From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[Dadd]

The problem isn't the need to "git gud" but the need to memorize unintuitive attack patterns that you couldn't predict with a good understanding of game mechanics

 

[Lyric Suite]

They are untuitive by design though. They are designed in a way precisely to force to break out of patterns and your confort zone, otherwise after a while it would take less then two seconds to figure them out. It almost feels like the devs at From are a bit smarter than the players here.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Lyric Suite
Adding RNG to attacks exacerbates exactly the need for reflexes that you claim doesn't exist in these games.
At this point they could just add an AI to the game so that it creates new attacks on the fly for the bosses as you fight them, the "only" solution for the player being to simply have very good reflexes to avoid those attacks.
All From games have 2 components: knowledge and execution. Knowledge is knowing the attacks, execution is focused on reflex dodging through attacks. Most players don't have a problem with knowing the attacks but with executing the maneuver at the right time.
Recent From games (starting with BB) are heavily focused on reflex and execution. Which wasn't the case in DeS, DkS1 and DkS2. Yeah those games were easy but now the focus is on speed and reflexes. While you still play as your DeS character.
If they ask me to fight a boss like Malenia they better give me a character that is as agile and fast as Wolf to even the odds.
And no, using the broken tools in this game absolutely robs you of any satisfaction in defeating these bosses.
Your videos prove nothing. Spending enough time on a boss makes you really good at beating it. So? The game doesn't do you any justice, your skill elevates the game to heights it shouldn't have any aspirations to. It makes the boss fights look good when they're not. Spectacle, another layer to try to mask how awful the fights are in this game.

 

[Lyric Suite]

No, the RNG attacks don't require you to have fast reflexes, they just require you to memorize the correct visual clues. If you learned how to dodge an attack you also have memorized what the start up looks like so you know what's coming at every step of the way. If bosses had the same exact attack pattern every time it would get old fast.

Keep in mind by saying the game doesn't require you "fast reflexes" i mean the kind of reflexes only a few rare individuals possess. Of course you need to be on your toes the whole time, it's an action game, you just don't need anything super human and the difficutly has nothing to do with your reflexes anyway.

As for the argument that Elden Ring requires more twitch than previous Souls game, maybe, i'd have to go back to any of them to make a direct comparison as i'm pretty accastomed to Elden Ring now. It just doesn't seem to me this game is particularly harder than previous Souls games, i mean in terms of the whole reflexes thing. You wanna talk about reflexes i remember having the hardest time with Sir Alonne more so than anything in Elden Ring. What i did notice the most is that the attack patterns got more wayward and a bit more avant-guard if you will, but it's not anything i couldn't get adjusted to. I just chugged that down to them having to try to make the game harder somehow i didn't think it would cause this much butthurt.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Your videos prove nothing. Spending enough time on a boss makes you really good at beating it. So? The game doesn't do you any justice, your skill elevates the game to heights it shouldn't have any aspirations to. It makes the boss fights look good when they're not. Spectacle, another layer to try to mask how awful the fights are in this game.

My video, which i made as a joke btw, was just a response to Porky's argument that you CAN'T do the bosses legit. He said that the only way people play through this game is by abusing the overpowered broken crap and that only teenage pro-gaymur try hards can do them "legit". As a withered old boomer with brain rot and big, phat bear hands that were never particularly agile to begin with, i was just showing that's it's not necessary to use broken stuff even if you are not a turbo twitch spazzlord you just need to get good.

He then started yammering about "of course if you play the game 200 times you gonna get good at it", which, ok, but that to me is what Souls were always like. Took me it like 500 tries to get past the archer in Anor Londo and another 500 tries to get through Ornstein and Smough. Granted at the time i was completely new to Souls but honestly, which Souls game have you ever played that didn't require you to smash your face at a boss repeatedly in order to get through them?

 

[Lyric Suite]

Anyway, now i have Godrick rune, yeaaaaah. Finally i can use some new weapon or spell lmao.

 

[Child of Malkav]

the correct visual clues

What visual clue is there for the fast attacks of Margit or Maliketh in first phase or Radagon which after 3 or 4 attacks they do 1 more, that's very fast? You can learn to expect and exploit them but only after you've seen and confirmed their existence and prevalence. I watched a few videos about this and it's very inconsistent on what exactly determines those specific attacks.
Another problem that these RNG attacks add is that you cannot create you own windows of opportunity. An offensive initiative from the player is punished by an almost instant attack that in some cases even causes fps drops when it happens. On top of it already being difficult to predict and react to.

it's an action game

DeS, DkS1, DkS2 are also action games and they didn't crossover into the territory of anime. Some attacks looked flashy but the overall speed was under control and never exceeded.

them having to try to make the game harder somehow

They have absolutely no idea how to make the games harder except by doubling down on speed and reflexes. They've shown this with DkS3 and now with ER.

Making a game like Sekiro proves that they know how to make superior games with superior systems and correcting some deficiencies from their previous games, but that requires them to actually get creative when it's so much easier to just make DeS 6 with an open world and a horse.

This is just the beginning. Their next games will be pure anime. The stuff of cartoons.

 

[Feargus Jewhart]

The problem isn't the need to "git gud" but the need to memorize unintuitive attack patterns that you couldn't predict with a good understanding of game mechanics

I have to agree. Elden ring decided to double down on difficulty being learning boss patterns by heart. A good player should be able to beat without learning the patterns ahead of the time. Instead, it has become a trading and punishing windows that need to be learned by repetition. Rather than you know, being actually deductible.

One of the better main quest bosses, the fire giant, is trivial to anyone who is not horrible. That is OKAY, because once you realise that feet are safe, and to get away when it gets too hectic, that's all you need. Meanwhile our friend Maliketh, you might have to fight him 10-20 times to learn his first phase. That stage can still be deducted. Meanwhile the second stage is just a cluster fuck of punishing you for trying the same tactics.

What makes Malenia suck is that her moves are so rng. You can dodge shadow clones and waterfowl, but doing it reliably requires literally hours of learning her patterns. Even then it's all about RNG, she might absolutely wreck you because the game decided she will start waterfowl or shadow clones spam.



EDIT:

Another satisfying boss is Radagon for this reason because he is fair. He can get you really bad if you don't pay attention but he also doesn't require hours of coordinated swimming lessons just to have a chance of learning which one of the super bs moves he will pull out this time from his ass. Instead, he's relatively slow and he gives a decent signaling and after that it's up to you to decide, but overall he gives you a window to react within the fight rather than having to learn it through hours of repetition, because you need to dodge it precisely with a millisecond precision with perfect positioning on top of being aware what's the next move he might do and what's the next move he will do after those..

 

[Lyric Suite]

I have to agree. Elden ring decided to double down on difficulty being learning boss patterns by heart. A good player should be able to beat without learning the patterns ahead of the time.

I don't recall a single time where i could just swoop in and do a boss without training before hand. In Dark Souls i had to do the tutorial boss over and over, then the Taurus demon, then when the second Gargoyle showed up i felt like crying and by the time i hit the Capra Demon i thought the devs were just insane. For every one of them i had to get my nose bloody over and over until i finally started to figure out a way to beat them. This has been my experience non-stop with all the Souls games from DS1 to Elden Ring. I also expected them to up the ante with each one so i came prepared as well.

My process of going through Elden Ring has been virtually indistinguishable from that of all other Souls games before it, with the exception maybe with some of the more goofy crap like the Crystallian trio, the Godskin duo or the Virgin duo, which i'm still of the opinion were designed with spirit ashes in mind to begin with. Now granted, maybe i didn't notice an increase in difficutly because i started each one with all the experience i had gained in the previous one. I haven't played Dark Souls in several years and maybe if i did it would just feel painfully easy now i don't know. All i know is that it took me roughtly the same amount of time to figure out Malenia than i did trying to get past Sister Friede but again maybe the increase in difficutly went along an increase of skill so maybe my perception does not reflect anything objective about the difficutly of either.

The thing of it is that even the minor bosses gave me a ton of trouble at first in Elden Ring. The Stonedigger Troll took me at least a dozen times if not more to figure out, and felt like a major boss encounter. Now i can just pop in and do it without breaking a sweat which shows how much "knowledge" matters in this game, more so than just twitch. Maybe i'm actually just not as good as any of you guys so i was always put in a position of having to get good and i just got used to the idea to the point i'm completely unphazed by the fact i had to do it for all the bosses in Elden Ring since i've been doing it from my very first taste of Souls years ago.

 

[Multidirectional]

I don't recall a single time where i could just swoop in and do a boss without training before hand. In Dark Souls i had to do the tutorial boss over and over, then the Taurus demon, then when the second Gargoyle showed up i felt like crying and by the time i hit the Capra Demon i thought the devs were just insane. For every one of them i had to get my nose bloody over and over until i finally started to figure out a way to beat them. This has been my experience non-stop with all the Souls games from DS1 to Elden Ring.

This was not my experience with Dark Souls 1. Tutorial boss didn't take me more than couple tries and then only because I was derping as I haven't fully figured out the controls at that point. Taurus Demon I beat on second try and it was the run to him that I died in over and over instead. Gargoyles I beat on third try, if I remember correctly. Even the much hated Capra Demon I figured out how to cheese with staircase and firebombs/fireballs on second or third attempt. There were some tougher fights like Smoug and Ornstein but even that one took me less than 10 tries. And by the second half of the game I was beating most bosses on first try as I had learned to be way more patient by then and would spend the beginning of the fight not rushing to engage and blocking/dodging to study their moves a little first. And it is a large part of what impressed me about the game, I remember thinking "wow this game is really fair, despite being kinda tough". Of course DLC bosses were a different story, I definitely died to Kalameet and Manus over 10 times. Still nowhere near the same level of annoyance as with some DSIII or ER bosses. And I remember DSII being mostly similar. Dying a lot more while exploring the levels than during boss fights. This changed since then for me with From games, levels and regular enemies don't present as much of a challenge anymore but bosses I have to keep doing over and over.

Ironically, perhaps this is why you are a lot more tolerant to banging your head against the bosses in ER repeatedly, because you were having the same experience since the very start with these games. Myself I just cannot be arsed, I am having way more fun with Nioh 2 now, which has more in depth combat mechanics and also is more friendly to experimentation with them and bosses don't feel anywhere near like bullshit endurance tests where I have to memorize every single move of theirs by heart. Though I did go through that with Sekiro, but that's because I found its approach to combat more appealing than that of Souls. Not as good as Nioh though.

 

[JDR13]

*cough*"Bullshit'*cough*

 

[Lyric Suite]

I don't recall a single time where i could just swoop in and do a boss without training before hand. In Dark Souls i had to do the tutorial boss over and over, then the Taurus demon, then when the second Gargoyle showed up i felt like crying and by the time i hit the Capra Demon i thought the devs were just insane. For every one of them i had to get my nose bloody over and over until i finally started to figure out a way to beat them. This has been my experience non-stop with all the Souls games from DS1 to Elden Ring.

This was not my experience with Dark Souls 1. Tutorial boss didn't take me more than couple tries and then only because I was derping as I haven't fully figured out the controls at that point. Taurus Demon I beat on second try and it was the run to him that I died in over and over instead. Gargoyles I beat on third try, if I remember correctly. Even the much hated Capra Demon I figured out how to cheese with staircase and firebombs/fireballs on second or third attempt. There were some tougher fights like Smoug and Ornstein but even that one took me less than 10 tries. And by the second half of the game I was beating most bosses on first try as I had learned to be way more patient by then and would spend the beginning of the fight not rushing to engage and blocking/dodging to study their moves a little first. And it is a large part of what impressed me about the game, I remember thinking "wow this game is really fair, despite being kinda tough". Of course DLC bosses were a different story, I definitely died to Kalameet and Manus over 10 times. Still nowhere near the same level of annoyance as with some DSIII or ER bosses. And I remember DSII being mostly similar. Dying a lot more while exploring the levels than during boss fights. This changed since then for me with From games, levels and regular enemies don't present as much of a challenge anymore but bosses I have to keep doing over and over.

Ironically, perhaps this is why you are a lot more tolerant to banging your head against the bosses in ER repeatedly, because you were having the same experience since the very start with these games. Myself I just cannot be arsed, I am having way more fun with Nioh 2 now, which has more in depth combat mechanics and also is more friendly to experimentation with them and bosses don't feel anywhere near like bullshit endurance tests where I have to memorize every single move of theirs by heart. Though I did go through that with Sekiro, but that's because I found its approach to combat more appealing than that of Souls. Not as good as Nioh though.

Yeah i suggested that in my post as well. I played a lot of arcade games growing up but since i got a PC i veered more towards strategy, tactical rather than action RPGs (unless you count Diablo as action lul), simulations including immersive sims etc etc. While i did replay some of the older arcade classics on MAME over the years i just wasn't prepped for something like Dark Souls. Before Souls for me "pro-gayming" meant competitive RTS or arena shooter games, and "action" meant either Doom and Quake and so on.

Around the same time i got into Souls i also had a friend push me into trying SHMUPS, so it was like a rediscovery of the world of arcade gaming (and to me after all it is said and done this is what Souls really is, IMO anyway).

 

[MajorMace]

Gargoyles I beat on third try

Holy shit. That was quite the obstacle for me back then.

As it was still regular practice for me, I played a pirated copy of Dark Souls, without internet features.
Had no idea how to become human again and fighting the gargoyles alone after an excruciating ascension was such a fucking shitshow. Went for the very intuitive knight starting kit, played with block and retaliate approach. They fucked me dry.
Next head banging on the wall was Quelaag for similar reasons and O&S made me ragequit my firstplaythrough (and buy the game )

Good memories though. That first attempt felt so fucking good to play through. It was one of these very rare moments I felt like a game held its promise.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

I don't recall a single time where i could just swoop in and do a boss without training before hand. In Dark Souls i had to do the tutorial boss over and over, then the Taurus demon, then when the second Gargoyle showed up i felt like crying and by the time i hit the Capra Demon i thought the devs were just insane.

First time I tried DS it was the corsair edition, no summons, no guides etc. From all the hype about it being the toughest game ever (probably coming from people who only started playing videogames in the casual-focused generation of the mid 2000s-Wii/x360/ps3) thought the goal of the game was to try to avoid getting killed. So I played it super carefully and never died until getting all the way up to the upper levels of sen's fortress where those giant firebombs got me as I had no idea how to find refuge from them. After dying I just set the game aside. I hadn't enjoyed it up till that point, it was just an ugly hack n slasher. Had more fun with the likes of Severance Blade of Darkness or Rune when they released. It wasn't until a friend got me to play a legit copy with them in coop and we got invaded that I saw something interesting in the series.

 

[MajorMace]

These last two posts are like salt and pepper.

 

[Doktor Best]

I cast megadoubt on that post from CrunchyHemorrhoids

 

[HeatEXTEND]

But all these fucking videos basically just put all of this into a massive lore grinder and shits out formated ready-to-serve full front explanations.
It's so fucking sad in a way I can't quite explain.

Only for the people watching it/taking it "seriously". Doesn't bother me one bit, those videos are gay as fuck

 

[Ramnozack]

Look ma, no spirit ashes, no crazy weapon arts, no overpowered spells, no bleed or other status effects, not even buffs and consumables:



I was told the bosses in this game were impossible to do without abusing overpowered stuff unless you were some kind of pro-gaymer turbo teenager or something. Turns out all you need is to git gud.

Dedicated to PorkyThePaladin.

ACTUALLY, you should know that any directional movement is cheese and cheating.

A true, souls veteran (a real gamer) would explore the lands between by using the displacement of attacks, orienting themselves with a bow and fist attacks. Also, using anything other than your fists to fight makes you a loser. It is cheese and you need to get good, if you can't beat every single boss and mob with no mistakes for hundreds of attacks at a time.
I see also that you are NOT RL 1. Cringe. Leveling up is a sign of weakness. Considering your Vigor is above 10, you are so bad you get hit. Cringe.

Don't talk to me if you played the game with controller OR keyboard. If you REALLY cared about the game and cared about getting good, you would use bongos, a dancemat or voice commands, just like everyone else here who is any good and a notable souls veteran. If you can't do all that BARE MINUMUM, then you can't even say you beat Elden Ring without cheesing your way through every encounter.

CRINGE!!

 

[Feargus Jewhart]

Look ma, no spirit ashes, no crazy weapon arts, no overpowered spells, no bleed or other status effects, not even buffs and consumables:



I was told the bosses in this game were impossible to do without abusing overpowered stuff unless you were some kind of pro-gaymer turbo teenager or something. Turns out all you need is to git gud.

Dedicated to PorkyThePaladin.

ACTUALLY, you should know that any directional movement is cheese and cheating.

A true, souls veteran (a real gamer) would explore the lands between by using the displacement of attacks, orienting themselves with a bow and fist attacks. Also, using anything other than your fists to fight makes you a loser. It is cheese and you need to get good, if you can't beat every single boss and mob with no mistakes for hundreds of attacks at a time.
I see also that you are NOT RL 1. Cringe. Leveling up is a sign of weakness. Considering your Vigor is above 10, you are so bad you get hit. Cringe.

Don't talk to me if you played the game with controller OR keyboard. If you REALLY cared about the game and cared about getting good, you would use bongos, a dancemat or voice commands, just like everyone else here who is any good and a notable souls veteran. If you can't do all that BARE MINUMUM, then you can't even say you beat Elden Ring without cheesing your way through every encounter.

CRINGE!!

See? A real gamer (unlike LS).

 

[MajorMace]

But all these fucking videos basically just put all of this into a massive lore grinder and shits out formated ready-to-serve full front explanations.
It's so fucking sad in a way I can't quite explain.

Only for the people watching it/taking it "seriously". Doesn't bother me one bit, those videos are gay as fuck

"See that shit there ? That shit that bothers you ? That shit that you see ? Just don't see it !"
No shit !

More seriously, it's the concept itself that bothers me. I could watch these videos and enjoy them in all honesty. But the fact they are, and the way they are, makes me sad.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

I cast megadoubt on that post from CrunchyHemorrhoids

*unzips*
Now show me your honor.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Also, this is my second run, but... why is it a problem to have a game that requires you to play it many times in order to master? Like yourself pointed out, the game gives you plenty of options to get past pretty much anything if you don't feel like training for it, but for those of us who want to do things "legit", yes, it sometimes can take time to master those bosses. I'm not getting what the issue is with that exactly. It took me a million coins to be able to finish Ghost n' Goblins as a kid and i don't even know how many times i had to play DoDonPachi before i was able to do my first 1CC run. Some games are just like that i don't see what the issue is here.

Any game that requires multiple playthroughs to master its combat system is trash. That is pretty self-evident. See games with actually good combat systems to see why: Warband, KCD, Sekiro, etc.

Besides, your argument was that those bosses are impossible no matter what. You talked about needing to have the reflexes of a 15 year old to go past them which clearly implies you think the difficulty lies in the twitch factor itself, which is not something you can overcome no matter how many times you try to play the game. If the problem is in the reflexes, playing the game for twenty times isn't gonna help you. If the limitation is physical, it will be there no matter how much "practice" time you put in. However, the fact even an old withered boomer like myself can master this game shows that it's not a matter of reflexes, it's a question of knowledge, which was always the highlight of Souls games for me.

Now you are just hiding behind cheap semantics. Anything can be done by applying a million-gazillion years to it. But no one without the reflexes of a young e-athlete can master ER's shit combat on the first and only run that normal people would be playing.

Try that with an actually difficult boss, like say Godskin Duo or Malekith.

Well, i did both of them solo, but my fights with both were kinda shit shows:


I started playing carelessly and recklessly at this point because i was seriously burned out (not the least because i had to redo the entirety of Consecrated Snowfield and the Haligtree on account of my save getting corrupted, some of you may remember that) and just wanted to get it over with. Definitely didn't spend a million hours trying to master either of those, which in hindsight is a shame.

When i get there with my SL1 toon i'll take the time to do them properly and i'll try to remember to call you when i post the video.

To quote the great Louis Armstrong: I see cheese of yellow and tears of red, and I say to myself, but goddamn you was bad...

 

[ERYFKRAD]

A DLC as good as The Old Hunters is scientifically impossible

Because it's bad?

 

[Lyric Suite]

So since this is Liurnia and to keep with the theme of the Wrech being whatever i decided to LARP as some kind of glint stone knight with a "barbaric" tinge to it while i'm this area.

I got the iron set which looks pretty good with that kite shield you get with the astrologer set from the merchant and it also works well with some of the weapons i'm using, like the long sword, broad sword, morning star and i even have that wierd axe that replenished FP i got from the death bird in the Weeping Pennusila which also fits well with the color scheme, likewise for that silver scarab thingy you wear on your head.

Don't mind the dragon breath i used it to clear out those annoying flowers in this cave but for the most part i'm going to stick to sorceries for a while since i barely used any. Ho, i'm also trying out some magic weapon arts. I never used this one before, pretty neat:

 

[MajorMace]

Btw one of the best additions of ER compared to Dark Souls games was the whole bunch of beastman/savage themed items and miracles centered around Strength/Faith hybrids.

I've been playing Strength/Faith on my first blind playthrough of every Souls game and it was quite a joy to discover Gurranq's "miracles".