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

[Vic]

for how many hours has this debate now been going on? this is some serious autism

 

[mediocrepoet]

I really dont think I said nothing so outlandish to merit such response too...

To be fair, I was basically talking to Hell Swarm, you just chose to reply and it applied to segments of your comments as well as shown above. Sorry your feelings are hurt. Suck it up.

 

[FugueLah]

A normal person doesn't stack buffs like this. Only an autist with a wiki does.

A normal person will use spirit ashes though.

Guys, bleeding weapons are the same as finding multiple hidden buffs and applying them all to a meta weapon outside the boss door before you kill a boss in 1 hit. Totally the same thing.

You have really set the bar incredibly low for how you expect players to cope with the game's challenges. These are the same players that have beaten Mogh btw. And if they needed help then, they will take help now. The DLC bosses are almost too easy. They may be aggro with long attack chains, but their HP is low and they are vulnerable to burst. Midra in particular is a nutty boss, but his health was too low cause much issue.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Just in case anyone was curious, apparently Scadu comes from Old English and is pronounced similarly to Shadow.

 

[Anonona]

Sorry your feelings are hurt. Suck it up.

I do admit I was taken aback by the response. It's allright though, not offense taken. Bygones be bygones.

I was trying to debunk the notion all you needed was "read a wiki" and stack "buffs" when obviously there's a lot more going on here. How can i take seriously a criticism of the game coming from someone making arguments like that. That's what set me of off

You are right in the notion that you don't need neither a wiki nor stack buffs to win. At least, for my part, I wasnt arguing that. My point is more about if a casual player would actually make use of a combination of build and buffs like that, specially the kind of player that leaves a bad review because of the difficulty, despite it not being actually quite simple. I think most players are handicaping themselves and don't know it and miss even things that we consider basic and resort to builds online.

But as pointed out by FugueLah, people did beat Mohg to reach the DLC, so perhaps it is me who doesn't give the average player enough credits.

If they wanted to prevent that they could have easily given the boss an actual second phase with an health bar refill. The fact they didn't means they at the very least expected people would put their all their efforts on a DPS race to see as little of the elemental phases as possible.

I do agree that the lack of cutscene or increase of enemy defense do seem an indicator that players are encourged to do as much damage as possible. I still think the elemental phase moveset itself isn't really design with the mind of being skipped, because there is really not indications that it is like that. I can agree that those openings are very deliberate to give a chance to do big damage, specially compared to later ones, but are only that, openings for damage.

Now perhaps i'm putting too much trust in FromSoft but i've always been of the opinion everything they do is calculated. True sometimes the occational jank creates unintended difficulties for the player but that's not the only issue with this boss because some dificulties appear to be fully intended, and if it's intented there must be a way. And often times i found that the "way" is an intended exploit you are supposed to use. That's been the major breakthrough that sets Elden Ring apart from Souls. While there were bosses in Souls that also were a puzzle you had to solve (like Artorias for instance), they leaned very heavily on this in Elden Ring, and i think they did so in part as a response to all the powerful tools they gave the player. In fact, you could almost say that because they gave the player things that seems almost unfair for the boss, they ended up giving bosses things that are unfair to the player in return.

I don't know if I quite agree. I do think From are quite capable when it comes to designing a game, you can see many instances of such, but I think they also have many issues that date back to even their older games. I think some of the unfair stuff of both players and bosses is untentional. They do nerf a lot of popular builds and have problems balancing the PVP with the PVE.

I would be more inclined to blame the scope of the game for its shortcomings or odd balancing and designs. While they did a remarkable job, I think the scale of the game may have meant that they couldn't really tighten the gameplay as much as past entries nor innovate in the combat department. From is famous for they rocky development. Also a certain degree of catering to a more mainstream audience in certain changes of their design paradigm. But I cant say anything definitive, just my thoughs.

Won't quote the last part, as this message is long enough as is, but yeag, I agree that exploiting deliberate weaknesses of the bosses isn't try hard.

 

[Hell Swarm]

A normal person doesn't stack buffs like this. Only an autist with a wiki does.

A normal person will use spirit ashes though.

Guys, bleeding weapons are the same as finding multiple hidden buffs and applying them all to a meta weapon outside the boss door before you kill a boss in 1 hit. Totally the same thing.

You have really set the bar incredibly low for how you expect players to cope with the game's challenges. These are the same players that have beaten Mogh btw. And if they needed help then, they will take help now. The DLC bosses are almost too easy. They may be aggro with long attack chains, but their HP is low and they are vulnerable to burst. Midra in particular is a nutty boss, but his health was too low cause much issue.

They have higher HP than the base game bosses.

This is why Lyric needed his own thread and to be thread banned from all From games to stop him being so retarded he derails every time he posts. Any one arguing "Bleed is a broken mechanic" doesn't understand why Bleed exists. From are stuck between autists like Lyric stacking all the buffs and used 2 handed colossals crying the game is too easy because they have to dodge like 5 attacks and skip multiple phases. People using 1 hand weapons and very few buffs having to hit a boss 10 times to get the same damage as one hit from a giant weapon were at a serious disadvantage. So From power crept the bosses to match how poorly balanced 2 handed strength builds are and bleed was buffed to make it so 5-10 small weapon hits give free bonus damage to catch up with the 2 handing twinks. It's the same reason the twinks don't understand why From games have so many buffs and it's not because they're expected to be stacked. Players aren't expected to find everything and no one does, so there are lots of buffs laying around so you can find one if you want one and find one that leans into your build. In Dark souls Power within was in a difficult to explore area with a difficult to fight monster in a some what happen path. It wasn't expected to be stacked with hurting yourself to get a red tear stone buff and melt bosses. If you think "Well why wouldn't I do that?" then you should ask yourself why you're playing these games at all because it's not to actually play them. If your objective is to skip as much content as possible you might as well never install the game or put it in your console since then you've 100% skipped everything and had about the same experience once you take the wikis ans busy work out of it if you're not cheating using pre-generated characters already which a lot of souls 'content creators' now are.

"Why wouldn't you stack all these buffs and miss half the game's content because you skip phases" is a stupid and obvious argument to dispel. Unlike some people I don't tie my ego to From games and have to look up guides to beat them as autistically as possible to keep from having a total melt down. I want to see the different boss phases and learn how to overcome them not just bursting the boss down. This new 'meta' of using save states at boss doors and stacking buffs so you burst a boss down but die in 1 hit is just a pathetic excuse for a game at this point. We all know it's what you're doing and you think you're hot shit with your 50 youtube subscribes but you're exactly what the Demon's souls community said was going to happen to the game series as it lost it's soul. There's no adventure any more, there's no personal growth or changing of tactics. There is just huge DPS numbers and hoping the boss doesn't do a fast attack in one of the five you need to dodge before it's dead. You can't even discuss the difficulty any more because of these people. From has always given you ways to cheese bosses and the community used to understand these were a cheese and weren't the normal way people played the game. People didn't play that way because the experience was more important then the victory. Finding YOUR path to beating a difficult boss rather than abusing exploits or using the game journo mode was what made these games unique and interesting. Now you have completely mongoloids trying to tell you the DLC isn't too hard and doesn't have problems because a boss dying in a couple of hits where many of them are done during a phase transition doesn't force them to face the actual problems the bosses present. You're not playing the game, you're cheesing the game and From hoped you were smart enough not to ruin your own experience but clearly you're not and want to broadcast that stupidity to the world instead.

 

[abija]

You're the one who needed his own thread. Pretty much all you complained about initially has been proven to be horseshit. Nice backpedalling btw with "They have higher HP than the base game bosses." after complaining they are hp sponges. No shit sherlock the dlc starts from a boss that's close to end game, gives you 30-40 levels easy and a multiplicative buff on top.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I'm starting to notice the people on the opposite side of this argument don't actually read anything written. They take the first line and ignore everything else despite things they post right after being explained in the post they're responding to. They don't even read the recommended levels for the DLC in official statements.

 

[Ravielsk]

I'm starting to notice the people on the opposite side of this argument don't actually read anything written. They take the first line and ignore everything else despite things they post right after being explained in the post they're responding to. They don't even read the recommended levels for the DLC in official statements.

Ironic, the one fandom that goes on and one about reading every minute scrap of text in their own game is incapable of reading a fucking forum post.

 

[abija]

I'm starting to notice the people on the opposite side of this argument don't actually read anything written. They take the first line and ignore everything else despite things they post right after being explained in the post they're responding to. They don't even read the recommended levels for the DLC in official statements.

Official message is you should start the dlc at 150-170. It's especially posted so people don't rush it and complain. Wtf is your point?

 

[FugueLah]

A normal person doesn't stack buffs like this. Only an autist with a wiki does.

A normal person will use spirit ashes though.

Guys, bleeding weapons are the same as finding multiple hidden buffs and applying them all to a meta weapon outside the boss door before you kill a boss in 1 hit. Totally the same thing.

You have really set the bar incredibly low for how you expect players to cope with the game's challenges. These are the same players that have beaten Mogh btw. And if they needed help then, they will take help now. The DLC bosses are almost too easy. They may be aggro with long attack chains, but their HP is low and they are vulnerable to burst. Midra in particular is a nutty boss, but his health was too low cause much issue.

They have higher HP than the base game bosses.

This is why Lyric needed his own thread and to be thread banned from all From games to stop him being so retarded he derails every time he posts. Any one arguing "Bleed is a broken mechanic" doesn't understand why Bleed exists. From are stuck between autists like Lyric stacking all the buffs and used 2 handed colossals crying the game is too easy because they have to dodge like 5 attacks and skip multiple phases. People using 1 hand weapons and very few buffs having to hit a boss 10 times to get the same damage as one hit from a giant weapon were at a serious disadvantage. So From power crept the bosses to match how poorly balanced 2 handed strength builds are and bleed was buffed to make it so 5-10 small weapon hits give free bonus damage to catch up with the 2 handing twinks. It's the same reason the twinks don't understand why From games have so many buffs and it's not because they're expected to be stacked. Players aren't expected to find everything and no one does, so there are lots of buffs laying around so you can find one if you want one and find one that leans into your build. In Dark souls Power within was in a difficult to explore area with a difficult to fight monster in a some what happen path. It wasn't expected to be stacked with hurting yourself to get a red tear stone buff and melt bosses. If you think "Well why wouldn't I do that?" then you should ask yourself why you're playing these games at all because it's not to actually play them. If your objective is to skip as much content as possible you might as well never install the game or put it in your console since then you've 100% skipped everything and had about the same experience once you take the wikis ans busy work out of it if you're not cheating using pre-generated characters already which a lot of souls 'content creators' now are.

"Why wouldn't you stack all these buffs and miss half the game's content because you skip phases" is a stupid and obvious argument to dispel. Unlike some people I don't tie my ego to From games and have to look up guides to beat them as autistically as possible to keep from having a total melt down. I want to see the different boss phases and learn how to overcome them not just bursting the boss down. This new 'meta' of using save states at boss doors and stacking buffs so you burst a boss down but die in 1 hit is just a pathetic excuse for a game at this point. We all know it's what you're doing and you think you're hot shit with your 50 youtube subscribes but you're exactly what the Demon's souls community said was going to happen to the game series as it lost it's soul. There's no adventure any more, there's no personal growth or changing of tactics. There is just huge DPS numbers and hoping the boss doesn't do a fast attack in one of the five you need to dodge before it's dead. You can't even discuss the difficulty any more because of these people. From has always given you ways to cheese bosses and the community used to understand these were a cheese and weren't the normal way people played the game. People didn't play that way because the experience was more important then the victory. Finding YOUR path to beating a difficult boss rather than abusing exploits or using the game journo mode was what made these games unique and interesting. Now you have completely mongoloids trying to tell you the DLC isn't too hard and doesn't have problems because a boss dying in a couple of hits where many of them are done during a phase transition doesn't force them to face the actual problems the bosses present. You're not playing the game, you're cheesing the game and From hoped you were smart enough not to ruin your own experience but clearly you're not and want to broadcast that stupidity to the world instead.

They have more HP, but you also get a buff that when maxxed out will double your damage and halve your damage taken. Overall, if you are exploring, time to kill on bosses is much lower than Malenia or Mogh. You also get the +3 defensive talismans.

The only way I'll take your complaints with buff stacking and other meta strats seriously is if use spirit ashes. Because if you are intentionally gimping your progress by not using them, then you have no right to complain that you feel forced into buff stacking to do well. You will do even better with a spirit summon. Aside from Radahn, I cleared the DLC fine with no summons, and no buff stacking at 120-150. I did not feell compelled to look up a build at all.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I'm starting to notice the people on the opposite side of this argument don't actually read anything written. They take the first line and ignore everything else despite things they post right after being explained in the post they're responding to. They don't even read the recommended levels for the DLC in official statements.

Official message is you should start the dlc at 150-170. It's especially posted so people don't rush it and complain. Wtf is your point?

It's actually 120-150.

The only way I'll take your complaints with buff stacking and other meta strats seriously is if use spirit ashes. Because if you are intentionally gimping your progress by not using them, then you have no right to complain that you feel forced into buff stacking to do well. You will do even better with a spirit summon. Aside from Radahn, I cleared the DLC fine with no summons, and no buff stacking at 120-150. I did not feell compelled to look up a build at all.

I have no issue with spirit ashes. The bosses are clearly designed around them and even npc summons due to the NPC quest lines involving summoning the bosses. From finally fixed the multiplayer AI where bosses can switch mid combo and change targets so you're no longer completely safe hitting their butthole for hours between aggro changes. If you fight the twin moon bitch you can see her swords constantly spaz out picking a target. My issue isn't using tools the game offers you, the issue is when you specifically stack them to the point where your damage is so high you effectively skip bosses. It's possible to 1 shot every boss in the DLC except for Radahn and Mesmer who have cut scenes to interrupt the damage they take. When you stack your damage so high you effectively skip bosses or major boss phases you're not playing the game any more. You're hitting it with a sledge hammer, which is such a widely different experience your opinion is invalid. So when you join a thread and start telling the people playing as intended everything they say is wrong because you can 1 shot the bosses and any problems you skip entirely aren't a problem because you can skip them you're just plain retarded. There's no point playing a modern From game if all you do is skip the bosses because they have no other content any more. Which is ultimately what the thread was discussing before an autist thought he'd get applauded for his 1 minute boss kill we all knew was possible but didn't think was worth doing because it ruins the experience.

 

[abija]

Link to the official message? I saw 150-170 mentioned a lot and thought it's from an official statement.

Ironic, the one fandom that goes on and one about reading every minute scrap of text in their own game is incapable of reading a fucking forum post.

Missed this gem. Reading info in a game is a lot more normal than stalking dev forums. But hey, no wonder you think everyone playing the game has a wiki/guide open.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Link to the official message? I saw 150-170 mentioned a lot and thought it's from an official statement.

Ironic, the one fandom that goes on and one about reading every minute scrap of text in their own game is incapable of reading a fucking forum post.

Missed this gem. Reading info in a game is a lot more normal than stalking dev forums. But hey, no wonder you think everyone playing the game has a wiki/guide open.

I don't think From have a dev forum, at least not in English. I've never interacted with Bandai Namco or From in that way. But you can easily spot the official numbers when every single person and website recommends the same level range. It's coming as part of their press packs with their early copies of the game. I bet they even come with pre-loaded saves ready to play the DLC with the way journos are.

 

[abija]

So more horseshit served with superior attitude...

 

[Silverfish]

But hey, no wonder you think everyone playing the game has a wiki/guide open.

Bro, Sports Illustrated has Elden Ring guides.

https://videogames.si.com/guides/elden-ring-moonveil-location-build

I think it's a distinct possibility.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The wiki shit is a massive cope. Nothing in the wiki is going to help you overcome the challenge. All the wikis do is spoil all the cryptic quests and secrets etc. They serve no purpose when it comes to the combat and there's not a whole lot that isn't explained in the item's descriptions that is going to vastly alter the game for anyone. It's also not impossible to figure out certain things of your own (like, if you want to know if buffs stack, just go check the stats screen after casting them sheesh. If your weapon damage doesn't go up, then they don't stack).

 

[Lyric Suite]

I still think the elemental phase moveset itself isn't really design with the mind of being skipped, because there is really not indications that it is like that.

My argument is that they are designed the way they are because they CAN be skipped. The better you do in the first phase, the less you gonna see of the elemental phases. I cannot imagine that isn't intentional.

Those kind of things aren't uncommon either. In the fight with Mohg, if you use the crystal tear that makes you immune to his Nihil phase, you can dish out so much damage you can basically outright bypass his second phase.

Again, i'm reasoning from the perspective of the "normal" player who is baffled by how unreasonably hard the elemental phases seem to be. If you combine that with the fact the boss is weak to rot or bleed, i don't think it's that strange to think for the "normal" player the intended way is to cheese the first phase as hard as possible so that you don't see any of the others.

The "pros" of course are more than welcome in trying to master the elemental phases and it seems most of them already have:



I think the argument at this point is whether it is a good idea to have a boss so hard only the "pros" can master. My counter argument would be all the bosses in Elden Ring and other Souls games are hard enough that only the pros can master them either way. By mastering them, i mean learning all the move sets so well you can basically take zero damage and avoid everything with ease. No normal player does that. People fumble, make mistakes, get knocked on their ass, and can only pull through by healing to recover from their errors. And what concession does this boss make for the average player? Guaranteed opportunities to heal in between phases, which suggests that IS the "intended" way for the normal player to deal with the elemental phases in the event they get that far. And because every phase gives you an opportunity to heal they basically allowed themselves to go all the way with the elemental phases in terms of spectacle and chaos.

I'm eager to see the other bosses to check out if my theory holds with them as well.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I'm starting to notice the people on the opposite side of this argument don't actually read anything written. They take the first line and ignore everything else despite things they post right after being explained in the post they're responding to. They don't even read the recommended levels for the DLC in official statements.

Ironic, the one fandom that goes on and one about reading every minute scrap of text in their own game is incapable of reading a fucking forum post.

Why would any of us want to read retardo though.

 

[Lyric Suite]

This is why Lyric needed his own thread and to be thread banned from all From games to stop him being so retarded he derails every time he posts

Oh yeah i forgot this thread is supposed to be YOUR personal space to screech and moan about how bad FromSoft is at making games. I'm sorry for intruding in what appears to be your own blog thread.

 

[Strange Fellow]

My argument is that they are designed the way they are because they CAN be skipped. The better you do in the first phase, the less you gonna see of the elemental phases. I cannot imagine that isn't intentional.

But that's not true, is it? I don't know for sure about the lion specifically, but most bosses shift into the second phase when you've taken them down past an HP breakpoint, so unless you've engineered the fight so as to do a big burst of damage right around the 60% mark of a boss's health or whatever, it doesn't matter how quickly you pile on the damage initially. All that matters to the length of the second phase is how much damage you do in the second phase, broadly speaking. You didn't just burst down the first phase, you burst down the entire boss. (Which, for the record, I think is perfectly legitimate, despite the screeching of morons who think a wiki is required to perform the RPG 101 behaviour of discovering simple synergies and buffing before a fight.)

 

[Lyric Suite]

My argument is that they are designed the way they are because they CAN be skipped. The better you do in the first phase, the less you gonna see of the elemental phases. I cannot imagine that isn't intentional.

But that's not true, is it? I don't know for sure about the lion specifically, but most bosses shift into the second phase when you've taken them down past an HP breakpoint, so unless you've engineered the fight so as to do a big burst of damage right around the 60% mark of a boss's health or whatever, it doesn't matter how quickly you pile on the damage initially. All that matters to the length of the second phase is how much damage you do in the second phase, broadly speaking.

In my video, i burst him twice, first with the bleed proc and then with the critical hit after breaking his stance, both happening one after the other. By the time his lighting phase started, his health was already at 30%.

In the video of the "normal" guy with the two bleed katanas, the lighting phase begins at 50% health. If he had done better in the first phase, it would have been lower.

Meanwhile rot can help you during the elemental phases because it makes up for the damage a normal player would miss due to getting knocked over constantly etc (Radhan in the original game was weak to rot as well. This was not only about the "lore", but it was also because his second phase can lead to drawned out moments where the player is just running away with the horse, and in that case damage over time can make you feel you are still doing "something" even in those moments).

To me none of this feels strange. It's an RPG after all, why shouldn't there be "tactical" options for the player to take advantage of? Even more considering this is post-base game, with players carrying a vast number of gear with them they can use.

And to see the Codex of all places being so dismissal of this kind of thinking is just bizzare. Don't you guys play RPGs? When you are fighting a dragon in D&D, don't you lower his magic restances so your spells work? How is this any different (besides being vastly more simplistic than D&D)?

Also, don't you "stack" buffs with your priest in Baldur's Gate? Is that really such an esoteric concept only the "pros" can figure out?

 

[Hell Swarm]

The wiki shit is a massive cope. Nothing in the wiki is going to help you overcome the challenge. All the wikis do is spoil all the cryptic quests and secrets etc. They serve no purpose when it comes to the combat and there's not a whole lot that isn't explained in the item's descriptions that is going to vastly alter the game for anyone.

Objectively wrong. If a wiki points you to all the buffs and tells you where to find them it completely invalidates the challenge. We've proven that your buff stacking is skipping entire boss phases which is objectively making the fights easier. So if you use a wiki to solve all the stuff to get the rewards for it then stack those rewards you have a completely different difficulty level.

You keep trying to call yourself a pro, which is just sad. Is it trying to defend your ego when it's pointed out you're playing on game journo mode and not seeing half the content because of it?

 

[Stoned Ape]

Hadn't actually played this for a while but eventually got around to poking Messmer with my pointed stick. It took me (who I reiterate is absolutely incompetent at the game) a grand total of five attempts before I impaled him often enough that he cursed his own mom and died.

I think I'm probably going to stick with the golden bling for a while. I'd love to wear the ridiculously OP Fire Knight Helm but the red hood looks awful with any of the heavy armour I currently have and I can't bring myself to mess up the look...

Currently have Barricade Shield set as my Ash of War to make up for not using the Fingerprint. Seems to be doing alright so far and can switch to 2-handing the spear if I need to use Black Flame Tornado. Can also medium roll with this gear if I need to in an emergency, which was useful as I found Messmer's AOEs difficult to avoid when fatrolling.

 

[Lyric Suite]

If a wiki points you to all the buffs and tells you where to find them it completely invalidates the challenge.

There's like, five buffs in the whole game and none of them "invalidates" the challenge whatsoever. You are droning on this nonsense without understanding how any of this works and pretending even the most brain dead normie doesn't know how to find those supposed mythical "buffs" and wouldn't use them when found, without the "wiki".

It's an argument so stupid, so incredibly ignorant and inane it invalidates everything else you may have to say about the game.

I also didn't skip the boss with "buffs". If anything my approach was kinda gimped. The guy with the dual katanas got the boss down to 45% of health and he didn't even play that well. With the Flame Art infusion the Great Stars could only rely on its own innate bleed proc rate, which is fairly low (around 55). Also while Lion's Claw does massive damage it doesn't seem to do a whole lot of posture damage. Great Stars is also a strike weapon where as the boss is weak to piercing (which is why the "pros" all use poke weapons). It's also a slow weapon which wasn't ideal for such a fast boss and wasn't ideal to maximize bleed procs.

Lastly, my stat spread is unoptimized and thus i didn't actually maximize the damage potential of the weapon. Ongbal, who used a similar approach to mine, took basically around the same time except, given he did it as SL1 i should have been a lot faster, which shows my approach wasn't completely optimal.

In all of this, the damage boost i got from those very standard buffs i used was relatively unimportant. Golden Vow gives you 15% extra damage for 80 seconds, while Howl of Shabriri does 25% extra damage with a whopping 30% extra damage taken for a meager 40 seconds. I also actually lost some good damage by not switching to Misericorde for the critical hit because i had to chase the bleed proc.

What made my "burst" successful is not the damage i did but the fact i was able to maintain a steady stream of hits. What made it possible was my ability to master the first phase to the point i could just hammer at him without interruptions. Both the posture and bleed meters can go down quite fast if you don't keep the hits coming. This applies to all the "pros" out there. It's not the "buffs" nor the "colossal" weapons it's their mastery of the boss which allows them to keep the hits coming until the bosses fold prematurely.