses are near perfection but then there are some who are borderline shit. I hate the Radahan second phase where he has long combos but on top of that there are holy pillars at the end of each combo making it overly complicated.

[@dagrela]

​@@doraafelfedezoofisol honestly the only boss you can say this for is radhan and maybe gaius, and radhan was a catch 22 for from soft where if he was too easy ppl would complain so they made him uber difficult - its meant to take hours and hours to beat, but to clarify i did NOT do that, me and my mimic sorted him out

[@doraafelfedezoofisol]

@@dagrela There are lots of other bosses that are pushing it,but not quite there, Rellana might be there tho,but lot of these bosses have roll catch attacks, trial and error type telegraphed attacks rather than intuitive attacks etc, I liked most bosses,but like 40% of them were more frustrating than fun

[@w4tch0ut10]

​@@nayyarrashid4661objectively speaking, there worst bosses have been in the early games

[@InsaneGreatsword]

Personally I think the multiplayer needs revamped. Seamless coop being the most popular mod shows that people want to play with friends. I still find it baffling that they killed fight clubs and the invader boss, although I doubt they’re going to make a PvP focused game. Edit: I can’t believe I forgot about covenants, very interesting stuff that they threw away, but yeah, the point remains that a multiplayer overhaul is long overdue

[@Sohelanthropus]

An option to play with friends without consequences would literally kill the PvP area in an instant Only way to fix the online ecosystem is by improving Covenants' systems as a whole, make them be worth more than just cheklists for loot DS3 did so well with Covenants, if only From would've capitalized on that with ER

[@nayyarrashid4661]

I think they should not only bring back certain covenants (not all) from both DS1 and DS3 and instead of unique covenant items let it be something actually useful even perhaps a random crafting item. And bring back that weird thing from DS1 which spawns when someone looses their runes and cannot pick it up back.

[@exeledusprince9165]

Honestly I wouldnt mind if they ditched PvP/Co-op entirely to focus and fine-tune the PvE. Sekiro has the best multiplayer in the series by far, and the quality of the game shows.

[@Jamazed]

This game still has one of the worst multiplayer netcodes I've ever had the displeasure of playing. It's just as bad as when I first played Dark Souls in 2011. Constant stutters, disconnections, teleporting players and enemies, not being able to parry bosses in multiplayer despite it registering as a parry on your own screen (how has this still never been solved???), and all sorts of insufferable jank in PvP. Thank god the single player experience is as good as it is because the multiplayer is just one step above "might as well not even have it".

[@azure4622]

@@exeledusprince9165 but armored core co-op would be so damn cool!

[@tomhuitema2068]

I do gotta say, after playing some of the dlc bosses, I went back to play the base game bosses, and they were way more fun and felt like they had way more openings to punish.

[@poutineausyropderable7108]

100% Relanna has tons of hopes because she has lots of jumpable attacks that are jump heavy openings. Midra is goated for the same reason. You can even crouch under his bayblable attack. Not the most optimal response, but its funny af and cool to have such varying response. But Radhan is shit. ER was great because if you wanted to play the game with a longsword, without trading, playing aggressive was usefull because they had mid combo/mid windup openings. Jump attack opening or attack you could straffe run and do a big punish. Using the low profiles of an heavy attack to bend and physically, hit box evade the next hit as it goes over your head. These advanced openings became core moves in your playstyle and made staying close and playing dangerously worth it. Stance damage was what you were going for. A visible stance bar makes you play it like sekiro and stop looking at the health bar. Thats what made elden ring combat better then ds3. Without it, the game heavily ensentivise cheese passive hit and run tactics, which is boring as fuck. It was the main criticism the game had at the beggining. What Joseph anderson video started. Radahn took all that and said, fuck it. Plus I have an attack that can only be dodge if you center your whole playstyle arround staying at his knee and react dodging left everytime. Malenias waterfowl, if you know the point blank dodge is actually easier the dodge the more aggresive you are. If you try to create distance, she might do it while you are in the reversed goldy zone range, too far for point blank, too close for mid range dodge method and you'd die. Plus, the recovery time of your attacks is perfect so that if you land a hit, then she starts it and you start recovering, youll be able to start the point blank dodge at the perfect timing. Whereas if she does it while you are passive and you start running to soon, she will 180 turn teleport to you and youll eat the whole thing snd die. Too late and same thing. Theres no such thing with the cross slash its just a bad attack with one dodge method. Again, No low profiles, no jump, no straffe, no mid windup, 1 mid combo. I spent 10 hours looking for those and found none. So many time I had hope, but nope. So many strat that were uber advanced, but were just red hearing. I ended up beeting him at 20 fps with horrible lag and upgraded my entire pc because I never want to play the game again with this much lag.

[@hidengems7437]

FOR THE LOVE OF FROM SOFTWARE we need a new game fresh mechanics , new traps , new gimmicks, new tricks, so it fells like the first ever souls felling but different game

[@PaulRoche-iv4oh]

I have a theory that Miyazaki never intended to create a DLC for elden ring, but after the commercial success of the base game I don’t want to say they were forced to make SoTE but the plan changed after ER released and that’s why it took them a year to announce SoTE, which to me would kinda explain some of the let’s call them quirks of SoTE

[@koladearasanmi2005]

Not gonna lie i feel like elden ring didn't need a dlc and i would have been fine if they just moved to another project. As it the base game was fine story wise and while you don't need to play the dlc, they could have just skip it infavoure of a new game

[@doomslayer8985]

​@@koladearasanmi2005I think its fine they developed the dlc I mean all soulslike games (except sekiro) received a DLC but this one was on huge scale, the others like ds1 you could beat it in 3hrs, ds3 in 6-7hrs and bloodborne short as well. But still i think it's fine overall at least they have moved on and started working in other projects (hopefully bloodborne remaster/Remake and a new IP with newer mechanics and gameplay

[@cmoney163]

I agree, I think they were going to just start Elden Ring 2 but due to the success, caved in and made a dlc

[@bdaniels4627]

I don’t disagree with the fact that from needs to evolve base combat to be more fun. But I do disagree that using specific builds for bosses isn’t what souls hasn’t always been. Dark souls 1 when it it new basically was all about finding specific weaknesses for bosses to use. I think of parrying the final boss or all the havels armor wearing back flipping bros. It’s just after a while people got so good at dodging they would decide to replay with other builds and weapons.

[@coasteraddict10]

Dude go back even further with Demon's Souls, fire destroys phalanx, leechmonger and dirty colossus, you can safe spot spider with arrows, flamelurker is owned by magic and old hero is destroyed by thief's ring just off the top of my head

[@bdaniels4627]

@@coasteraddict10yeah basically. Almost all demon souls bosses had some sort of mechanic. Fire bombs vs phalanx, theif ring vs old hero. Yeah you said the ones that came to my mind too lol

[@prinnydude5864]

​@@bdaniels4627I absolutely agree with you. I too tought the dlc was unfair when i first played, even removed the dust of my Mimic tear on Radahn. But after that, i played with my Ng +7 mage, my Maliketh build, my starscourge build and so on solo, and i think that the difficulty is, while hard and clusterfuck, not that impossible. Hell, i even won in just 4 tries and had some fun.

[@azure4622]

I play MH by changing and adapting but i can't say froms games (except maybe armored core) are built for it, the biggest deterant it the limited amount of larval tears and their equivalents in other games

[@zaleost]

@@coasteraddict10I’d say there is a distinction between alternating damage type and using items that counter particular weaknesses and it being normal to remake your entire build to counter specific bosses.

[@CrazyFikus]

25:25 - "During the Abyssal Woods you lose access to Torrent, you can recover it, I've seen people act like the Abyssal Woods you can't use Torrent. You can definitely use Torrent you just got to... there's certain sections where you can't use Torrent and you can take out the monsters and use Torrent." I've killed all the non-respawning enemies in the Abyssal Woods and even the boss of the area and then spent some 15 minutes running around with the steed whistle on my item bar to see if it lights up at any point. It doesn't.

[@samuel.jpg.1080p]

I thought beating Midra and the winter lantern enemies will make Torrent not scared anymore, it would make sense to do so given that the area is large and it would be a nice reward. But unfortunately not.. what a shame

[@spinx914]

@@samuel.jpg.1080pthe reason it doesn’t allow you to ride torrent after beating the enemies is because torrent isn’t scared, he just know that he will die if he comes out. This is because of how the frenzy flame is trying to melt everything together and unlike how torrent can be revived if killed normally, the frenzy flame kills him forever. we see this at the lord of frenzy ending as torrents ring was left in the dust as melinda embraces it, showing he is dead

[@samuel.jpg.1080p]

@@spinx914 that still doesn't excuse for making a big empty area. Also we can beat the all wintern lantern enemies but it still doesn't allow Torrent to be usable which is baffling since the developer prompt hints at them being the ones who causes some of, if not all of the frenzy in the abyssal woods. Also it's just weird that Torrent does not react after we have been marked by Three Fingers. Torrent should at least sense that by that point, there's high chance we'll be Lord of Frenzy Sometimes in FS games, they always change the lore/story until the last minute so lore doesn't always excuse questionable design decision

[@spinx914]

@@samuel.jpg.1080p i’m a gameplay persepective i agree even if it is just putting a frenzy dragon or catacombs something would be nice and not being able to ride torrent is annoying. but from a lore perspective it doesn’t make sense we can ride torrent after the frenzy flame ending as he is dead and it’s not just winterlanterns who spread the flames it’s also the flies and rats and even some tarnished. I think that on new game we should be able to ride torrent as it would give us that scary experience on the first play through but not again

[@Martial-Mat]

I thought the number of controls got out of hand with Witcher 3, Red Dead and Days Gone, and they didn't even need to do it. The games didn't get better by having unique keys for every conceivable action.

[@4sxS307cAW]

In short, it's an enemy power creep issue. Beyond the point of reasonably "git gud" as a solution, enemies are getting overtuned. This means the majority of players can't just go with a silly build. In the main game, you might be able to use a dex scaling weapon to beat certain bosses even if you invested in strength. In the DLC, it becomes exponentially more difficult to get away with that, especially with some bosses where you must perfect your build; otherwise, it gets crazy hard.

[@coreymitchell3058]

Hit the nail on the head with the "overtuned" part, it's always been like this Fromsoft has always been releasing games broken and overtuned but at least in Souls and Bloodborne they went back and fixed them and made them better but with Elden Ring and its DLC in my opinion every patch they brought out it felt like they made it worse than before the patch I hope they don't make another open world game and go back to their roots. Elden Ring definitely shows that's not where their skillset is

[@reiswoodard6630]

but if a boss isn’t overtuned and instead has long combos people complain about that too. so there’s no way to increase difficulty without having people complain.

[@4sxS307cAW]

@@reiswoodard6630 This throws balance out the window. Souls games are becoming less about the core "souls" experience and more like MMORPGs, where the game punishes players based on choices made before battles rather than their skill in dodging telegraphed moves and striking back. The essence of Souls games is overcoming challenges through skill and perseverance, not through rigidly optimized builds. When the game forces players into perfect builds to stand a chance, it undermines the spirit of adaptability and skill that defines the genre. And it actually encourages players to spam Ashes of War or rely on long-range builds, like mages or incantations, rather than engaging in close combat. This shift takes away from the core experience of mastering melee combat and learning enemy patterns, making it less about skillful play and more about exploiting game mechanics.

[@reiswoodard6630]

@@4sxS307cAW I would disagree because increasing move set difficulty directly increases the need for skillful play. Dlc bosses in particular restrict ash of war spam and spirit ash spam. So no, this increase in difficulty does make it more about learning enemy movesets. Besides, Elden Ring is the largest game they’ve ever created and no other souls game can have players ending at level 150. To account for something like that, the dlc scales up its damage and health in a suitable way. Sadly bosses like romina and messmer weren’t scaled up this way which is why nobody complains about them. Souls games are about the world, and any boss that limits a playstyle does it for a reason given by the lore and world.

[@4sxS307cAW]

​@@reiswoodard6630TL;DR: Instead of "get good" in the traditional Souls sense, DLC bosses are becoming build checks similar to gear checks in MMORPGs. I think you are missing the point here. We're not talking about the moveset being the sole culprit for bosses being overtuned, nor did I say movesets are solely to blame. The issue is that there are such limited windows for players to reasonably fight back. Sometimes, in a 30-second span, there are only 5 seconds where players can attack. This makes it nearly impossible for non-perfect builds, non-Ash of War spam builds, or non-long-range builds. Additionally, bosses have wacky hitboxes and can travel across the map in an instant. Fighting them without a proper build becomes incredibly difficult, tedious, and chore-like. It's becoming boring to fight bosses that teleport in your face, do their thing, then teleport away or fly out of reach. Even the best players might end up exploiting the bosses rather than fighting them head-to-head in the traditional Souls sense.

[@Hemestal]

I managed to kill Radahn with only my spiked mace and a pretty "honest" build and even tho I managed to prevail, I felt like I didnt have fun because bosses being so overloaded makes it so they become annoying more than "hard" With Radahn, you spend 90% of the time rolling and sidestepping and it doesnt feel like a grand confrontation between two strong opponents. Compare it to Ishin in Sekiro, its fantastic because it feels more of an actual duel between evenly matched enemies, its super interactive. The fights in elden ring are still very doable, but they are slowly feeling less and less satisfying.

[@10XSeiga]

You don't understand openings and dodging for position yet. I promise you there are much bigger openings than you can currently notice.

[@petercottantail7850]

​@@10XSeigaI'm afraid you don't understand what fun is for most people, and that it's a dlc to a game people liked and don't want to practice a fight to the point of no hit running it.

[@elia0162]

@@petercottantail7850 that's not the point people want to play and don't want to watch abossfught do a combo for 10 minutes so that you can attack once and wait another 10 minutes

[@ErikWithBrain]

It's a little frustrating to hear that status effects are considered "cheesing", especially when the health bars are massive and one might not want to upgrade their scadutree blessing as far as possible and as quickly as possible once they have the opportunity. They're just not in the same category as spirit ashes or broken ashes of war.

[@dready2576]

Well, on one cup its a decent status (bleed for example) build when you just play and getting that damage/buff from exultation bonuses from time to time, and other cup - 2 scavenger curved swords, brainlessly spamming dodge attack, and thats all. I think status cheesing its about the 2nd option.

[@treaty6896]

I wouldn't consider that cheesing. To me, it's only cheese if you are doing something clearly unintended. Status effects, spirit ashes, co-op and building around strong ashes of war are all fine. I will put a caveat and say that if something gets patched out, then I would consider whatever it was to be cheese (think rolling sparks).

[@jahnyguitah7999]

​@@treaty6896exactly. I don't understand the discourse of "you have to cheese to beat the DLC!" I'm not doing a 5 minute buff stack for a one shot chainsaw. I'm not quitting out in a corner to freeze the boss. I'm not doing the rolling sparks glitch. I'm just playing the game. It's not cheese to play the game.

[@prinnydude5864]

​@@dready2576This doesn't make too much sense tbh.

[@Farkararka]

@@dready2576 what about the other cup?

[@BrandonDenny-we1rw]

I want to say i think Miyazaki himself realized this with Elden Ring. He can only do so much with the games framework and theres only so many ways to make it play differently as is.

[@DreyfusLagoon]

I don’t think their next game is going to be another: roll, block, attack, repeat game. I could see it being more about combos, and maybe dodging more akin to a game like absolver or for honor where your character is legitimately dodging an attack with their body through a lean or a sidestep in order to counter attack, rather than just roll straight through an attack using I frames. It’s obvious that Miyazaki wants to keep making fantasy games but I think the next one might be more grounded in regards to its combat as a way to introduce a new system to fighting in a way that sekiros combat is definitely more “realistic” compared to elden ring

[@BrandonDenny-we1rw]

@@DreyfusLagoon i agree, looking at the dlc its very....animeish and more fluid than the base games attacks, showing he wants to keep changing

[@azure4622]

i hope we get more complex monster hunter like combes, sure the enemies will have to change heavily for that but if pulled of it would be great

[@Ghorda9]

@@DreyfusLagoon elden ring already has a lot of jumping and positioning, if you're only rolling than you're doing it wrong.

[@DreyfusLagoon]

@@Ghorda9 say what you want but I just no hit Messmer yesterday so clearly I’m doing something right

[@GripChief]

The dlc feels oddly anti summon. They made the bosses insta attack you, soon as you enter the fog gate. This makes summoning more difficult, while several npc's have to be summoned IN the boss arena. Annoying AF trying to activate a summon sign, while avoiding the boss.

[@peacefusion]

Mesmer and Bayle had inner summons. Bayle would almost always shoot some fire or do a slow jump as youre going for the Epic npc summon lol

[@MohidPvE]

I entirely disagreee but that’s my opinion, I watched my loser mage friend summon mimic tear and beat rellana 2 tries just spamming spells and running away, took me 23 with str great sword and learning all her move sets and combos, I guess In the end I got the more rewarding feeling and actually overcame a challenge

[@naterod]

That’s actually a plus. Because if we summon an NPC in the fight as we load the boss, the boss keeps their original HP. If we load the NPC before they get buffed as if we loaded another player. The final boss has two NPC summons, that’s 50% more health for each. Consort Rahdhan is waaaaay to tanky with even just one summon especially when considering NG+ runs

[@jamesn0va]

​@@MohidPvE as the spell caster myself define beast and relana and maybe midra are the only bosses this is true for. The rest i had to ditch spellcasting for because of the above issue's.

[@hyboirds1536]

There are two bosses with summons in the arena. And only a couple that attack you when you enter. People are coming up with the dumbest cope.

[@swordierre9341]

I like how you articulate the issue and i agree. The problem with esscalation isnt that players wont be able beat the challenges, its that the process of learning and defeating bosses becomes less fun. They need make the process of learning a bosses moveset fun. If bosses become harder the trail and error formula has to change, evolve into something more fullfilling. edit: for the love of

[@w4tch0ut10]

Wonder when people will realize that "not having fun" is entirely a "you" problem 🤷

[@Starcrafter23]

@@w4tch0ut10 How is that supposed to be a criticism? The very idea of fun is subjective. If people have less fun in ER than in past Soulsborne games it makes sense they voice their concerns

[@elia0162]

@@w4tch0ut10 L take

[@w4tch0ut10]

@@Starcrafter23 yes, but they should voice there concerns as "if this continues, it may be a problem for me" not as "this is going to be a problem". They are having personal issues and generalize as if it was an actual thing

[@travisbewley7084]

I think DS2 had it right. It gave you a ton of tools and they were all very balanced because they had more levers to pull, because it was a slower game. When is the last time you were comparing two weapons of the same type and actually paid attention to how much stamina they consumed? Or how much reach they had? In DS2 the combat was slow enough that a little extra reach could make a huge difference. You stamina also recovered much much more slowly so stamina management was much much harder. Fume Knight wasn't the pinicle challenge because of 12 hit combo trains. It was because he could pressure your stamina so well. I hope FromSoft slows it down a lot.

[@opethmike]

The slowness of DS2 is one of my favorite parts of it.

[@rohansensei5708]

Enemies are playing Elden Ring while we're still playing Dark Souls.

[@JF-vz1ju]

The Elden Ring player character has access to crouching, crouching attacks, jumping, jumping attacks, different types of parries, different types of dodges, guard counters, many offensive and defensive ashes of war, can two hand weapons in either hand, omni directional rolling, the Physick for buffs, a quick item menu, and is overall faster and more responsive than the player character in Dark Souls 1.

[@rohansensei5708]

​@@JF-vz1ju Yeah all that yet it’s as if the bosses are straight out of Bayonetta or Nioh. And did you really count the quick item menu as a "mechanic"? If you want to see true combat mechanics, play older character action games or at least modern Team Ninja games. The only real upgrades to combat mechanics in FromSoftware's Souls-likes are in Bloodborne and Sekiro. Trick weapons transformed the core gameplay far more than jumping in Elden Ring. In regard of the jumping; in Sekiro, jumping was integral and frequently used by the player, unlike in Elden Ring, where it’s mainly for dodging random AOE attacks or a specific ground-leaning attack. There hasn't really been much change in gameplay from Demon's Souls to Elden Ring.

[@prinnydude5864]

​@@rohansensei5708Jumping is not integral in Elden Ring? There is no usefulness in exploration or in combat? There is NO BUILD FOCUSED IN LITERALLY SPAMMING JUMP ATTACKS?

[@azure4622]

​@@prinnydude5864 If only spamming jump attacks weren't so boring for me

[@rohansensei5708]

@@prinnydude5864 You said spamming not me

[@goobbludon1774]

One of the reasons I love Lies of P is because of the spin they put on the normal Souls formula. It's a mix of Sekiro and Dark Souls along with the ability to change weapon handles to customize gameplay. It felt fresh after playing Elden Ring and works well with aggressive bosses

[@Sylphan]

Every Souls fan should try Lies of P. It is an amazing game and the boss fights are so much fun. Once you figure out the combat system you are guaranteed to have a blast.

[@Sci-Fi_Freak_YT]

I would rather play lies of p 10 times over Elden Ring once ngl. Mainly because the combat feels INCREDIBLE.

[@jamesarthurkimbell]

Lies of P broke the spell that only Miyazaki can make one of these. I was shocked, but eventually I accepted after going through such consistent quality the whole game: they really did it.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

​@@jamesarthurkimbell True... but honestly... It's a diamond among the hay stack of souls like games. More often than not. Souls like games don't truly hit the mark of quality. They often share the same poor quality design despite being made by different devs. I mean combat of course. Even Eastern DMC like games copy and paste too similar of a combat style. Indie Games do the same if they only follow the formula with zero creativity in combat art styles.

[@AtelierMcMuttonArt]

And it actually had a strong final area!

[@ramoraid]

Fromsoft needs to learn how to make their camera better and also untie their game physics to FPS. Literal Bethesda levels of incompetence in their games. why can't you roll while running? Many of my problems with the DLC stem from terrible movement and limited dodge options, especially rolling. The next games need to allow quickstep and bloodhound step to be a direct choice in dodging options and not tie it to an ash of war. The ash of war system needs to also improve and allow you quickly choose between the ash of war in your right or left hand.

[@MrRenanHappy]

I'm having a hard time understanding how using a straight sword would be difficulty, they have some of he highest dmg output

[@Zero_Cool8760]

Dude, I've been saying for a long time now that the starter classes should be more distinct with passives to incentivize a certain playstyle. If they're wanting to go even further into the RPG direction of things, then I think that's the logical thing to do. Also it would make repeat playthroughs so much more interesting too. Kill 2 birds with one stone.

[@Knights_of_the_Nine]

Uh. A lot of Dark Souls draws inspiration from Monster Hunter, in that a lot of your characters playstyle is based on what you equip. It would definitely be a massive departure to have things like classes.

[@w4tch0ut10]

Hell NO!

[@hurricanechaosemerald]

​@Knights_of_the_Nine lol, takes inspiration from Monster Hunter? Where and how? In MH, wearing different Armour gives different buffs and debuffs, and the weapons feel distinct and interesting cuz of the move sets, and elements having a huge play depending on the monster and weapon, where in FROMSOFT series is only when it's player versus player and do nothing agaisnt the PVE aspect lmao, frenzy flame and death blight, why is it only PVP where you can see a huge difference compared to PVE? I wanna inflict death blight or frenzied flame onto humanoid enemies that are the same size as me, specifically allowing only 1 element of a game design only to affect something that I barely use due to bad multiplayer design, it's a complete failure

[@pedro_oak_alexandre]

I don't know if i like this...

[@Chinesetakeout382]

It would be worth trying to some extent, but the question is if the benefits of that would negate the loss of more creative builds that encourage player expression. Like the souls games for me have been great because you can have more uniquely fine tuned builds. Like the endurance, dual great shield builds some people do, or the muscle wizards. Even then, if you want to make these classes complex and configurable, we may just have the same problem again. I just don’t classes would really fix the problem.

[@deazee2288]

I feel like fromsoft is torn between innovating (Sekiro) or conserving their legacy (Dark souls trilogy) and elden ring is a symptom of the latter half

[@Shishakind86]

Even though Sekiro is the better game in terms of gameplay, at least in my humble opinion. It's the only Fromsoft game that without revisting it, I played for multiple NG+ circles in a row. I really wish for them to continue innovating rather than adding up on existing formulas.

[@ronthorn3]

@@Shishakind86Yeah I don’t get the “Sekiro had no replay value” argument. It’s my favorite Fromsoft game to replay, maybe I’m just crazy. 😂

[@based-ys9um]

​@@ronthorn3its the best combat they've done by far.

[@doraafelfedezoofisol]

I've played all the Dark Souls games, and none of them had bosses that were damage sponges with 12-hit combos where one hit would take off half your HP bar while giving you only an R1 window to attack before the next combo. Some of these bosses were abominations rather than anything reminiscent of Dark Souls.

[@Sohelanthropus]

They innovated combat wise with Bloodborne, and a bit in DS3 too with the full addition of Weapon Arts ER did just a bit with jumping, crouching and guard counters They've innovated, just slower and slower I believe the next game needs to have an innovation of Sekiro's combat alongside unique weaponry to that of Bloodborne, for it to actually be new and innovative

[@ogyonmastaflux]

All I want is if the bosses are gonna be following the hyper anime trend then we the player should get a bloodborne style dodge and sekiro deflection as a baseline. I feel like them putting the deflection tear in the dlc is them testing the waters.

[@svenproglhof1768]

Give me a fromsoft game that has: *Lore and world design of Dark Souls 1/Bloodborne *the build diversity of Dark Souls 2 *the consistent boss quality (for the most part) of Dark Souls 3 including DLCs *the unique weapon design of Bloodborne *wishful thinking, but give me a gameplay of DMC 5 mixed with the classic stats system so the bosses can have tuned up Shadow of the Erdtree movement while we, the player, have tools to engage with the bosses on an even playing field.

[@Thixico]

(also the level of pvp of ds2 with the netcode of seamless co op mod)

[@heideknight7782]

And that has invisible crows which exchange garbage for treasures.

[@skrabio]

I want a FromSoft game where you aren’t a player character wearing boss armor - I want to BE these boss characters 😁

[@Bukwheat]

I wanna play a game from Fromsoft that is like those Boss vs. Boss videos lol

[@lordofcinder8884]

So a hack in slash devil may cry like game

[@prinnydude5864]

If you git gud, the boss music will be actually for yoi

[@nayyarrashid4661]

I think From Soft needs to bring back the Old Monk and that second last boss fight from Ringed City back.

[@octavianpopescu4776]

​@@prinnydude5864 I remember how Radahn + Elden Beast just bullied me when I first finished the game and now after the DLC I entered the arena: "C'mere you little shits!" Or in the DLC, the Blackgaol Knight at the Western Nameless Mausoleum: first time, I barely, hardly beat him, my left hand was hurt from the tension, my fingers were tense and I couldn't move them. I had to take a 10-15 min break to calm down. Second time (I'm now on my 2nd playthrough of the DLC) I took 2 full upgraded Anvil Hammers to his teeth. He was down to half health before he finished spawning. But did I git gud? I'm not sure... those 2 giant anvils, fully upgraded and all the buffs did the heavy lifting.

[@DadsToaster]

I may be a Fromsoft purist but I genuinely believe the DLC widened the already seemingly unclosable gap between the competition. The depth of the map just reminded me of the Dark Souls series with the amount of secret pathways and what not. I genuinely hope aspiring developers take note of this and incorporate it into their own games. Great video! ❤

[@desolation1821]

Buildcrafting around boss mechanics because you're stuck is part of the fun. Every boss is a wall, a problem to solve. You can climb over the wall, walk around it, dig under it, get a ladder, or take you face and bash your head against it until you smash through it. You are in the DLC where the game expects you to have all the tools to your disposal. So use it. And trust me you can still beat every boss with a straight sword and dodging.

[@jimmyrustles358]

The control scheme of Fromsoft games is extremely outdated. Having to scroll through spells and skills, or even worse, having to go to a menu to change your abilities like in Sekiro is absurd. All they have to do is copy Dragons Dogma, where holding a button will change your other buttons to spells.

[@ImpendingApotheosis]

I don't disagree but with the reduced amount of skills, dragons dogma 2 was 2 steps back from 1

[@prinnydude5864]

Fromsoft: *Does this* "Fans" on the other day: HOW AM I SUPOSE TO TRANSITION TO RANGED MODE THE BOSSES ARE SO FAST

[@dificulttocure]

@@prinnydude5864 Not really, it's pretty instantaneous. Kind of like how Moonveil Ash of War works for example, you hold a button and then press another button. It's very fast.

[@ramoraid]

They should take a page out of fortnite, apex and cod in this aspect lol

[@joshuathompson2404]

Speaking as an invader, the last thing we need is more efficient spellcasting :) #keepintelligencestupid #pitythemeleebuild Heaven forbid you have THREE op spells all 1 click away. Just playing, Just playing...but seriously :)

[@cris3758]

It's uncanny how I reached most of these conclusions by myself. I'm happy I'm not the only one who has realized that the current game design direction is not sustainable without major changes.

[@imALazyPanda]

Yeah, its something i notice sort of post base game ER. The first playthrough was magical and i immediately jumped into the second. But after a break and going back i realized there were very few bosses i was looking forward to fighting, few i found to he just fun. Compared to BB where i will replay the whole game just to experience ludwig, maria, orphan, father, and so many more again. I wasnt a fan of the way they were going with boss design and was hoping that maybe the dlc would be a return to form, but it was a double down. The only boss i found fun start to finish is midra. Radahn couldve been fun, i think his phase 1 is an absolutely blast. Too bad its only 30% of his health and like 10% the duration of the fight.

[@MichaelA-ue8gh]

It really is lol. Everyone that has had critiques have come down to pretty much the same exact conclusion, now that it's a couple weeks later we have a much better grip on the issues other than saying "this feels unfair" or "too hard".

[@ronthorn3]

@@imALazyPandabro I think your just getting burnt out on the formula in general, we’ve been getting basically the same game since demon souls slightly improved and tweaked. Bloodborne bosses are no different than Elden rings, they are just more gothic looking.

[@cris3758]

My biggest complaint is the open world itself: its just boring to traverse through. It feels like a glorified loading screen between dungeons. I really don't feel like the Souls gameplay lends itself to the open world.

[@MichaelA-ue8gh]

@@cris3758 agreed, here's a video that explains a lot of the issues many of are having in a clear and concise way. It's honestly really cool that so many of us are running into these issues, especially the ones who have played all these games. kzbin.info/www/bejne/m5uqZWyqrbydmKcsi=Mfm3llNnbqq0CFTT

[@laikenf]

THIS is the correct discourse we should be having, the whole difficulty debate, this is what it all comes down to and why the game’s issues are all because of its inherent design.

[@zbaschtian]

People are releasing no-hit RL1 boss runs two weeks after release at the same time streamers are breaking their keyboards. There's no way to accommodate the full skill spread without difficulty modulation, which they included by the shovelful and still without need for a difficulty setting menu. People below the skill threshold can keep practicing or move on. People near or above the threshold are having the time of their life, and given that this is the core Soulsborne demographic, I won't fault FromSoft for biasing towards them.

[@todaysdesperadohatesavocad7109]

I think it's the hardcore veterans that both want and don't want change. I personally LOVE the basics of From combat. Rolls, builds, heavy and light attack. It's what made me love DS1 on release day. It's why I buy their games. If they mixed it up too much I wouldn't buy it. I don't mind a Sekiro now and then, but I want Bloodborne at most. Honestly? I wish they went back to slower, more deliberate gameplay like DS1 and DS2. They don't have to increase the speed to ramp up difficulty. They could slow things down and limit the enemies and player by forcing very purposeful actions. They blew us away with their innovation in fantasy RPG's. That doesn't mean they have to constantly innovate in future, it means what they did worked and should be built upon. Pressuring them to innovate could force them to make something they don't want to make and lead to poor results.

[@doraafelfedezoofisol]

​​@@zbaschtian Doing a no hit rl1 run says nothing about how well someone adapts, these people usually have more hours of practice on one boss than what the average person will spend going through the whole dlc, you are comparing the wrong kind of people to eachother.This is not mainly a skill issue for the avg player,but the amount of patience some of these bosses require and some of them have really cheap attacks and some lazy designs like 12 hit combos then a short window for you to attack which makes you lose interest in memorizing their attacks so you just trivialize them with a mimic. Artifficial difficulty increase is not what everyone wanted

[@papertoad456]

​@@zbaschtianThe problem with Fromsofts horrible built in difficulty options is that the way you make the game easier also makes it a lot less fun for most people. Another Crabs Treasure and Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order nail difficulty options because you can adjust things like speed, timing, and damage which can make the game easier but still engaging

[@billythenarwhal1579]

I think people need to quit trying to play "normally" if you wanna play like it's DS1, go play DS1, I see this DLC as the devs saying, if you wanna keep playing you need to start interacting with our new mechanics.

[@dev4159]

honestly, yea, i love those games but i've been starting to get bothered with how every enemy can do a bazillion of cool things while the player can only roll or jump.

[@chrisvisser-fee2631]

It's funny, people are finally understanding my complaints over the difficulty of Elden Ring based on how people responded to the DLC. I disagree with you in that I think the "it's not fun" thing kinda also applies to the base game, at least for a significant number of players (including people who have been fans of these games for over a decade!). Using a standard, non magical greatsword and the occasional medium shield, the same build I've used for every single game in the franchise for a first playthrough and the one I've always found the most rewarding... I got 70 hours in and was yet to find the fun. Yeah the games technically easier than any previous game in the franchise but if you're playing "normally" it strays well beyond Sekiro. And I guess the DLC does the opposite of fix that. Like I get that it's good game design to want your players to use everything the game gives you but if half of that shit is just unpleasant to use and the other half trivialises a game series that has always offered a near perfect level of challenge... I don't really want to use any of it.

[@jahnyguitah7999]

How do you define cheese? Becuase I'm a bad souls player, and I beat the DLC using the same build I've been using since base game. Golden Vow, Howl of Shabriri, keep my flask and boiled crab for phase 2 and it's been fruitful. Sure, it took more attempts to beat the bosses than in the base game, but it's not as insurmountable as a number like people would have you think. Beating the boss is an inevitability. You just have to keep trying until you learn the boss well enough to take advantage of the boss' combos. I can get hits in between combos without trading for example.

[@Awesomedude124]

I think " cheese" in this instance involves using strategies and tools that are far more powerful than others and potentially caused you to change your build that you were having fun with because it was no longer an effective tool for the job for various reasons. Now bear in mind any and all strategies are viable ways to defeat the bosses minus weird bugs that are very clearly unintentional. However if you are no longer having fun using the tools that were successful previously and there are other more objectively powerful weapons and easier strategies that you didn't originally want to use but caused you to reconsider using because of the lack of fun you were having trying to overcome this boss, then most people would consider that to be "cheesing" the boss.

[@Mugthief]

Just wanted to drop by and say: Yes.

[@heideknight7782]

@@Awesomedude124 But adapting the playstyle and using what is best to beat the boss is not 'cheesing'. You are then basically just playing the game with the tools that are available. And it is an important game mechanic that you need to/can adapt to the challenges posed in the game. Cheesing instead means that one is using approaches which are not intended to be used by the game design. Of course, it is not always very clear if a certain easy strategy for a boss is intended or not. Yet, things which are clearly within the scope of cheesing are glitches or skips and the like. Things like jumping out of Fire Giant's boss arena with Torrent and shooting him with a bow from afar. Or the speedrun strategy against Father Owl where you get him stuck at the door so he can not properly defend himself anymore. Just pointing this out so explicitly because it makes me angry that every easy win against a boss is now often considered as a cheese method, because this also devaluates certain playstyles over others. It is a sort of gatekeeping which plagues the whole community.

[@Awesomedude124]

@@heideknight7782 The problem with that definition is that "using approaches not intended to be used by game design" has a wide scope of interpretation from 'in-game items being used in a creative manner but within the game's natural parameters' to 'completely glitch out the game to instantly win or bypass the boss entirely by using game-breaking exploits'. The definition I gave is more in-line to what actually matters: the PLAYER having fun or not. In this manner it is more dependent on the individual's taste on what they consider 'cheese' or not. Is it just them using the in-game items to win at any cost? Yes. Did they have fun while using it? It depends but likely, NO. If the players do not feel like they can engage the game in a way that they determine to be fun with their preferred tool then there is bound to be unnecessary frustration on the players part. The ultimate goal in any game is not just completing it, but having FUN while doing so. However there are many ways for players to have fun. For those who only want to clear the game using any tools available and find enjoyment in simply beating the game, 'cheesing' as I defined above does not exist because their definition of FUN differs from the ones who only want to use their chosen tools and that's OK. The gatekeeping in the community is a result of those two major ideologies clashing: The player who wants to complete the game no matter what, and the player who wants to complete the game their way. Soulsbourne games are meant to challenge the player, but in a fair way that takes into consideration players utilizing any given tool the player wants to use. There are tools that are objectively better than others and it is even pointed out in-game, but there are a select few tools and strategies that are so strong that it essentially trivializes any encounter, which takes away from the core of game and makes it less engaging and fun for many players. The select few tools that can trivialize any manner of bosses regardless of its design good or bad will likely be regarded as 'cheese' even if the tools are used in the intended manner because its inherent existence goes counter to the intention of the Soulsborne games as a whole. Struggling is fine and is typically the main point the developers intended for average player. Some bosses can take hours or even days for people to 'git gud' in order to defeat them. Does that mean that you should ALWAYS struggle with any encounter? Not necessarily. The game is not perfect, and that does include boss design which means that there are certain encounters that possess flaws that detract from the fairness and enjoyability of engaging with the boss. This only escalates the gatekeeping where players who utilize everything to win will have little issue and will praise the boss regardless, regurgitating the inevitable 'git gud' to anyone who has legitimate complaints about it because to them it was not hard, and on the other hand players who only want to use their chosen tools, will beat their head against a wall until they either brute force a victory, or resort to using the aforementioned "cheese" to simply get past without having enjoyed the experience and complaining about the lack of fun they had or are having. Then there's the very small but gifted group of players who find all of it easy and resort to belittling both sides for using any tools at all which further perpetuates the issue.

[@natmeg747]

Its funny you say to try the bosses in the dlc with a straight sword but when im struggling really hard i default to a straight sword and try to ds3 my way through bosses i did it with radahn lmao

[@noxlunesia]

I find myself playing Elden Ring going "Wow these guys really just want to make a DMC-style character action game don't they" because.... yeah. Having an R1 string, a R2, and a special attack is not enough of a moveset for the main character to have. Especially when contending with bosses that can have a dozen branches to their own combo strings, give me more meat than the barest bones here. I'm fine with Souls being faster, more action focused... but the player tools need to match that. I shouldn't need to feel satisfied with one combo, one heavy, and a special move when I could play DMC5, a 5 year old game, that has entire libraries of movesets for each of it's characters. Either that or slow shit back down and return to what made Souls unique. I really don't care which, just that this half-and-half genre thing we have going on right now picks a damn direction and sticks with it.

[@zbaschtian]

Currently working on Radahn phase 2 with a Buckler and a Misericorde with Bleed infusion. Got phase 1 down to almost perfection, still need to clean up some of the moves added to the second phase. It's definitely doable, and the boss goes down very quickly once you optimize your dodges and can keep status buildup. Your argument about the game no longer being viable with a basic DS1 toolset is invalid. It takes more work, sure, but why in the world would we want fights at the same level as DS1 after 10+ years and 6+ game releases? IMO this only becomes an issue if you're new to the franchise and you believe sword and board is the only viable approach, to which I have to say: "why?" You have so many tools to modulate the game difficulty that if you just want to punish yourself for not experimenting with your loadout then it's a you problem and not a game problem. I'm not doing Radahn this way out of sheer stubbornness; I'm doing it because I want to push my parry reflexes to their limit, and so far the fight is not disappointing at all. Neither was Rellana, Gaius, Putrescence or any of the others on the way.

[@zbaschtian]

Update: I beat him, took me about 8 hours of attempts across 4 days. Ended up using a phase 2 summon to distract him while I rebuffed, but still had to learn the moveset and interact with the boss long enough for the summon to grab aggro. Eventually got good enough at parrying and dodging phase 2 to crit him twice and ended with a bleed proc.

[@zbaschtian]

Overall, it wasn't all that different from any other endgame Soulsborne fight, except perhaps by the smaller margin of consecutive errors. I don't think I died once to depleted flasks over 250+ attempts. As with any other boss, the hardest part is to learn to keep your cool and make mistakes with your eyes open, so even if you get hit once or twice you can still recover into neutral, or at least have a clear idea of what killed you and how to adjust for the next run.

[@SolasComposer]

For the love of... TOGETHAAAA-ness in thought, I have to agree that a survival horror is a high potential considering some past works and the abyssal woods area being such a unique area in Elden Ring setting-wise, more of that mixed with the elements of the souls formula they already have would be brilliant especially if they go in-depth mechanically, I'd love labyrinthian dungeons/mansions/castles with more puzzle solving shifting walls by themselves, I like how in Midra's Manse lots of the level progression was shifting the walls around and it was quite vertical, I remember finishing that area being absolutely desperate for more content lol.

[@ronthorn3]

Oh man would I love to see Fromsoftware tackle the survival horror genre! God would that be sick!

[@anarche4900]

@@ronthorn3they did it’s called Kuon for ps2 lol

[@Dastardly_Duo]

10:04 This is literally the point of the game though. What's supposed to change here? At this point, you're arguing for a complete game change unless I'm missing something?

[@Dastardly_Duo]

I'd say my own major and, probably, only gripe with From is that the builds don't feel different enough. They're different of course, but I'd like a bit more RPG elements in builds. Like if I wanna sneak for the entire time. Or if I wanna be a disgusting poison man, I could become a pest or something. I understand it's an ACTION role-playing game, but I'd like flexibility and uniqueness in future builds

[@jessiellanes3004]

I think they want something that can target the anatomy of a human body, an example like you can choose to hit the arm or you want attack the leg or counterattack by using your foot or elbow The problem with this the console controller is limited even then if you use keyboard can you even remember all of it This will only work on vr where you had free will to grab or kick it If your given an option to kick or use a bow that would into a turn-based games that won't feel like your fighting You can't really changed to this if you are limited to the button you have This will only work on VR are and change this rpg style of hack n slash

[@ethanpispas4098]

As a guy in my late 30's who has been a fan of the Soul series since day 1 of the Prepare to Die release in 2012, i have to say that i agree with most of the things you said with a few caveats: 1) Not just the DLC, but also in the base game, bosses were balanced around SPLIT AGRO, which means spirit summons. Spirit Summons are their way of integrating aspects of Classic team based RPG elements within the Souls formula, and they should not be viewed as NPC summons because their are upgradable weapons. It was not done particularly well. They did it because they wanted to have ultra aggressive impressive boss fights. Instead of doing that, they could give as the same tools as Bloodborne and Sekiro, and they gave us traits of that (deflect tear, malenia's rune, blood hound step/blinkbolt, raptor's of the mist) as situational equipable stuff, but not permanent. The reason they went for spirit summons in my opinion is because giving us so much more movement and power built in, would have been much harder to balance within the context of a huge Open World game that has hundreds of builds, especially for PvP, while Bloodborne and Sekiro had a singular approach to combat, thus much easier to balance. I hope their next game will have the build variety of Souls/Elden Ring, but with the more fluid movement of Sekiro/Bloodborne, and will not have PvP, so they will not have to care about it. 2) Sony OWNS Bloodborne IP. FromSoft can't do anything about it without Sony agreeing, and Sony does not seem to be open to the idea of a PC release. 3) I definitely wouldn't want a Bloodborne or Sekiro 2. These games are great, but they are essentially Action games with only one available playstyle. It's done, it's great, no reason to do it again. Another more action based IP sure, but no reason to redo these 2. 4) Shadow of the Erdree has issues, but it seems like people are judging it with double standards. Compare this to the DLC's release by other highly acclaimed Open World RPGs, like Skyrim or The Witcher 3. Despite its issues the quality is truely next level. 5) My biggest grip with Fromsoft's RPGs, is the fact that they do not have level caps and skill trees. With these concepts you could make truly specialised builds. With their current system, as you level up you can just do anything, and you have the community fighting over Meta Levels etc. I hope they fix that.

[@itsaUSBline]

God I hope they do a Sekiro 2 so badly.

[@warhorseman8680]

I just want to comment on your challenge: fight the boss with just me dodging. NG+7 level 1 naked. One buffed up weapon. Your point? Git Gud. The infinite combos take time but you can learn to dodge them. It's a patience game. Challenge accepted... boss beaten. Most bosses do a bunch of combos... and they are predictable or easy to dodge. Let's take Rellana's fight, for example: it is a patience game. She does 5-6 swings. You strike on the opening, get back. Phase 2 (can't dodge the magic, get in range and dodge the flames). It is a PATIENCE GAME! Messmer has aspear and baits you into dodging away. Stay close and he misses most attacks. Radahn is pretty much learnable. The OP move where he dashes 3-4 times in a flash of light? Only need to TRULY DODGE the final one. Let me get my Guts greatsword and beat the bosses. Can I beat them with the Kung Fu build? Can I use the bow (that msot players avoid) and beat them? Because if you want dodging + greatsword... literally skill issue. Bosses too tough? Old parry/shield combo still reigns supreme against EVERY BOSS! Want to win with your OWN BUILD? Then, dodging is the way to go. I agree with most of what you said but that comment challenge required an answer. I am a softie, after all (FromSoftware fanboy). EDIT: Some base game builds that destroyed base game bosses (like BLOODHOUND'S FANG) still work on Shadow's bosses. The bosses are more aggressive and, if you do NG or go back to base game, because you are used to the FAST COMBOS, the slower base game moves can mess you up as if you are playign it for the first time. If that is not balanced, I don't know what it is. The formula is about the mem and true. Get good by learning. Regarding the 'you need to buff yourself with what the game gives'... Sir? If you don't want to use the buffs, do a hitless run with no potions. Game gives you potions. Don't use any of the buffs from the base game. SECOND EDIT: I fully agree with the escalation but, have you considered that Radahn is the equivalent ot the Nameless King? DS3 had a cheese weapon. Even so, final DLC boss fights are meant to be tough. The whole point is the achievement feeling you get at the end of the run. Malenia-like fight in the DLC? Rellana was a close option with the feint move sets. Bayle is just crazy epic and good (specially given the time it takes to summon Igon if you want to). If they create an Elden Ring 2, they can focus on either better spells or something else. Poise, for example. Or allowing us to truly use a boss weapon (like Hand of Malenia) that is not nerfed. Either way, the formula of the games is unique. They got amazing games that are at the top of their tier. Why change the tier to fit the audience? You mentioned the use of 'all the tools'. Go dex and it's izi. Go summons and it's izi. DS was more fight focus. DS3 is where we truly started getting spells and now, we get to explore with it. You complain about the 'tools given to us but in base game, you UPGRADE your weapons and summons, no? On the DLC... you get the TOOLS to further upgrade their damage, if you want a faster run. So... please answer this, good sir. What TOOLS are we being forced to use?

[@hitogi06]

Why would you lie about ridding torrent in the abyssal woods?

[@colindupee]

I'm honestly really confused. A cursory internet search has no idea what tf he's talking about. So, it's either a prank, or he's missing out on his most popular video...

[@donotreadthis26]

My favourite boss in all of souls is slave knight gael and I think it's precisely because of what you said. Despite everything he throws at you, you can absolutely go up against him with nothing but a straightsword in hand and come out on top. Which is exactly how I beat him the very first time. And it felt amazing to do. The entire fight is like a dance and those are the best fights. SOTE's bosses are cool and all but I could not, and to a large extent just didn't want to put up with all the hyperaggressive bullshit they throw at you relelntlessly all the time. So the mimic has gotten a lot if screen time in this dlc and I feel no shame. If they use bs, I use bs.

[@IAMOP]

I don't understand why you say anything other than dodge / weapon attack to be cheese That's the system that's most outdated. The boss design, builds and other gameplay elements have evolved so much they need to build a new way to interact with enemies at core level Other thing they can focus is building proper multi player like seamless co-op

[@FEBRIZIOtv]

miyazaki said he's still perfecting his craft. elden ring was a huge mechanical advancement over ds3. not just jumping but ashes of war and combat wise.

[@noahdavidson1343]

I definitely don't have the same negative feeling many seem do about Shadows of the Erdtree. It's more of the same, and harder, and both of those are fine with me. But I would absolutely love them to go in a more mechanically complex direction such as sekiro again. That is my favorite videogame, I want more of that. I do very much disagree that SotE has unfun bosses, I find them to be very fun to fight much like the bloodborne and ds3 dlc bosses. If they want to do more freedom like ER again, I do hope they at least include some universal mechanics such as mikiri counter, jumping over sweeps, and deflecting. Or maybe something totally new. I also think, for the love of god, magic needs to be actually balanced, so treated more like weapons.

[@ronthorn3]

Based take. Sekiro is my favorite too, game of all time that is. And I agree with SOTE bosses being really fun. But I also, would love to see a more evolved formula. I mean Myazaki already said that’s what we’ll see soon so I’m not worrying.

[@Luxuriouswhite]

100% agree. I find that the fights of the DLC are more fun than the base game especially when fighting 1v1. They are very well designed but are very demanding of the player to learn the bosses move sets and master the fights. A lot of people dislike having to fight bosses over and over and develop a deep understanding of how they move, personally I absolutely love it.

[@TK_TK811]

You're not alone bro, i loved this dlc and want more or anything FROMSOFT wants to make without influence from people that think they should make them.

[@szalyn8849]

Magic is actually not the strongest thing if the game if you compare all of the builds 😭

[@based-ys9um]

​@@TK_TK811get off your knees. From deserve criticism

[@Pufty]

6:10 I did, yes. Was pretty fun! I sort of love the variability of everything, because in my attempts to 100% the achievements, I've gone through different unique playstyles and self-imposed restrictions to either breeze through or bash my head against the wall. One is quick and fun and the other feels great to overcome. To say that I came back to the DLC on NG+ and beat it no summons this time is awesome. To then later get a build that melts everything in my path, also AWESOME (I'd be crying so much harder if I had to grind a NG+ every time I missed a legendary ash, weapon, talisman or wanted a different ending). There is a great deal of choice on how to handle these decrepit mechanics as I love overcoming and my friend loves cheese :D Still, would be interesting to see what you mean in terms of improvements to the core

[@deralmighty8011]

My biggest concern with FS’s games is that they’ve finally reached a point where they’ve given into the very thing they denied from the start: That their games are designed to be hard. The seeds were first planted in the base game. Two areas that really stand out are the Lake of Rot and the Shunning Grounds. The Lake of Rot has the deadliest poison in the series’ history and is home solely to the most infamous enemy in the series: The Basilisk. Why? It’s not even original. We have already seen a poisoned swamp with Basilisks in DS3 so it’s not even an original idea. And the Shunning Grounds are basically just any historic sewer level on steroids. These areas are designed simply to be harder, more complex versions of prior concepts. I’ve known and believed this since the base game came out. Margit is just ridiculous as a first big boss. Regardless of how much the player has access to before taking him on, he’s still ridiculous. The first mainline boss the player has access to should be…accessible. Margit is just unbalanced. And the unbalance continues as the game goes on. You get to Morgott and by that point you feel like you’re fighting on equal footing. Even the Fire Giant feels balanced and fair, in spite of his obvious advantages. But then you get to Maliketh, who is just too mobile to be balanced. Then you have Hoarah Loux who hits like a truck without giving you many options for avoiding damage. But unlike Margit, you can’t just come back later, after finding more resources or leveling up. These are late game bosses designed to be tougher than early game bosses, but at some point, the resources run out and the instinctive combat of games like Sekiro, Bloodborne, and DS3 end up being forced out and replaced with forcing players to memorize ridiculously large movesets and play these fights perfectly in order to stand a chance.

[@itsaUSBline]

I just want to point out that being a full spellcaster isn't just viable for the first time in Elden Ring. It's entirely viable and basically trivializes every single boss in dark souls 1. These games have always given you options that do that.

[@zombievegetron]

after finishing up the DLC, I went back and started a new run of Bloodborne which is IMO the perfect souls game

[@RegencyYarl]

GRANT US EYES.

[@thecrypticstench]

@@RegencyYarlgrant eyes on our brains to cleanse our beastly idiocy…

[@DarkOminigiri]

I wish I can play Bloodborne 😢 no ps4. Life sucks really

[@samuel.jpg.1080p]

@@DarkOminigiri same, me too. Hope Sony ports it to PC, given that they have ported many of their exclusive games on PC by now

[@Unf0rget]

A good example is weapons. The weapon swing speeds are what boss windows seem to be built around. No weapon has no attacks to squeeze into a briefer window. Until the dlc. That last boss has some moves where if it isnt a colossal sword roll poke you just have nothing. How about weapon stats? Most faith heavy weapons are holy, the rest are fire. Guess what the last boss resists? Both. So now faith scaled weapons are just kinda bad and I had to rely primarily on my 40 strength to do the damage instead of my 70 faith. Casting speeds are ass. Most faith incantations can't even fit into a window on the dlc bosses, not without a spirit ash buying you that window. Casting speed boost shouldnt even exist as it does because how many critical damage enablers for melee make you take 30-50% extra damage? Not only are designs borderline but the loot which isn't there. The tools that are not there. The weird biases of the lore skewing entire stats into the trash can for certain bosses. My faith build would have done better with some actual options but I really had to choose between mediocre melee or Rot a Lot and turtle up. Things were just not there for how they designed the game, never mind how the last boss's phase 2 design isn't hard, just very time consuming to learn because one mistake will end you and you have to restart. Even malenia would run you out of healing more often than not. Dlc last boss just wombos you. People telling me to buff up with op faith buffs that enable their one shot builds, forgetting the duration is short. When the heck am I gonna apply golden vow? The doom laser is the only window.

[@MothFable]

My biggest bit of hope is that Miyazaki has said he has not made his perfect rpg yet, and has shown one consistency being a desire to experiment, sometimes in heavy ways (like with sekiro or bloodborne). That’s what I’m looking forward to, because Miyazaki always makes an effort to experiment and improve and see what works and what doesn’t. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does next(prolly gonna be armored core, which makes me big happy).

[@Brahze]

Disclaimer to my comment: I'm currently about 8 minutes into the video, so I haven't watched the whole thing yet, however I do disagree with some of the points that use Shadow of the Erdtree as an example. I am in no way a god-tier souls player. Elden Ring is my first FromSoft game. I haven't completed a hitless run, or a deathless run, or an RL1 run. However, I beat the DLC, and it honestly didn't make me struggle much because I explored and I used the upgrade system they included in the DLC. In a way, I can understand the frustration people are feeling with the DLC, but I don't even think it's harder than base game content. In the video, one of the examples said DLC bosses use fast long attack combos that can go upwards of "7 attacks in a combo" and that's something you "don't see in the base game". But anyone who remembers Margit, Starscourge Radahn, Mohg, Morgott, Hoarah Loux, Godskin Duo, Malekith, Malenia, Rykard, or Radagon/Elden Beast knows that's just not true (just to name a few bosses). The bosses in the base game have plenty of spammy attacks like this with very little openings for attack. The difference with the DLC and the base game is that the DLC works on a different scaling system requiring you to level up your Scadutree Blessings (which is explained by the game when you have tutorials on, and was explained specifically by FromSoft themselves as well). If you don't have any of these blessings, your damage is gonna suck, and they are going to one-shot you. However, after about Blessing 12+, the damage given and damage taken to and from bosses is comparable to base-game, and you can get to near this level without fighting any bosses and simply just exploring. In the video, Mugthief also says that you can't fight the DLC bosses with a standard longsword build and make it fun, and that's just wrong. The bosses in the DLC aren't exceptionally hard with their combos compared to main game, they're just new bosses that you haven't learned the attack pattern of. People have beaten bosses like Rellana with a +0 longsword without using a single Scadu Blessing at RL1. People have already learned how to hitless the hardest bosses in the DLC faster than they did with the hardest bosses in the base game. I genuinely think that a large majority of the community just forgot what it was like to experience bosses like these for the first time again, and went into it with the same mindset that they had at the end of their NG+7 playthroughs where they steamrolled everything. This is a new experience, and should be treated as such. You're going to die, you're going to learn how to avoid attacks, and you're going to learn your punishment windows. That being said, I've barely started the video, and I am going to watch the rest in a moment. But I am totally open to other opinions and arguments if you disagree. Not everyone had the same experience as I did, and I would like to hear about other experiences if you disagree with what I had to say here.

[@Brahze]

For the love of Miyazaki, I finished the video and I genuinely enjoyed hearing your opinions, ideas, and theories. Although I didn't agree with all of your ideas, it's like you said in the video, throwing ideas out there is how things grow and change. I think Elden Ring and it's DLC are a great example of this. The first started by introducing things like mounted combat, summons, viable strong mage builds, and even a jump button. Then the DLC came along as built upon this with more unique and complex combat mechanics, and a new "leveling" system that aims to keep the same "lost explorer" feel that the base game had upon launch. There were things they did well, and things they did poorly, but it does go to show that they are trying things out to see what makes an even better game. Even Miyazaki said that Elden Ring was far from his perfect game vision. But just like me bashing my head against the wall to beat Morgott, they're using trial and error to see what they can do to make the best game possible. I am so excited to see where they go from here!

[@Getdown8319]

I don’t want to be limited. I don’t want my playstyle to be limited. One thing I enjoy is creating all kinds of builds.

[@kinggamereon653]

6:09 does a great katana that procks bleed once in a fight if I am lucky count for the thought experiment (didn't use the Ash of War either)? I beat the whole dlc except Radahn with this setup and had a lot fun, only Radahn forced me to change things up. For Radahn I used the rusted anchor, golden vow, flame grant me strength, bloddflame blade, bestial vitality and royal knight's resolve as my ash of war.

[@Mugthief]

Think of it this way, you went from just a sword all the way to a weapon with 4 buffs that required speccing into faith for them to optimize the build for the last boss. Imagine how many people felt they needed to do that much earlier into the DLC.

[@kinggamereon653]

​​@@Mugthief that's totally fair. In my personal experience the final boss is absolutely out of scale with rest of the dlc in terms of difficulty but I do get your point. Without any buffs and just the great katana I took down rest of the dlc bosses all in less than 30 tries while Radahn took me over 200 when my character was far more powerful than it had ever been. Still, knowing how a lot of people feel about the difficulty of the dlc in general this does make sense to me. For the love of all that is holy I desperately hope that Radahn never becomes the standard for the bosses fromsoft makes though.

[@mfrunyan]

i feel that it increasingly means that the game is a sandbox where you have to come up with the rules of the game yourself, regarding which tools you'll allow yourself to use or not. the developers are outsourcing the game design and difficulty balancing to you. some will enjoy that, but it tends to mean that the bosses are either too easy or too difficult.

[@Sigdowner]

The problem is that you consider "cheese" to use a greatshield for a boss where a greatshield is very helpful. Why not use it? And why not use the Shackles, or a helpful ash of war or buff your elemental resistance if a boss deals a lot of elemental damage. These are normal RPG mechanics, not "cheese". Cheese is when you can break a boss AI like with Loretta. Elden Ring wants you to use your brain, not just smash yourself against a wall with the same straight sword, it's not Dark Souls. It's like refusing to engage with the block mechanic in Sekiro and saying it's too hard. The mistake Fromsoft made with this game is not having unlimited respecs at Renalla, then people would be less afraid to completely switch their comfort playstyle to tackle a boss. I understand wanting to limit oneself or sticking to a build. I don't like summons, I don't use them and the game is harder for it, but I can't then really complain stuff is way too hard, I did this to myself. With that in mind, I do wish some bosses where a tad slower or had less particles and flourishes and general animation clutter. I like dark fantasy better than this ultra Anime shit, and my reflexes are not what they used to.

[@pphaver871]

The bosses are fun to learn how to dodge (only Midra in the dlc for me). Greatshields let you ignore this learning process, and would destroy my fun. The point of playing the game for me, and many others isn’t just to win, but to win in a way that feels right. Things may be different if he didn’t make 4 or 5 excellent games in a row that you can beat without meta gaming and swapping my build to something optimal, totally destroying build variety and player immersion. It sounds ridiculous to someone who plays the game like me. I’m not going to bleed a boss I can’t kill, or greatshield a boss I can’t dodge. It doesn’t feel like a time and skill investment for a victory, which is what the previous games gave us. Swapping my build to counter the boss feels like rock paper scissors, and removes the complexity of learning a boss’s fun and engaging move set. Also not blocking in Sekiro is not analogous. Blocking is a core mechanic in Sekiro, it’s as important as the attack button and the move button. It isn’t like using a rpg mechanic to get around learning a boss. I do acknowledge something feeling “cheesey” is a subjective thing. We all have to draw a line somewhere though. To me, it would disgust me to summon or swap my build just to beat a boss. Do I really want to win that bad that I would cheat? It doesn’t matter if it is really cheating, feeling like you’ve cheated is as bad as actually having done it.

[@richardhandcock]

You could absolutely do Shadow of the Erdtree with just a straight sword if you built in to it, and it would be fun. I don't know why you're saying you can't just two hand a weapon and dodge, you totally can? Could the average player do it? Well what constitutes the 'average' player is pretty difficult to define, but the skill requirement to be able to do that is not particularly high, so I would go out on a limb and say yes, the average player could beat SotE with a straight sword. You don't need to use bleed or other status effects, you don't need to use busted ashes of war, you don't need a shield, you can just use basic attacks and you can have a blast doing it. And even limiting yourself that much you still have options. You could focus on R1 spam and combine it with multi hit bonuses, charged heavies do good damage, and good stance damage even with just a straight sword. You're acting like this is a playstyle which is beyond the reach of mere mortals when nothing could be further from the truth. You kind of lose a lot of credibility in the face of that tbh, so whatever other points you bring up in this video are being built on a shaky foundation.

[@derek96720]

The average player could accomplish that build in the base game, but I highly doubt they could in the DLC. Frankly that tells you everything you need to know.

[@richardhandcock]

@@derek96720 People massively overstate the difficulty of the dlc. Just get some scadutree fragments, you'll be fine. edit: I'd actually go so far as to say it's easier than the base game in many ways. For example there are far fewer of those long wind up attacks that plague the base game. And none of the bosses have any BS moves like waterfowl dance, there are no attacks that are anywhere near as difficult to avoid or as devastating to get hit by. Yes, the bosses difficulty is endgame standard, but it's an endgame dlc so that should be expected. But if you can handle Radabeast, Mohg, Horah Loux or Maliketh, you can handle the dlc. Notice Malenia is not on that list. That's because she's still the hardest boss in the game.

[@derek96720]

@@richardhandcock agree to disagree. Take out Malenia and there's nothing in the base game more difficult than the dlc. The health, damage, aggression, and combo length are all higher for the new bosses.

[@richardhandcock]

@@derek96720 The increased health and damage is entirely negated by Scadutree fragments, and I would disagree about them being more aggressive, the base endgame bosses are pretty relentless. But yeah, agree to disagree

[@elia0162]

@@richardhandcock can I ask you if Ellen ring is your first souls game?

[@nswmeeuwes89]

For the love of game design, I hope Fromsoft actually does improve things around their player. Just so many things in Elden ring made me go: "Why is it like this?!" Most og it pertaining to the open world, which does mesh well with nearly all other systems.

[@cmoney163]

The answer, imo, is adding a hard mode; instead of punishing the entire player base for the actions of a handful of players. The hard mode would make bosses just as spammy as they are in the dlc, if not more.

[@gabzsy4924]

Great points, my only issue is at 7:27 I think you overestimated the amount. I'm pretty sure we are talking more around 10% or less of the playerbase. I personally know people that took pride in never summoning and never cheesing a boss, break and just using the mimic tear and changing their whole build just to cheese him. Because at some point hard for the sake of hard becomes a chore and why should we dedicate time and effort to a chore like this?

[@Loonievg]

FOR THE LOVE OF MARIKA'S ****, I hope from is having these types of discussions internally as well. From currently sets the trends for souls-likes, but any game developer can (and I hope do) benefit from these types of discussions

[@alejohp8725]

I have to disagree with you on boss design, unfortunately. There isn’t a “bosses” problem in SotE, just a “Radhan” problem. I believe Rellana is the best fight From has ever made. One of the best duels there is. Yes, I used my flask to increase my defense, but that’s it. You refer to a lot of things as “cheese”, including poise breaks. Those are not cheese, they are intended mechanics. I poise broke her multiple times, with just the backhand blades. Nothing more. So I’d be afraid if From escalates from Radhan, but everything else in the DLC was fair. I had a ton of fun. Still liking though cause this is a great video on how FromSoft can go to other places, like shadow tower.

[@alenezi989a3]

I Agree, I had fun with every single boss in SOTE and was wondering what people were complaining about. Then I reached Radahn and I was like this is annoying, I can beat him and spend 3 hours learning hos moves, but it was not fun, defeating Radahn was not fun.

[@alejohp8725]

@@alenezi989a3 his second phase is too flashy and he moves so fast, he almost just clips around. But given that this creator keeps bringing up Bloodborne, I think his dislike of the DLC bosses comes from the fact that he likes to solo them without buffs, the physick flask, or summons. But doesn’t have the ability to keep up with the challenge, which is totally self imposed.

[@elia0162]

@@alejohp8725 is eden ring your first from game?

[@alejohp8725]

@@elia0162 nope. Played all of the souls series except DS2 and BB

[@sleepnt992]

I wonder if I am the only one, that misses the more slow paced gameplay of the older games pre bloodborne. I loves the tactical and thoughtful gameplay. From Software now makes only fast paced combat systems, speedy animation, high aggreession etc. I would really love to see a slower game than the "recent" ones.

[@opethmike]

You’re not the only one. I miss it too.

[@SnakeInTheRain]

I honestly feel like the "player expression" aspect is still lacking in Elden Ring, mostly due to it still using the same simple soulsborne gameplay mechanics and formulas. Yes they added more spells and weapons, etc. but the core mechanics in which you engage with these items is the same as it's always been and it's stale at this point. You have the variety of weapon choice, but almost every weapon plays very similarly and doesnt differ much mechanically. Games that due this really well would be something like Nioh 2, which imo has superior combat to any fromsoft game but lacks the atmosphere and level design. Or even something like monster hunter where each weapons feels like its own game/character and people can have very different play styles using the same weapon

[@paledrake]

I disagree with that it's lacking in level design and atmosphere. It has it's own atmosphere that it does really well and honestly the level design is on par. They're slightly more simple levels, but they're longer and still very memorable.

[@SnakeInTheRain]

@@paledrake we'll have to agree to disagree there because nioh and alot of other team ninja games have almost the same type of atmosphere or lack there of. The atmosphere it has is very surface level for me and has the basic amounts of "creepy thing here and there". I do enjoy the charm of certain things like the kodamas, they have a contrasting cuteness that I think works well with everything else, like you get to a safe area and there's a sense of relief and you're greeted by these cute little green beans. Not much else stands out though and visually alot of the game is just kind of generic (I don't mean in terms of fidelity just overall artistic direction). I personally wouldn't say the level design is on par but I guess that depends on what you might like in level design, especially when it's level based like this which I don't prefer personally. But also just artistically the levels and the world itself don't look as good to me

[@Zecuu]

Ignoring a majority of the game's mechanics is not "the normal way" of playing it... that's a challenge run.

[@derek96720]

Disagree. Summons and co-op are not core mechanics. They're handicaps that act as a difficulty slider. The base game of elden ring is perfectly playable without summons using practically any build. The new DLC isn't really.

[@elia0162]

@@derek96720I mean I want to actually play the game I don't want to see the fucking mimic solo the boss

[@derek96720]

@@elia0162 completely agree

[@derek96720]

I remember the first time taking on Malenia and thinking that she was an awesome spectacle but also clearly wasn't tuned in the same way the other base game bosses were. It felt like she was playing by different rules. This entire DLC feels like that, and not in a good way. I feel like the devs only solution to players becoming too skilled was to make the bosses so obnoxiously aggressive and difficult that the only way for average players to beat them is to use the traditional handicap methods such as summons, co-op, and great Shields.

[@kode-man23]

They have been in an arms race with the top 0.001% of people that play these games since the Old Hunters DLC, I would say. There is somebody high up on the team (I don’t even think that it’s Miyazaki) who really doesn’t like the fact that people can beat these games hitless, on dance pads, on DK bongos, etc. But it doesn’t matter what they do, the challenge runners and dedicated Souls-tubers who play these games for a living are always going to find multiple ways to invalidate these games and make them look easy. Now it feels like the average player is being pushed through a meat grinder in order to beat anything.

[@enigmatic8280]

@@kode-man23 It's because of people like ongbal. He is like that genius kid in a hard college class that ruins the curve for everyone.

[@madgizmo2212]

Honestly, I think it'd be interesting to see an actual party mechanic in the future. That way you could do co-op without invasions (because yes, some people do actually have friends and want to play with them without having to deal with invaders). It would also be a way to make NPC allies/Spirit Ashes feel more natural. It would encourage you to engage with character questlines to not only unlock new party members, but also to improve them and become invested in NPCs.

[@ChristopherWaddelow]

This video has so much analysis through your objective lense. This is basically unwatchable. Bosses being unfun on repeat playthroughs for you does not mean Fromsoft needs to do anything.

[@LulzTVx]

One thing that you should have mentioned in the section talking about what FromSoftware added in Shadow of the Erdtree to expand the toolset in a meaningful way is the new Deflecting Hardtear. It basically ports Sekiro into Elden Ring, granting complete damage reduction against most damage types upon timing a perfect block, while also rewarding consistent deflects with bonus damage on your next guard counter, and it lasts 5 minutes, long enough for pretty much every boss. It offers such a new, immensely fun playstyle that is also very rewarding, while offering new opportunities for evading tricky or broken attacks, such as Promised Consort Radahn's infamous double swipe into a cross slash, which is wholly inconsistent to properly avoid with dodges, but can be entirely bypassed with the deflect hardtear and proper timing. The Deflecting Hardtear is a perfect showcase of what FromSoftware should do to expand player toolkits in a meaningful way if they are to keep escalating the complexity and difficulty of their bosses, but that's just one of the many ways they can refresh the formula, as you wonderfully explained in this analysis.

[@dagrela]

I fully agree, but also think that it should stay a crystal tear, as a lot of people have been saying it should be a main mechanic. I think the issue is people not knowing these alternate play syles exist, then complaining the game is too difficult/ boring due to the repetitive nature of boss fights, so maybe from just have to signal key items better

[@tyjohns8731]

​@@dagrelaagreed. Especially because most of the attacks that are undodgable can simply be jumped over. There is a video by a guy explaining allot of the mechanics that aren't very well explained by the game. I highly suggest watching it. Very insightful and has allot of good info.

[@spookzer16]

I've been using Raptor of the Mists + deflects + Estoc for guard counters. Genuinely one of the most enjoyable playstyles. I love Elden Ring since you're given enough tools to trivialize the entire game, but having a playstyle that rewards knowledge and aggression is amazing. I genuinely feel like I'm learning the bosses this way. It's made for seriously satisfying boss kills.

[@alenezi989a3]

I really wish it was a talisman instead of a cracked tear.

[@EldenPeasant]

As much as I love the base game and the DLC, I completely agree about the things need to change. The DLC final boss is such a builds killer I hate him, 99.9% of the game I can just use whatever I want and will just do fine but suddenly now I HAVE TO use guard mechanic if I want an even field in phase 2. I've killed him 5 times already and he always feel like a chore I just need to get it done rather than a fun boss fight.

[@papafoundry5537]

You don’t need a shield. You can beat him without one. I’ve done it.

[@raghav1026]

​​@@papafoundry5537 You can, but you'll probably be bashing your head against a wall for a very unfun 10 hours.

[@DJB-1996]

Git gud I've beating him with a greatsword you just have to be quick with the opportunity's the boss gives you the dlc is perfect

[@WaddelingProductions]

@@DJB-1996strength builds are very easy. Your whole “git gud” argument is irrelevant, but typical fanboy that can’t handle any criticism of his favorite current thing

[@b.e.wooten]

Use storm blade.

[@Soulessblur]

Miyazaki has said that when playing his games, he has always used all of the tools at his disposal. In every single game, the bosses were in fact intended to be fought with all of the "cheese" options the games had. Yes, in many ways they also worked as self imposed difficulty modifiers, and in many ways they still do. I don't think the expanding toolset and escalation is a problem for Elden Ring or it's DLC, and I think the fact that it's the best selling Soulslike is proof of that. With Bloodborne and Sekiro as the exception, every single Fromsoft entry has expanded the toolset when compared to the previous entry, and I think some people just have to accept that it won't always be everyone's cup of tea. The genre is already niche in that not everyone will enjoy it. And yes, people who only enjoy playing these games with a straight sword and nothing else, and who also don't enjoy knuckle whitening, teeth grinding, absolute madness difficulty, aren't going to enjoy this most recent title as much. As someone who likes the freedom to change tactics and use every cool tool I find without limiting myself, Sekiro is the only fromsoftware game I outright did not enjoy. I was one of those players who were turned off by it, and admittedly, I reacted like many other players did at the time, upset that the game wasn't more like Dark Souls, and worried that the company was going to become something I didn't recognize. Most of the criticisms I see levied at Elden Ring's DLC (and the base game, because contrary to your video, many complained the vanilla bosses were designed with summoning and other "cheeses" as intended as well) remind me of the ones I made just a title earlier, but in the opposite direction. At the end of the day, it was a personal preference thing. That's not an identity crisis, the series has always had this all the way back in Demon's Souls, because difficult is complex, player expression is complex, and people have loved these games for thousands of different and conflicting reasons. Elden Ring bumping up the difficulty of the bosses so that using things like summons or magic are more expected was fantastic to me. Suddenly, my character was far more customizable than ever before, AND I was less likely to accidentally ruin the challenge of the game through trivialization. Learning movesets has literally never been more fun. I don't think there's anything wrong with the next game going in the direction of Elden Ring and bringing in more crazy stuff, I also don't think there's anything wrong with limiting or redefining the player's toolkit to rein stuff in. They've done both in the past, with critical acclaim and success, and even if it leads to a game that I don't love as much as the rest, it will still be a fantastic title. If nothing else, I think Miyazaki telling us to expect more titles developed simultaneously by different developers as the greatest signs. I hope that means we get something closer to the classic titles, something that feels like a faithful continuation of the Elden Ring formula, and a bunch of stuff that's still completely different like Bloodborne and Sekiro were. I think as those titles expand and get released, fewer and fewer souls fans are going to enjoy every single one that comes out, and I think that's great.

[@HeyTarnished]

I disagree with the whole fundamental concept of the video, because, even if you had over 2000 different spells, you still have to cast them & let them hit the boss, the new Sekiro-like deflection? Didn't change anything, it's guard countering without draining your stamina, light-rolling, med-rolling, heavy-rolling, they've all been in previous Souls games, your argument is like arguing if using a heavy weapon as an option in Bloodborne works or not, yes it works, but that didn't mean that bosses had to acclimate for them, you just had to find a safer window to punish them, and your attack hit like a truck because of it, that's your reward, I can understand that there is a trend that FromSoft is going through a change & will do something else, but what you mean to say is, if they made an Elden Ring 2 & decided to change the combat & enemies/bosses, then they have to add new fundamental gameplay mechanics like they did some for ER1 (so to speak) like jumping, Ashes of War, posture mechanic, Horse combat, these are the things that will make the change, not adding a few more spells or new crystal tears that are all optional that bosses do not have to accommodate for, what they have to accommodate for is if (for example let's say) the Sekiro-like Deflection being a mandatory gameplay mechanic to all players just like jumping is in ER1, maybe a double jump for increasing flexibility in verticality. This sort of stuff, because anyone now can defeat all bosses with a naked Tarnished & bonk weapon & all the bosses sure do work perfectly with this build configuration.

[@EarCat]

At the very opening statement, you're right. That being said, i will say that evolution has always been the basis of FromSoft. Do i think they could push the dial further into innovation and evolution? Sure but the game series has always innovated and evolved as time went on

[@based-ys9um]

Sekiro is the only time they innovated. Maybe Bloodborne.

[@spookzer16]

​@based-ys9um Hard disagree. At least with player tools FS makes a game, DLC gives player better cooler tools, then the next game is crazier than the one before, then, the cycle repeats.

[@blackdust7353]

I still like Elden Ring a lot, but i have to get something of my chest in regards to whats happening with FromSoft in the future and what they are doing now. I think the real killer of it all, especially in the DLC, is the fact they introduced so many tools for you to make life "easier", which then gives reasons to make things harder. Just looking at Spirit Ashes says a lot. We have one that can rot enemies, face tank them, deplete health with one single attack by a whole 10% from the start and gradually after and ofc Mimic being you, but AI controlled. This essentially made it so bosses had to be balanced around technically 2 people fighting at all times or just becoming unbelievably ridiculous with Consort Radahn. I mean, this fight "had" to be balanced around you, at least 2 more NPCs and your Spirit Ash, which you make stronger with the revered ashes in the DLC too. Looking at it like this, it might have been needed to be balanced so at least 4 people can fight him and still be hard to kill, which then explains some moves, the speed, the AoEs, almost everything wrong with him and people like me, who hate summoning others, NPCs or ashes (or what some people also forget about ashes being the FP/HP cost being too high for some builds) only suffer from it, because they have to change the way they play, even tho the games before didn't even make you question your builds, or throw their head against a brick wall until it crumbles after 30 hours, but without a good feeling to have done it. This obviously isn't good design, yet i don't have this feeling with other bosses the DLC introduced, except Jori, or with most bosses in the game. Maybe it's the experience? But how should i know for sure. They would probably be able to step back a bit, wouldn't they have made their game like this in the first place and as seen by games like Lies of P, it's still totally possible to make a great game around it. Nothing in this game felt unfair to me, because every boss probably was designed and intended to fight against only one person, but it still was pretty hard at times, in a good way. Lies of P shows perfectly that we don't need unfair movesets and visual clusterfucks of bosses like Radahn to be challenged and satisfied with the fights. We just need well designed bosses or enemies in general, just like what Isshin, Maria, Kos, Friede, Gael and even some Elden Ring bosses like Messmer, Godfrey and Mohg are. Some of those bosses are almost 10 years old by now and there is a reason they still are among the greatest fights FromSoft ever made for a reason. I think the moment they have to think about designing bosses for only one player, which hopefully happens in their next game, they will have to downtune some things again for the sake of even being fun in the first place or drastically need to change the options of things your character is allowed to do without specific builds, should they continue the "Dark Souls" route of combat. Things like the deflecting hardtear give me some hope in this, cause you can play differently without even having to change your build at all and that's probably one of the reasons why Sekiro is among the lines of being FromSofts greatest game yet. You have all the options of combat without changing anything. You just obtain them along the way. If they continue the Dark Souls route, they need to give more options for all builds. If not, i think it will be something close to Sekiro or above

[@ELDENLORD89]

Based Lies of P enjoyer. You’re mirroring my thoughts about how that games does difficultly really well especially given the options you have which are really good too.

[@blackdust7353]

@@ELDENLORD89 Lies of P is absolutly fantastic. I first was a bit skeptical, cause the only other souls like i enjoyed as much as FromSofts games so far was Nioh 2. Nioh 1 and Code Vein for example were alright, but had quite a few issues that didn't make it feel as good. Mortal Shell i didn't like at all and didn't even did the first area of the game, because this game actually felt clunky and slow in every way, while healing didn't really exist and even starting area enemies didn't stagger from greatsword hits. But Lies of P? I have no idea how they did it, but the moment they even made a gank boss fight in the Black Rabbit Brotherhood good somehow, fully blown away. That game easily went somewhere into my Top 10 games of all time

[@Seraphina_FF14]

This is also why I enjoy Stellar Blade so much. It just feels like a cool dance, with each new skill adding to the already exciting set of moves - so the dance becomes more visually impressive and fun as you progress. As bosses get faster and more dangerous - so do you. Also, for me, Gael is still the best Dark Souls boss.

[@Seraphina_FF14]

​@@blackdust7353 Nioh 2 and Code Vein I love. I have over 1000 hours in Nioh 2 and I think around 500 in Code Vein (with all dlc's included). ^^ The co-op gameplay was also a lot more fun in these games. But it seems like I have to give "Lies of P" another chance then. I enjoyed the demo, but not so much that it felt like I had to get the game.

[@blackdust7353]

@@Seraphina_FF14 I still have to play Stellar Blade at some point, but now having to work for real isn't giving much freedom. I'm glad i'm somehow managing Elden Ring and Wuthering Waves. A new game has to wait until i'm done with one. I honestly can't tell you what Dark Souls Boss i love more. I always was and still am a fan of dragons and Midir is close to perfect, but very easy if you understood him once. Gael is genuinly badass and fighting him in this giant arena with the sky getting darker, maybe even pulling the Ringed Knight into the battle too is awesome. Nameless is a fight against an almost godlike being were you feel the power he has, not to mention him being Gwyns son. Friede is relentless in the 3rd phase and her black flames visually look fantastic. Only DS3 is hard enough, but if had to decide between all games, i would need at least a few full days to think about it. Nioh 2 was already really good with the base game, but the DLCs got me really going into it. I only have around 300 hours, still need to go into the higher "NG+" variants and even tho i could be better in terms of skill, it's such a fun game. I also love the whole core system, being able to transform or summon different enemies, even bosses. Idk Code Vein is in a weird spot for me. The whole thing with the blood types as classes and mastering skills is great, the armors being your options to parry, backstabs and do special attacks with them is cool too, but that's where it kinda ends. The enemies weren't very different in design; the bosses were kinda meh except the Queens Knight, this golden dude before the burning city and the Wolf guy (can't remember if he was the final boss, but i think so?); the weapons didn't feel real, but more like you are swinging around a plastic toy; there was some enemy spam at times; most areas didn't look very different from one another. It really is just "okay" for me personally Edit: Oh yeah, i can't really go over the co-op gameplay stuff, cause the only time i ever did co-op was for trophies in the Demons Souls Remake. I never had anyone to play these games with and only ever played them solo

[@xan7292]

I don't disagree with the idea that From's game design ought to continue to grow, change, and be iterated on-if/when From does that, I expect it will continue to give us more excellent games. Further, From is not above criticism, and in fact I believe that if you love something, be it a game or a story or whatever else, you should be all the more willing to acknowledge its faults. From's games, however great they may be, are not perfect-and while it's unreasonable to expect perfection, it's perfectly reasonable to point out areas they could improve on. All that being said, there is something within your video that I feel the need to address. I fundamentally and vehemently disagree with your implicit equation of using all the tools that the game makes available to you with "cheese". I think that's a ridiculous assertion, based off the implication that the default or "right" way to play a soulslike is, as you described, "two-handing a weapon and rolling through attacks". It might seem silly to say, but Strength build defaultism is something that has plagued the fandom since I played my first From game, and likely longer than that. As someone who loves experimenting with all sorts of different builds and playstyles, mixing and matching to find new angles to approach challenges and new ways to engage with the game, it feels invalidating and alienating to hear that called "cheese" when what I am doing is utilizing the tools made available to me to engage with the boss and try and solve it, like a puzzle. I will admit, I am unfamiliar with your content and you as a content creator, so I am more than willing to give the benefit of the doubt and assume that your intent isn't to gatekeep or alienate, and maybe I ought not allow a stranger's words to make me feel that way, but I still figured that it was something I ought to mention since the rest of what you are saying does make a lot of sense and seem to be well thought out. Sorry for the text wall lol!

[@pphaver871]

It is a bias the community has it seems. It probably comes from the fact that strength builds are popular and fun, and magic is a little more niche. Also people who like to brag about skill probably won’t take a magic user as seriously, since you don’t have to engage with as many dodges and mechanics of bosses or enemies when you kill them from far away. Cheese is a subjective thing, and he could have elaborated on what he meant by it. Cheese seems to come from the people who play the game as action games with rpg mechanics. People who subvert the melee way would be cheesing the game from their perspective. Playing the game as more of an rpg is a different but still fun experience. My most playthrough I did was a fist fighter in DS3. The Deacons of the Deep were actually challenging because I had trouble cleaving through their numbers and kept getting cursed. It was satisfying to get the win by being more clever.

[@middy2803]

I played through the entire DLC with the claymore, no summons or broken things (aside from wondrous physic) and I thought the DLC bosses were still fair for the most part. You have to learn the move set and there are open attack windows. It’s more challenging than the base game of course but I disagree with you saying that it’s not very viable.

[@middy2803]

Forgot to mention that I did use Morgotts great rune for Radahn though because he was real tough

[@Nazgul265]

They shouldn’t have escalated the dlc. They should have left it at the same level as base game. What so many people loved about base ER was its accessibility and that its only as difficult as you make it. They should have tuned these dlc bosses to be just as difficult as bosses you would fight in DS3 with a big bonk weapon, and allowed players that want to cheese, to cheese.

[@shutup1037]

There's already people cheesing though lol

[@w4tch0ut10]

I'm bored by the low difficulty of the base game. I would have been very disappointed in this case.

[@shutup1037]

@@w4tch0ut10 The base game bore me after getting to DLC lol

[@pphaver871]

That would have been the best for me. I feel like the dlc (and malenia) took it too far. Not just that it was too fast, but they just feel like Sekiro bosses to me, and fighting them feels awkward with a souls move set. Since we are encouraged to attack during their combos, I feel like this makes trial and error a larger part of the game than it used to be. I have to master these bosses to a greater degree than I had to in previous games to weave damage in reasonably. I need to take advantage of the small opportunities for damage, since there are so few. Mastering these bosses feels good, but to me they feel like abject bullshit until then. I much prefer the clear openings and methodical choices of slower souls combat, even DS3 was slower. Many people like the fact that these bosses go this far. They aren’t wrong for liking them, but I feel like it would be better for everyone if they took the souls games back to the slower form, and took the fast bosses to a Sekiro style of game. The thing that bugs me is that Elden Ring feels like a homunculus of these two styles, not excelling at either, but failing achieving either high.

[@Nazgul265]

@@shutup1037 i guess i wasn’t completely clear. fromsoft wanted to try and counter/stop a lot of the cheese builds from the base game so they upped the aggression.

[@liquidreality472]

I'm going to be honest, watching your gameplay while hearing you talk about a supposed lack of combat complexity makes it hard to take any of your criticisms seriously.

[@Dastardly_Duo]

I agree, it isn't even an insult. The opinions on gameplay and combat become so unserious when play style is severely lacking

[@liquidreality472]

@@Dastardly_Duo no, it's not an insult. 2+ years later and there is still a lot of ignorance as to how the game is designed, similar to how souls vets first struggled with Sekiro.

[@Dastardly_Duo]

@@liquidreality472 yea exactly. It's a completely different game so it should be played differently. Experiment more

[@liquidreality472]

And just to be clear I'm not saying "you're supposed to use the spirit summons". You're supposed to use the additional mechanics and utilize the full extent of a weapons's moveset. These games have always been iterative. If you are playing with the same style as you did in DS1 "waiting for your 'turn'" you're going to get stomped. And that doesn't mean hit trading either.

[@AtelierMcMuttonArt]

There's always at least one of you people on any criticism video telling them that their opinions are invalid because you don't like how they play the game.

[@richardhandcock]

I think a huge part of why people think the dlc is so hard is that they're just rusty. They haven't played the game in a while and they're suddenly doing endgame content without building up to it first. The Scadutree fragment system definitely played a part as well, but once you collect a few of those, overall SotE is on par with base Elden Ring endgame

[@emmmortem]

I do think that Fromsoft messed up by making ER. Yes it’s a masterpiece to majority of people and rightfully so but now what? They’ll have to come up with either something better or bigger OR something completely different. But FOR THE LOVE OF QUEEN MARIKA Fromsoft. PLEASE don’t follow trends. Those things come and go and anything that caters to that will come and go as well

[@DFTNSHEXGRM]

For the love of holy input reading Batman! It would be cool if they designed the bosses to fight your character differently based off of your character’s class/stats. If your highest stats are Strength/Faith, then have the boss combat you in a way that fits that build. Just give them different move sets and spells that only that class would encounter? If you’re a Mage then have the boss use more magic themselves or abilities that counter magic etc. It would make fighting the bosses as different builds on subsequent playthroughs more interesting and they would truly feel different each time. I know that would be a ton of extra work on their end, and it would piss off a lot of people that memorize their move sets, but I think that could potentially be interesting.

[@jackalx2154]

Elden Ring and SotE have taught me that a game with too many options and no clear limits is just a mess of mechanics. ER and SotE feel very mechanically lost with no clear focus or direction I feel that most of the issues in ER and SotE stem from Fromsoftware not being able to handle their size. It would explain all the enemy and boss reuse, the lack of rewarding items compared to the worlds size and the general lack of polish and tuning. I hope Fromsoftware sticks to making smaller games of a manageable size for them so that they can better tune and refine their games. I feel ER and SotE would be a lot better if they were smaller, dense, branching areas with legacy dungeons. I don't feel the immense size and scale is worth the lack of polish and repetitive content. Fromsoftware must not try and strive for the impossible when it comes to difficulty and they must stop trying to one up themselves in terms of difficulty in order to cater to the hardcore challenge runners. They need to make their games with the average player in mind. Not everyone is a level 1 challenge runner that's looking for such extreme difficulty just for the sake of it. They must stop trying to one up themselves all the time. They just need to keep to their philosophy and focus on making well tuned combat and mechanics. The immense difficulty isn't worth it if the overall combat quality suffers. I'm not saying they should only cater to average players though. They can do what Hollow Knight did which is add challenge gauntlets. The pantheons in Hollow Knight are optional boss gauntlets and basically just for those interested in fighting the bosses with more difficulty. The pantheons have the option of choosing bindings which makes the fights more difficult. You also have the option of only fighting specific bosses if you don't want to do the gauntlet or just want to practice a specific boss. You only have to complete 4 of the 5 pantheons to get all completion percents and there are no real rewards for beating the pantheons, except for unlocking harder variations of boss fights. You just do them if you want the extra challenge. Same with the Path of Pain which is a very difficult optional platforming challenge. There is no real reward for completing it, you just do it if you want the challenge. Fromsoftware can just add optional challenge modes and gauntlets in their games to cater to hardcore players while leaving the base game accessible to average players. Fromsoftware really needs to graduate from DS3 and focus on fleshing out combat and moveset depth and complexity. The Rakuyo from BB is a good example of what I would like from weapon complexity. The Rakuyo can combo lightly, offering a wider range of moves and mixups. I would much prefer a fewer amount of weapons that are unique with interesting and complex movesets. I agree that special moves/weapon arts/ashes of war should be done away with in favour of moveset complexity, or just very limited as they are often game breaking. I also like the idea of having a class system and a spell casting system similar to Lords of the Fallen. And Yes BB definitely needs a good remaster and PC port. I feel that ER and SotE was Fromsoftware testing their limits in game size and experimenting with how far they can push boss difficulty with the Souls formula. I hope they learned from their mistakes and don't repeat them.

[@singleservingfriend2817]

I enjoyed Shadow of the Erdtree, but it only solidified that they are prioritizing how to make a boss difficult rather than how to make a boss interesting. Designing bosses to have input reading, and chain combos that can’t be punished is unsatisfying as shit.

[@highlord2841]

For the love of god, Miyazaki has already stated that there probably not going be a Elden Ring 2, at least for a very long time, because Miyazaki doesn’t like making sequels, and it is most likely that their next game will be a new IP or a follow up to AC6, also I do go in naked, with a pot on my head, with just my swords, and I still have and amazing time

[@humblekek-fearingman7238]

"Miyazaki doesn’t like making sequels" "it is most likely that their next game will be [...] a follow up to AC6" haha

[@highlord2841]

@@humblekek-fearingman7238 Miyazaki wasn’t the director of AC6 and he won’t be the director of the follow up

[@VanGoghBrrr]

Holy shit you don't know what you're talking about. The souls gameplay is such a great structure for a game that it's pretty much become its own genre of game, and it's hilarious that you'd call the resources the game gives you "cheese". The dlc bosses would be difficult/boring to fight with a normal straight sword not because they have to design around cheese, but because WHY WOULD YOU BE AT THIS LATE GAME AREA WITH NOTHING BUT A JUST A STRAIGHT SWORD. The shit you call cheese isn't put in to counter escalation, it's to add more to the already amazing souls formula. You COULD play the game like ds1 with only a straight sword but WHY would you?! When the game gives hundreds of cool and fun spells, weapons, and armor, and plenty of unique mechanics that your terrible "idea" of limiting the game to specific builds would completely ruin Souls gameplay is fun, and you can play it multiple times completely differently thanks to all the stuff you just disregard as cheese. Elden Ring 2 doesn't need to be some different type of game because YOU think soul gameplay is getting stale.

[@Jerriz_Dabster]

For the love of all things that show it's your first souls game, when I replay elden ring I look the the dude on the horse and remember how I kept dying for 3 days and shutting the game off, before just walking in another direction 💔

[@Cyynapse]

something i really dislike in the souls fandom is people insisting that you should use cheese, and now it seems like fromsoft is doing that too. if the intended way to fight a boss is by abusing game mechanics, i think theres something fundamentally wrong with the game design.

[@alimasri1153]

I respect your opinion But… i dont agree This dlc is a pinnacle of gaming. The map was 2d at some point i felt like Christopher Columbus trying to figure it out. It was really immersive. Also your point saying you need to have status build up or you cant use a straight sword against those bosses, i beat the dlc with a great sword keen and it was really fun and the most rewarding experience. Heck you dont have to do that, you have so many ways to play this game thats the best thing about it. Im all in for a linear experience but elden ring was peak gaming 100/10.

[@alimasri1153]

Also Midra > lady Maria That was the best dance fight 💃

[@SirMikeys]

No one talks about the dated AI of the souls series. Elden Ring has terrible AI. Improving the AI could be a solution to the player having so many options. They could intelligently respond do your actions so every style you choose poses a unique challenge. The AI could properly respond to fighting multiple opponents (trying to hit the player and his summons simultaneously instead of targeting one at a time).

[@lifeonmars4088]

This is the most sane and underrated comment in the whole discussion.

[@aureateseigneur5317]

​@lifeonmars4088 There's nothing remotely sane about the amount of workload this dude just created with this idea lol.

[@SirMikeys]

@aureateseigneur5317 I agree, designing good AI is difficult and would add to development costs. But with the financial success of Elden Ring, I think they can afford to make this critical improvement. I wouldn't want their formula to stagnate and age poorly.

[@aureateseigneur5317]

@@SirMikeys I wouldn't want bosses whose movements are so fucking variable that my actual build alone would change the fight. What an absolute nightmare. I don't think you actually want this either, people already whine the boss movements are too unpredictable.

[@EatThePath-7]

People already crying when an enemy has specialized attacks to get you while healing away from them, and you want to introduce even more scenarios with more of those interactions 😂, i would personally be down for that, sounds like a great challenge, but i don't think it will go down well with most players honestly.

[@Strife_98]

I personally felt that the DLC bosses were better designed than the base game bosses. I have played from ds1 with a sword and without shield, using just dodges. I had a lot of issues with the base game bosses that utilised variable delays and combo extensions that were much harder to read than previous games. In comparison, most of the DLC bosses could be perfected easier, much like the older games. It is hard, yes, but once you overcome it, you become really good because you learned the fight. I died like 50 times to messmer on my first playthrough, but when I attempted it again on ng+, I beat him in just 4 attempts. In comparison, I still feel I haven't really learned the base game fights while I've nearly mastered the DLC ones. This DLC restored my faith in fromsoft (maybe except the second phase of the last boss)

[@Bayesic]

To me this is why Sekiro is my favorite FromSoft game of all time. It's hard as fuck, but because you have a limited number of tools, the design of almost every fight is just so... so tight and crisp. The bosses are all designed to be beaten with just parry parry strike deathblow, and the ninja tools feel like more of a badass bonus for those who have REALLY mastered all of the game's mechanics (Ongbal anyone?) than an absolute necessity Edit: Literally right after I typed this out you started talking about Sekiro lol. And yeah to follow up, Genichiro is one of my favorite fights in the entire FromSoft library because it just so perfectly tells you "Look you ain't getting to the rest of the game unless you've absolutely MASTERED the parry system here, and once you HAVE, you'll have demonstrated that you possess all the skills you'll need to beat the final boss"

[@Luxuriouswhite]

Man it sounds like SOTE really burnt a lot of people out. A lot of the bosses were clearly designed for hardcore players who dont mind dieing over and over who enjoy the process of learning bosses move sets and how to dodge and punish them accordingly. They seemed to be optimized for a 1v1 dual that is extremely demanding of the players skill. This is exactly what I wanted, but I know I am in the minority after hearing so many people talk negatively about them.

[@based-ys9um]

Well we've been playing as a dark souls character against anime stuff more and more . They need to upgrade the combat system.

[@doraafelfedezoofisol]

Going through lots of trial and error to beat a boss isn't a skill by itself; what matters is how quickly you adapt.

[@Luxuriouswhite]

@@doraafelfedezoofisol 100%. If u watch speedrunners they die a ton just like everyone else until they get use to the bosses moves

[@Knights_of_the_Nine]

I feel like the idea that you can just R1 and B the base game is complete misnomer. The DLC really is exactly the same as the base game.

[@picklefathernurgle2719]

It isn't. The entire flow of exploration is different and the window of viable builds is smaller.

[@Perry_Talion]

@@picklefathernurgle2719 I believe he means when it comes to combat against bosses mostly. I am usually a shield warrior but this DLC made even a shield less viable to the level of obscurity only working on mobs and not even all the time because stagger doesn't work 75% of the time unless you run colossal weapons. Which I do not because I like speedy attacks. This DLC has forced me to play an only dodge dual wield setup 75% of the time. It is more fun but I do feel incredibly limited especially since almost all bosses have double quick attacks that occassionally clip your dodge even when timed right or the inconsistent combos they do sometimes they do the full 5-7 attacks, sometimes they do 2 or end at 3 messing up your attack windows, and jesus christ the dungeons are a pain in the ass.

[@picklefathernurgle2719]

@@Perry_Talion Yeah, that's the thing about the DLC. In their attempt to keep people from using extremely OP builds they just put more pressure on mid-tier builds. I was using bleed, so my damage was good, and the only reason my lightly armored behind made it through is my high degree of patience for memorizing movesets. Even then though, its a slog. Get hit, die. Get hit, die. Get hit, die. Alright, that's half the combo down! Let's just do this again, then repeat for the next 30 minutes until I get this combo chain down perfectly and I can get on to learning the next one!

[@Perry_Talion]

@picklefathernurgle2719 Agreed. I love running the varried Katanas and standard swords. Not for the bleed (Though it's a nice bonus) but for bosses that love to run a lot/demand space with AoE, thanks to their range and speed after guarded attacks since other enemies tend to be out of range and dodge fast. In this DLC I loved Rellana's blades. But bosses not flinching sometimes kills me even with great shields + great katanas. Boss single attacks have 2-3 AoE swipes each messing with dodges and surprisingly their attacks now have varying delays even mid combo so it messes with you but one hit either kills or cripples you. Their attacks are uninterruptible and rarely stagger. All this with the audacity to make them have that health and their damage? Nah.

[@CielBlanche]

It's bewildering that we're 15 years into these Souls games and you still STILL cast spells by leafing through potentially a dozen of them, one at a time, with the d-pad. Instead of devising a common sense spell input assignment system like every other game has, from console MMOs to Granblue Versus to 1999's Legend of Mana on the PS1. They've had this supposed spellcaster paradigm around since Demon's Souls and still have only taken the most feeble possible steps to develop it as a genuine playstyle. That's Fromsoft in a nutshell. They're so deeply uninterested in the possibilities of game design and regurgitate half-baked ideas over and over because their general product appeal and George RR Martin ensure they have never had to face consequences for their complacency. if they actually fostered some curiosity about their craft and what is possible within it, they could make something breathtaking. They're the epitome of early promise followed by rapid stagnation, and in some cases, like replacing the dense intrigue of the early Souls games with the vast, procedurally generated emptiness of Elden Ring, they're also an example of tragic regression

[@ThatGreenGuy227]

for the love of fia's feet; miyazaki please have your animation team learn how weapons work. i hate seeing a two handed polearm thrust have the hands switch places (light attack with halberd in elden ring)

[@TykonBlue]

Wait what's the list of cheese? Is straight sword the only thing not cheese? 😂

[@zachtaylor5312]

Exactly. Crazy how Soul's games can't just be beaten by weapons and mechanics the game gives you. The elitist part of the community has to determine what is and isn't allowed and if you don't play like them then you are "bad" at the game.