@@hollowhorizon7196 probably because of the enemies that snipe you across the map with their bows and almost always hits you. I left the area early on because of that but I came back later to clear it out
@@VZapphire all you have to do is clear the middle area and you won't deal with the laser arrow for majority of the altars. they don't use charged shots point blank, just a regular arrow or axes too so bumrushing the middle is perfectly viable.
@@aravinds3846 It's tied to the netcode. In the patch notes you may have noticed that they did mention changes to how their networking works. The bug is probably from that. You'll be fine if you're just playing solo.
I cannot explain how far my jaw dropped when I opened that transportation chest in the weeping peninsula and got teleported to the very north side of the map…
Something that genuinely upsets me about the fan base for these games is that they conflate "doable" with "good" in terms of game design. Yeah, sure, you *can* do a full no-hit run of the game, but that doesn't mean it's *good.* I love the game, played through it again just because I saw a friend playing it. The community just seems so horrifyingly allergic to criticism. Criticize Malenia? Well *I* beat her at level 1 after dozens of hours of attempts, so that means there's absolutely nothing wrong with her fight. It's a dick measuring contest at this point, and any criticism just means that yours isn't big enough.
Absolutely, I remember some guy giving me shit for criticizing the enemy placement in the "perfect" first half of DS1, and they always respond with their motto "get gud", like, I already beat it, the problem is that it wasn't enjoyable.
I think Elden Ring might be one of the most garbage communities I've ever experienced, in the sense that no one seems to unanimously agree on wether they think something is good or bad game design. And I think that's sad because seeing fans blindly praise the game like it's perfect has had the opposite effect of making me like Elden Ring less. For every time I've brought up a flaw or questionable design choice, I get 5 different responses that tell me I'm wrong and that there's a solution that makes it ok to have in the game. Waterfowl is cheap? Well, you can technically dodge it if you're precise enough, so I guess that makes it fine. Bosses do too much damage? You just need to keep leveling up your Vigor. Too frequent delayed attacks? They're meant to punish panic-rolling so it's fine that they look extremely unnatural and are hard to learn instinctively without dying. Lore is too vague and I'm not given a reason to think about it beyond background noise? Well, once you go out of your way to learn it, it's good, so that makes up for the story-telling.
"You can blissfully loot things while on horseback, and I hope whoever pushed for that at From gets a statue in the lobby.. of themselves.. on HORSEBACK.. PICKING. UP. THEIR. CROWN." Absolutely amazing work and I completely agree.
@@rolandngom5080 You’re flat out incorrect…you have to stop and wait for a little animation to play picking up literally anything in those games. I played Forbidden West right before ER and it was such a difference.
Funnily enough, the most fun I’ve had with Elden Ring was on a NG+ “speedrun” I did. The goal was to just hit the bosses and finish the storyline as quickly as possible (I’m not actually a speed runner with actual strats. Just a man who ran to the next boss as soon as the previous one was defeated). I had a great time because I essentially ran from legacy dungeon to legacy dungeon with a character that had everything they needed. No exploration or side tracking was required. No wading through random locations. It was great fun because it gave me the cream from the top of what the game had to offer.
Im trying a LV1 run and having so much fun ngl. As my last response, and to try to not be aggresive , I feel this was an issue of misunderstanding for everyone. Is insane what you can do to go against the bosses. That a boss have a wind up? Well thats actually good, because that often happens to be a big window! That a boss reacts your position and movement? Manipulate it them to do what you want, is very easy to do so, and if done well you can have another window. That a boss have an unreactable or unavoidable attack? I havent found any yet (really, I just found tricky attacks, but nothing I had not seen on any other Fromsoft game). If you dont like this take, is fine, not everyone can enjoy everything, but I do not consider that this boss design is flawed on any shape nor form.This boss design is only hard, and I do not consider that hard is the equivalent of bad. In fact, I really liking it more than ever with this run. Regardless, isnt what is important? To make up your own opinion while acknowledging you cant change others if they dont want to? I feel actually very happy to know that theres people who loved this design, I love it too.
The way they made the map seem like the full map is exactly how I always said they should do maps. The true journey of discovery, not knowing how much more is out there is amazing!
I didn't watch any gameplay or haven't played any other similar games, I don't know how many times I thought to myself "there's no way there's more parts of the map". Really enjoyed the game but there are for sure parts of it that frustrated me and I'm yet confused about a lot of things.
@@abco9391 Yeah, I've played quite a few, and you always have the full map visible and you can imagine how much more is left. It's quite sad really and when they hide it this way, you never know if you'll find even more you know 😅
The only game I have seen do that, dynamically extend the map screen as you progress that is, was supreme commander. But frankly I found it more annoying there. Though I supppse in the context of a strategy game the meaning auddenly shifts from dixcovery to the game cheating to get one over you with aomething you couldnt have possibly prepared for.
True. However, I will say though, that the more fragments i found, the more disappointed i got with the ammount of water/unplayable areas there actually was. I mean, look at the mountantop map, for example. 75% of that is just an unplayable cliff. 7.8/10, too much water :/
@@wax3825 There's a new glitch with this patch where she can heal while doing Waterfowl Dance without hitting anything. This seems to only be with that attack, and only when playing multiplayer though.
She's always been able to because it's just lag while on mp, i fought her yesterday and she doesn't heal out of nowhere. It's kinda like when you pvp with a bit of lag you'll get status through your dodges or get bleed and not take damage
My main problem with this game is that I dread replaying it. I get excited once every twelve months to sink my teeth back into bloodborne or Demon Souls, Dark Souls 1-3. Once conquered these games can be enjoyed in bitesized portions, or if you’ve been replaying for a while like me, you can finish them in a couple of days. Elden Ring is just incredibly time consuming. And unfortunately a lot of that time is spent on a mixed bag of stuff that doesn’t quite work.
Cheats. How I did it was I chose myself 2 main weapons. One upgraded with normal smithing stones and the other with somber. I used cheats to keep all my other weapons at the same level I reached on my main weapons the legit way. I cheated to skip those boring low quality low effort caves and especially catacombs. I just gave myself whatever equipment was in them without going through that 30 minute chore of copy pasted content. This helps with increasing the variety on hand and reducing tedium. What can't be helped is knowing where all the stuff is. It's so easy to become stupidly overpowered by just running around and picking up upgrade materials. Except for the last few bosses which are a massive difficulty spike unless you use mimic tear.
30:00 The first dragon fight was the best boss fight experience in the game for me. Playing for the first time, I died like 10 times trying to own that dragon, but I was still coming back to try again. Like you said, it was an epic movie scene.
It's funny how apologetic Joseph gets whenever he goes off-script, like we're gonna crucify him if he says a certain amount of words that aren't on the video script that we'll never see
@@JimJamTheAdmin I freaked the fuck out when I saw the dark souls designed chest near the Altus platau margit. The fucking chain scared me even though it wasn't mimic shaped
"Don't watch until you've played the game yourself" I've been binge watching your critiques for multiple games now and this is the first time I've cursed myself for not beating this game sooner just so I can listen to your video. Keep them coming, you've earned my subscription; thank you for your content!
I like to come back to this video when I here people call this game a masterpiece with no issues. It helps me remember I’m not insane for not completely liking the game
@@bluesfrombluesclues4201 First of all, I don't remember all the issues, after all, it has been roughly a year since i played the game. But here is what i remember from the top of my head. - Selecting spells is extremely annoying. It's entirely possible you have to press a button 5 times to get to the spell you want. To add insult to injury, the number of presses you have to do depends on the spell you currently have active. There is also no way to just go backwards one spell, you have to cycle though all spells to go back one. And all that, while you are in combat, in a game like this. Yes, there is an entirely undocumented feature that helps a little bit with this issue. If you keep the spell selection button pressed for a second or so, you select the first spell in the list. How ever you are supposed to find that out by yourself. And even then, during that time you can't move, since you need the left thumb. Which is really bad in a game like this. - You can't open the map when the game thinks you are in combat. This is very annoying if you are just riding somewhere on Torrent and aggro some random enemy, that seems to be chasing you for ages, even though they are much slower than you. And it's completely unnecessary to forbid opening the map. - You pick up some equipment and want to check what it does. Finding said item is a huge pain, because later in the game you are carrying hundreds of items and you can't sort them by "recently picked up". - There is no description of the stats in the character creation screen. If you don't know how FromSoft games work very well you are creating your character half blind. - You have to talk several times with NPCs until they say the important stuff. In every other game, the NPCs say the important stuff first, and then maybe add other things if you talk to them several times. There is absolutely no point in this, other than just to go against the norm. I wonder how many people missed out on a lot of important stuff because they don't talk with NPCs in games until the dialog is exhausted. - Lock on is the same button as camera reset, and lock on doesn't work if there is some obstacle, such as a corridor corner or even a crate (even if it's smaller than the enemy). I died several times because instead of locking on, my camera turned in a "random" direction and i completely lost orientation. I know, by now you can turn off the camera reset, buy by the time that was patched in, i was already done with the game.
This vid is really interesting because I just finally got and beat ER and I loved every second of it and I don't really mind that I'm now hyper over-levelled for my NG+ run. Yet I also agree with everything he's complaining about. I guess I just like being in and exploring the world enough. And now that I can 3-shot some bosses, I can go basically wherever I desire without worrying about dying.
@@valterlindblad4419 Just because something has been a certain way in the past, doesn't mean it's a good idea to keep doing it. But a lot of fromsoft fans, like you, vehemently defend them whenever they make bad decisions like this, which imo is the main cause that they keep doing the same mistakes. And having important mechanics completely undocumented just because they were in their (and afaik nobody else's) previous games (no idea if they were documented there) is no excuse whatsoever. As for an alternative: Wheel selection, like Horizon for example. You can even keep the short press to simply select the next spell as is. If you weren't supposed to skip enemies, then there is absolutely not point in having Torrent in the game at all, and the map would be way too big. In addition: Enemies still aggro you even if they are way below your level, when there is no point in fighting them. And i said you can't see what stats do in character creation, not while leveling up. I already wrote that they patched in the camera reset thing, but that it came too late for me.
@@James-vw4jz yes, he is one of my favorites amongst content creators, who deliver extensive reviews, retrospectives or video essays. Some people speak too fast, or have an eccentric intonation in voice, use some memish-sounds or have poor mic quality. It's also nice that he doesn't emphasize mechanics or story, but talks about all the aspects of the games (usually).
afaict the lack of indication about what is/isn't jumpable (and surprises resulting from it) is because attacks aren't coded as jumpable or not, but rather that jumping gives you specifically lower-body invincibility. Which sort of works on paper, but means there's a lot of fuzzy edges about exactly how high an attack's hitbox reaches and where you are in your jump arc.
For most attacks it is like that, but there also exists an internal flag that some attacks have that makes them fail against anyone in the air. But for some reason, that was also used very inconsistently as well. For instance, the craters from godrick's slams have this flag, but the ones from gargoyle slams do not. Even though they look the exact same, you can always jump the first but not the second.
"Bosses in Elden ring will do anime acrobatics for a whole episode including attack chains that involve them taking off into the air, landing into an attack that explodes, and then taking off again into the air, because they're still not done." LOL This describes my experience playing the game so well.
They not only made Pontiff Sulyvahn’s combos and Aldrich’s arrows look tame, but also made an attack more insane than Sephiroth’s Octaslash. Multiple times. In the same game.
Absolutely agreed and genius analogy of the boss fights in Elden Ring. I started realizing this the more I fought Elden Ring Bosses. You need to be super careful and take your time as they get aggressive in order to attack. Elden ring combat systems are still great but its still has some issues with some boss fights. Sekiro and Dark souls 3 have genius great boss fight builds and reactionary combat systems That works for each other.
I don't know how not more people encountered the copy boss before the original. that was my experience with the fallingstar beast (gravity ox thingy) and Astel. I remember thinking this fight reminds me of bloodborne dungeons and how the bosses are copied in a small room to make them more difficult and I WAS RIGHT.
just rewatched this and this entire point is even more nonsensical than when people were complaining about it originally. "the alien species has more than 1 of them.. its not special :(" as if this hasn't been in almost every game, every fromsoft game, and is a non-issue outside of the one godfrey reskin. really disappointing that most of the discussion surrounding the negative aspects of elden ring are "the bosses late game are too hard" or "i want this game to feel like its the first time playing it every single time" and never lead anywhere. its pretty hilarious, i imagine if they just removed the boss HP bar that they made standard for any "special" encounter, no one would care. astel and fallingstar beast are the same creature at different points in evolution. the rest of the repeated bosses are the same as any repeated boss in a game that is an "area" encounter like the cat golems or the erdtree avatars. i miss when reviews were tailored towards the overall "experience" rather than this odd approach of pointing out every single thing that isnt perfectly designed for you, then summarizing it over an hour. itd be one thing if some of these were opinions, but in the replies people have made to this video he is just straight up wrong about. the malenia waterfowl complaints, about an optional END GAME challenge boss, that is not that difficult to learn to dodge, is just so ridiculous that i cant help but laugh.
@@certainhellAlso the thing about Astel is incredibly minor that I don’t care. Sure I was confused by a random Astel clone in the snowfield, but it didn’t detract from my first experience in the Ranni quest. Would I have removed it? Probably, but it’s barely an issue.
@@certainhellthe third paragraph puts words to something I’ve been noticing also, not so much that I dislike it, it’s just that it does poison the well for discussion when this is the approach the vast majority of long form reviews take
@@certainhell How are any of the leveling critiques or boss gameplay critiques biased though? Im actively playing through the formsoft games right now in a completely random order for the first time and the sure hits are super obvious gameplay elements specifically in Elden Ring. Another issue I've only had in Elden Ring is damage scaling and leveling, for example the progression is almost entirely linear right now in DS3 and balanced, on the other hand in ER I was actively 6 shotting quite a few bosses up until the capital. I played ER in its entirety on new game+ after beating it the first time and still felt the same way but slightly more challenging obviously emphasis on slightly. In terms of reusing enemies its a problem across all mediums so I won't nitpick ER.
@@certainhell It's an hour long review, he goes very in-dept about what's good and bad. The bad thing isn't the re-used content, it's that there's SO MUCH of it. You have to fight the EXACT SAME BOSS 10 TIMES FOR BELL BARINGS?!?!?! That's just lazy as fuck. And then there's god-skins. The cats. The snake-things. The dungeons. So, fuckingl, much of this game is repeated and you'd only ever know this if you played it more than once, so hey maybe this game is perfect for you because you've never re-played it, and you should keep it that way. But fans of from-soft like to re-play their games multiple times for different experiences. And it's not the boss bar that matters. You have to fight, HAVE TO, 10 of the same god-damn boss if you want all items. That's so fucking lazy and if you support it, hey, I'm glad you're not the majority and that most people agree that this is lazy. Hopefully your brain-rot will let you enjoy every game out, to which I am very jealous.
I had this exact problem when replaying Elden Ring the first time. I played it shortly after beating it and found myself skipping SOOO much stuff because I knew it wasn’t worth it or I knew it wouldn’t help my build. But after about a year and a half of time between now and then, this 3rd playthrough has been very enjoyable because I’ve forgotten where most of the loot is
@@jeshuagardner9512make the landmass smaller so you don’t have to bloat your game with excessive repeated bosses that don’t give you anything. Instead of those repeated bosses in areas we didn’t need we could have had new mini bosses or new weapons and items
@@WhiteKnuckleRide512 except it does? You can't TP out until you find a grace of your own. I left the cave and wandered the swamp before finding one near Selia
@@hombreg1 You had to literally walk past a grace at the entrance of the cave in order to do that. That does sound like a really cool experience, but unfortunately not all of us have the advantage of visual impairment.
@@WhiteKnuckleRide512 calling me blind. Nice argument. Point still stands, though. Teleporter traps do "trap" you in the area. What's more, they rely on "you" to figure out you can and should escape, as the myriad of "how to escape selia crystal tunnel" articles would suggest. This makes the idea even more interesting, as having grace points relatively close by teases you with exploration. You also fail to address the fact that you can't teleport until you rest, which is something the game doesn't tell you. So, if you avoid taking too much damage whilst escaping the cave, and only activate the point of grace, you could even respawn inside Caelid whilst being still unable to escape, meeting your definition of "trapped".
It's like the artists made these beautiful bosses with amazing effects and badass combos. But the devs forgot there's supposed to be a player on the other side.
I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I read somewhere that because both Sekiro and Elden Ring were largely in development at the same time, they didn't have enough time to implement a lot of the lessons they learned from Sekiro. Which might be why the combat feels all over the place.
That wouldn't make sense sekiro was released in 2019 and elden ring 3 whole years after that with sekiro having some development time itself there would have been a lot of time to implement those changes. I believe elden ring entered development in 2019 as dark souls 3 was also released 3 years before sekiro and sekiro does use the most original assets
Elden Ring takes a lot from Sekiro. It’s slight but you can see it. Also the combat is not “all over the place.” It’s way more concise then DS3 for example.
It feels like you spend 95% of the battle dodging and 5% attacking with some of these bosses. In the souls games it was more like 50/50. I.e it felt like an actual fight and not a fucking dodging simulator.
@@JL-lu1ul That was my problem with most of the bosses, some attacks are physically impossible to dodge unless you position yourself perfectly or you run away to position yourself (Malenias waterflow attack, Radagons attacks), also the passiveness of some bossed like elden beast took away from the experience, I spent 80% of the time chasing after the boss rather than fighting it
@@JL-lu1ul Elden beast would’ve been cooler if it was a humanoid enemy with the same attacks, most large bosses you can’t even see the attack they’re throwing at you when you only see 10% of their body up close
@@simplyzed8966 There shouldn’t have been an Elden Beast. After defeating Radagon, Marika should have taken over and shown us why she was the ruling goddess. Very disappointed I had to instead fight a cowardly cosmic Nessie.
The memory stones could have been made valuable to martial characters by changing how Ashes of War were equipped. Rather than having them directly tied to a weapon, you could have them equipped like how spells are. Thus memory stones would allow martial characters to have more than one Ash equipped, and would help them keep pace with the versatility of caster characters.
@@RennyblueI played pure magic build and I had lots of unused slots because I figured out that cycling between too many spells is actually a detriment. I was using Magic Glintblade, Comet, Big Sword Phalanx (forgot name) and Carian Slicer. It literally covered all bases and all other memory slots were mostly useless. Sometimes I used some other spells ociasionally but this setup solved 90% of game
The more chests I opened without a mimic encounter, the more I was convinced the next chest would have one. It also didn't help that the game has several unique assets for 'generic treasure chest' which seem to be interchangeable and serve no purpose other than to make you suspicious, similar to how the level design in dungeons will often include a small cubby with no items that seems tailor made for an invisible wall that doesn't exist.
I realized that we basically had Sekiro bosses but we were limited to a Souls style moveset when I saw a meme on the subreddit that asked "Who would win: Wolf or Malenia". I thought about it for a sec and came to the fairly obvious conclusion that it would be Wolf simply because he could just deflect and contact poison himself to victory... Somebody seems to have misunderstood that the design of the bosses needs to fit with what we're capable of as the player.
Her flowing dance move basically makes her Genichiro on steroids. Lore wise I'd also say that it's unfitting for the central theme of the game being about us rising to the challenge of becoming Elden Lord but with no gameplay means to square up to these demigods in a show of determination and skill. Spectacle wise Godfrey/Hoarah Loux is my favourite boss fight but the fact that I spend most of the second phase running away from him makes his congratulation of my victory in the end ring hollow. If Wolf had defeated him with his combat capabilities it would've been much more fitting.
I know this is a year old but I still have one point. I agree with almost everything you say, besides that. When you started using magic and summons in your 2nd playthrough, you started to wonder if this is the intended experience and everything else is just an artificial challenge you impose to yourself such as a fist only run. And I think, the way you described to play your first run through these games is kind of that. If you damage the enemy, you must be exposed to the risk of taking damage yourself and so on. Which pretty much boils down to a meelee only run. And with the amount of tools you have at your disposal (while still ignoring summons and cheesy magic strats) limiting yourself to only melee is making things harder than they actually are. And what I mean is that I think the game WANTS you to go hybrid in some way towards the end of the game. Not full on glass cannon that never gets near the enemy. But giving you more options against what this game throws at you. You start to reach soft caps and weapon upgrades and the last part of the game has that difficulty spike, that even through spending more points into whatever you've been putting them all along doesn't make you that much stronger against what you're facing. You don't need to abandon a melee focussed action/reaction heavy playstyle to incorporate some options into your build. You said it yourself that some bosses practically ask for you to use spells from afar. And yes it does get boring when that is the only thing you do. But there is so much else that you can be doing while still trying to do melee as much as possible. Figuring out what status a boss might be weak to and using consumables to inflict that status to aid you in your melee fight. This would admittedly be better if the game made it easier to upgrade a lot of different weapons or refund the upgrades you invested into one, so you can experiment more with different weapons, or have one for each element/status. Still I think there is a lot you can incorporate into a melee focussed build such as items or ocassional use of spells or ranged weapons for situations that almost require it.
This would explain why my favorite boss fight would be Godfrey, he felt like a Ds3 boss and had the simple and easy to punish movement to boot. (Edit: this comment now irrelevant after patch)
The problem with bosses in this game is that they do too much; at one point, fighting radhan without a proper build, I asked myself "Cool, but when do i play?" The bosses just continue to do random bullshit and it feels they misunderstood their own design; but the seeds of this are to be seen in the ds3 last dlc with gael and midir; gigantic Damage Health Bullshit hitboxes Never ending comboes
Yep felt bosses in this game were too aggressive, I could be aggressive as I want in ds3 but in this game I could only hit one time with a strength weapon and a few times with a katana. Let me remind you that these bosses have quite a lot of health which makes the fight unnecessarily longer.
@@fabioviti7384 with Gael it was fine, because it was 3 attacks poke, 3 attacks poke. But Margit the fell, has a 5 or 6 hit combo, he's already worse than Gael or SoC and he's the first boss in the game.
@@kriegscommissarmccraw4205 and, if a krieg commissaria says something is too hard it's a problem; when maliketh is harder to kill than a chaos space marine we have problems
@Violaphobia its sucks sometimes, good game but it does have artificial difficulty, which I dislike so much. This is coming from someone who enjoyed DS2 and has played every souls game with multiple builds and on ng+ multiple times while still keeping the 150 meta for pvp. Only soul game I haven't touched is sekiro, but I feel like BB is the pinnacle of fromsofts creation. The game is fun, in fact it's really great. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have issues dawg.
I would have much preferred if Elden Beast was tied to a secret ending, much like Moon Presence in Bloodborne. That way players can be rewarded for exploring and getting a final surprise as they end their game. As well as making Radagon a proper final boss, because as much as I agreed with your problems with him, I think that he's still a really good boss to end the game on.
Seriously, like Gwyn wasn't this crazy over the top anime fight, it was just a husk of a man who you were putting out of his misery. He was about the same level of intense as Radagon. Imagine if you beat Gwyn and then a gigantic fire demon climbed out of the Flame and it was this whole ridiculous 10 minute extra thing
Like it feels so close to the relationship between the hollow knight and the radiance but this time the radiance is mandatory and you don't have to do anything special to unlock her
@@Hugsloth Well, Dark soul 1 also was way, way less obsessed with Difficulty for the sake of Difficulty. True King Alant and Gwyn where ment to show a theme, once grand and powerful beings having broken down to shells that you put out of their misery. But now, all the big bosses need to be super cinematic, multiphase superbosses. Making the individual bosses way less unique.
@@plinfan6541 it’s that dark souls 3 boss design taken to its extreme. Too much extravagant anime nonsense. Just give me a good one on one. That’s why everyone loved Champion Gundyr; it was just you, and this big man with his big bardiche. No surprise phase 2 pus demons, no Elden Beast climbing out of nowhere, no 3 phase boss reviving after death
I'd be surprised if it isn't revealed some day that Malenia's moveset was originally designed for a Sekiro DLC boss (maybe Tomoe?): --- She wields a katana, moves around insanely quick, almost exclusively has sword-based moves (like most human Sekiro bosses), and has visually stunning attacks that straight up would be fun to deflect in Sekiro and would complement that game's mechanics (as mentioned in the video) --- Her healing from blocking makes way more sense in Sekiro, as it would be a way to punish bad deflection timing, making her an ultimate challenge that requires complete mastery of deflection --- A lot of people have pointed out how she mirrors Wolf in many ways, wielding a katana, having a form of rot, having a prosthetic arm, and even being able to resurrect once (!!!). Malenias die twice, indeed --- There is dialogue in Sekiro implying that Tomoe is in some way connected to a dragonrot outbreak, further connecting her to Malenia in my tinfoil hat world as a mirror version of Wolf --- Not unique to Sekiro, but she does have all the attack types that define the combat of that game, including: sweeps that could be jump countered, stabs that could be mikiri countered, and of course a brutal grab that'll mess your day up. The second phase attack where those ghostly beings attack you, would be fun to learn to deflect before mikiri countering Malenias follow-up stab Data mining has revealed that the version of waterfowl we got in the final game was likely one of the last moves made for the fight. Before that, it appears she had a different version where she danced on the ground and covered much less distance. It appears they went out of their way to make waterfowl the most oppressive, unfun attack in the entire series. Boggles the mind. On the topic of Elden Beast, Joseph definitely nailed it. Why can we not ride Torrent? It not only makes sense from a gameplay perspective, but also from a thematic one. Here we are, at the final challenge, conquering it together with our steed who has been at our side all along (insert Ludwig neighs). We were able to take on Radagon alone, but to defeat the ultimate being in the lands between, we need our trusty companion, almost as if both Melina and Ranni knew we would have no chance of becoming Elden Lord without Torrent. And of course, almost all of Elden Beast's moves seem to be designed around horse combat, including: --- Tracking projectiles that can be outrun on horseback (fear the orb) --- Sweeping attacks and long range sweeping beams that can be jumped over --- The holy elden rings that you're meant to jump over, but can't dodge through (as if the attack was designed for a horse that can't dodge) --- Large AoEs that could be fun to ride away from on horseback --- The boss moving around a huge arena, meaning you have to chase after it on horseback, as you've done countless times against the game's dragons Truly only leaves two explanations. 1: As proposed in the video, Daenerys -- er, I mean, the devs kinda forgot about Torrent. 2: At one point in development they tested the fight without Torrent and thought the added (albeit unfun) challenge enhanced the fight and scrapped the idea of using Torrent, even though the boss was designed around this. Hopefully it's option 1, as 2 makes my blood boil.
@@RedgraveGilver No she probably wouldn't fight like that. Tomoe was all lightning and fighting like she is actually dancing, this is indicated by how the Okami warriors fight in the fountainhead palace. Waterfowl Dance is just straight up copy of Isshin Ashina's one mind except her spinny bullshit covers the entire arena and lasts 10 times longer.
@@arhamsaa Well, like OP said, data miners found that the old Waterfowl Dance was a lot more like dancing. Here's the vid showing it off: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xywpJ26hS70.html
19:44 There's actually 5 ways up there that I know about. Aside from the 3 you listed. If you beat Radahn and then go to face Fia's Champions in the Deeproot, you can use the teleporter there to go to Leyndell. Additionally, if you use the teleportation chest to go to the Divine Bridge in Leyndell and either use the Taunter's Tongue or summon a buddy, you can actually use an invader to raise the elevator for you, giving you really early access to the capital. My friend did this on his first playthrough, so he actually beat Morgott without ever acquiring a single great rune. 1:37:22 As a shield-user, I cannot describe how awful that felt. The fight didn't feel like a test of skill, so much as a test of endurance. It was pretty rough. At least using shields stops her water fowl move from killing you (unless the attack glitches through the shield, which happens sometimes).
I feel so validated that someone else is actually criticizing the "boss does 15 moves while I roll-dodge over and over and once they're done I have no stamina to attack". It was the most infuriating on Maliketh because after his insane Devil May Cry Bitchin' 10x in-air combo, he lands 50 feet away and is back to attacking by the time you reach him. So many late-game bosses just made me ask "is it my turn yet?"
Devil May Cry "Bitchin" 10x was freaking hilarious! I deadass laughed out loud. And I feel your pain. i said screw it and used my +10 mimic in phase 2 for that nonsense. Eff that. 😆🤣
This is literally a problem that does not exist. You are making it up lmao. Maliketh has 0 health and massive windows in 2nd phase, especially when he does the standing swipe-overhead combo, where you can literally walk under him and attack for free because the 2nd attack will always miss. He's also a boss that rewards positioning, like with the explosions that he triggers. If you position behind him, he'll jump there after the explosion, giving you a massive window for some hits. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that boss, he's a glass cannon.
im sure someone's said it already, but i xant find it in the 17k comments, so i'll just say here - getting a flask back from killing an enemy is never "random." there is a tutorial popup (as intrusive and poorly integrated as they are) that tells you you get flask(s) back for clearing designated enemy groups and camps, based on the size of the camp.
I saw that tutorial too, but it does feel pretty random while playing. Sometimes like 3 or even 1 enemy alone will refill your flask, and other times you'll kill like 40 enemies or clear out an entire area with no flask refills
He meant that in regards to Dark Souls 3 which is why he shows footage of that game there. In a different section, he explains that he knows how it works in Elden Ring. This was to setup how the healing system works mostly in Legacy Dungeons as the healing is different in the open world.
Joseph has said "Head On" so many times now with such strong inflection that I am starting to think that he's gaslighting me into having the ad stuck in my head again. You know the one.
The spear example from Sekiro of an untelegraphed attack out of phase that's a random chance at least works because you have to do something specific to trigger it. I always saw this as a "you cannot jump into spearmen" mechanic. It would be like if dragons always counter-bit you if you jumped into them in elden ring: that's something you can design in that way that feels good and makes sense because it's learnable and doesn't dominate a fight
But he doesn’t do it every time and can do it in response to a sweep which you have to jump over. The only options in that scenario are to assume the attack is coming and deflect (not as bad as it would be in elden ring since the deflect window is so large) or dodge backwards to disengage entirely. Having a move define a fight to discourage something is fine, but having a move require two opposed responses from the player isn’t good design. It’s just not as bad as it could be since you can block midair in sekiro.
I have watched this video many times. Only tonight did I notice the freeze frame of Malenia's blade clearly missing you as she kills you. Bravo, Joseph. I miss you. Please upload that lost Sekiro video someday.
Indeed, as someone who plays mostly Greatswords and Colossal Weapons, I felt like the game was just punishing me for choosing the wrong weapons. Though mimic tear on NG+ with power stanced Colossal Weapons is very cathartic lmao.
In Dark Souls 3, I can no-hit Champion Gundyr and Pontiff (which I think are the 2 most aggressive bosses of that game) with any greatsword and rolls only. Almost every of their attacks can be punished easily after you know all of them. In Elden Ring however, even with straight sword, I still don't know how to manage doing that consistently with fucking Margit. Yes, I have seen a lot of video about people no-hit him at SL1 naked with a stick, but I know for the fact that they only can attack him when he does some specific certain attack or they just use parry. The only time I think I can hit him safely is when he raises his hand and does a long wind-up attack, go behind him and smack, and then wait to see if he whips his tail to roll. "Just use spirit ash and summons lol". I guess my first playthrough of Elden Ring is exactly like Joseph describes at 48:27. I know I can use them, but why? To me, they make every boss attacks become "punishable attacks", which kinda cheats the boss to me.
@@clixx13 If you've played previous souls games you really shouldn't have TOO hard a time with Margit specifically. I do think that there are problems with the design late game but Margit specifically is fine.
Your videos always have very valid critiques of things that don’t really proportionately ruin the same experience for me but I still love how these still manage to bring me down to earth
@@TheHeavensPride I think he means that Joseph isn't to be taken 100% at his word for his critiques because often times he overlooks many important pieces of information in order to push his perspective, even if it comes at the cost of later making him look disingenuous or in some cases even downright arrogant/pretentious. Like when he insulted his audience on twitter for finding Horror games to be scary.
@@fancypantsy2741 I don't know about that twitter story, since I don't follow social media all that much. But yeah, he has his opinion, but that's just like his own opinion, if you ask me. I like his videos in a "On paper this is true, however now I'm gonna draw my own conclusions" kinda way. For example his Mario Odyssey video. I can understand his critique on moons. Heck, I felt the same when I first started watching a friend play the game. But after playing it myself, I came to the conclusion, that it didn't break my gameplay flow as much as it did for him. In the end, it was just different perspectives. And in that sense I value his videos as they present a strong opinion, that I can use to formulate my own.
Dang, lotta comments didn't have fun, not sure what everyone wanted from the game but I got EVERYTHING and more, game had issues but they were overshadowed massively by the good feels. The games open world, can't explore it every single time or you will get burnt out, but thats an open world issue, not an elden ring issue imo.
Elden ring biggest problem is that it is poorly communicating the stance system. So much of these problems would be resolved if you could constantly see the stance bar filling up, as that would convey the much-needed moment of reprieve from the spastic boss patterns, and encourage a more aggressive, fun playstyle. The moment you bring bone daggers to every boss fight to prevent stance from recovering, is the moment everything clicks in place. I do not understand how they conveyed this perfectly in sekiro and bloodborne but drop the ball here.
@Kill Bill You can't play a game wrong, if you can't enjoy an rpg with the playstyle you want and actually in the game the best thing to do is just not support the franchise anymore. Great to see this meta cuck mentallity ruin another once amazing franchise.
@Kill Bill He said that line specifically when talking about combat. You can't make the bosses fun for him, as he cannot fight them the way he likes it
@Kill Bill learn how to read that's literally not what they're saying. When you're as good as you can be and the game still isn't fun because it's made in a specific way then it's not a skill issue.
that sounds right at first glance, but it doesnt make that much sense, does that mean that if you dont have fun with a game the game is bad? no, games are a combination of freedom and challenge, part of the fun comes from adapting to the games rules and then mastering them. Joseph basically learned how to play the other dark souls games and expected the same strats to work, so when they didnt he just deemed the game unfun
the game is designed around experimenting around a ton of weapon, skill and spell options. that’s why respecting is so easy, and things like talismans often don’t even need crazy stat investments in faith to use. him refusing to engage with any of these options then claiming that the rewards are useless is kind of frustrating. tho i do kind of like his cosmetics idea and it sound like the stat upgrade approach will be used partially in the dlc
@@beagle626 if respecting was easy and encouraged then they‘d allow infinite respecs instead of limiting them to 20 per playthrough. it‘s still better than DS3‘s 5 respecs, but a far cry from DS2‘s infinite respecs via bonfire ascetics.
@@beagle626 There are so many possible builds in the game, things to tinker with and have fun, but no you want limits cus "we used to not have it at all, you don‘t need it" you don‘t need have every damage type available in every stat and school of magic, yet from still pushed it in, what‘s the point in limiting respecs if every built has an answer for every weakness? That‘s like saying you don‘t need infinite smithing stones to be purchasable, "one +25 weapon is enough".
Bruh, that chalice dungeon vs Elden Ring dungeons is insane and wrong. Chalice dungeons are so much more repetitive and boring than Elden Ring dungeons. Absolutely Elden Ring dungeons aren’t perfect but I would take them a million times before going back to chalice dungeons.
I cannot express enough how much I love the idea of one of the caravans being a surprise mimic boss fight and how disappointed I am it's not a thing the moment I heard Joe suggest it.
@@Killroy007 Yeah but the chest coming alive and attacking you after you spent some flasks on one of the caravan trolls and a few of the patrolling soldiers would have definitely been a memorable moment. The thing with the Night's Cavalry bosses patrolling with the caravan at night is that you can see them waaay ahead of time, so it gives you time to plan and prepare. The mimic coming alive with no warning after we spent the whole game not encountering a single mimic would definitely bring back those Sen's Fortress flashbacks.
@@SirGrimLockSmithVIII Just an addendum (you might even already know this). You don't need to kill the trolls, or even fight them at all. If you hit a troll, they'll counterattack, but sit still for a good while, where you can just pop in the back and steal their stuff. In fact, you can even jump up while the carriage is moving and steal the thing! Also, it happened to me multiple times where I'd see the trolls, but their entourage was super far back, so it was a free steal, sadly. Still such a good idea, but the implementation - especially adding a mimic carriage *UNIQUE* boss would be amazing.
@@candy-ass4915 Hell yes that's exactly what I meant. A unique boss fight mimic caravan as a surprise would've been a spectacularly memorable moment that would've been a fan favourite, especially if it was a good boss fight.
I think the issue with the bs movesets from the bosses always lead to me barely ever leaving a bossfight feeling accomplished. In the back of my mind I always had the feeling that I only won that fight because I got lucky and didnt get too many unfair moves thrown at me.
agreed in many cases, but there is still a decent number of bosses that were solid and, too me at least, they did evoke that familiar feeling from previous games - for example, Godrick, Mohg, Godfrey/Hoarah Loux, Fallingstar Beast (if you stumbled upon that fight at the "correct" level), maybe Morgott if he had more hp from these examples, it seems like they haven't forgotten how to make good bosses, but rather run out of time/resources and decided to slap on something like this for the endgame
I spent the better portion of a day on the final boss because the first phase has an aoe spam that he just would not let up with. The final final boss was cake mostly but id be depleted of my resources from the first phase... My 10 year old son gets to the final boss, first phase never even once drops the aoe attack on him and second phase stays relatively in the same spot so he beat the final bosses in one try. I felt so cheated lol.
@@ThelaziaCafe I never get the fuss about Radagon’s ‘aoe spam’. Dodging into and behind him negates 90% of those and leave you prepared for the remaining 10%.
I'd heavily disagree on that, because the moves rarely ever felt bs. The only bs boss move that's in the game, in my opinion, is malenia's waterfowl, but beyond that every other move is telegraphed and recognizable. Even Margitt telegraphs all his attacks pretty well.
@@jakubpuawski3875 I’d say that Crucible Knight is a better example of a solid boss/mini-boss then Fallingstar Beast. He’s a nice evolution of the Black Knight archetype
This game is the best, longest, most diverse, hardest game from software has ever made. It is also the worst, shortest, most repetitive and easiest game they have made
1:14:40 Fun Fact: When you attack and they don't stagger, you are still doing stagger damage. The enemy's hyper armor just eats the stagger, and it resets to zero! So that you can get f****d!
Lmao. Pretty sure that's true for Malenia... but false for the other hundreds of enemies. The Caelid rune bear was about to bite me and I broke his poise in the middle of his animation. Edit: there's also Mohg's special attack, but he's too cool for me to remember that.
This is only partially true, and only for Malenia. Malenia is the only enemy in the game who can't be stance broken during her hyper armor frames. But they don't reset the counter.
Just a note on 19:40: there's actually a fourth way to reach the plateau, I think I've seen a few speedrunners use it but beyond that it's extremely obscure. If you get to the Erdtree roots via Nokron, beat Fia's Champions you can then take the teleporter straight into the capital proper. I loved this sort of thing about the original Dark Souls and it's great that it's back. EDIT: There's a FIFTH way. If you take the tower trap teleporter to the capital, usually there's no way down as the elevator is locked. Thing is, it turns out that an invader *can* activate the elevator for you. Requires either luck or a friend. Probably unintentional, but it makes use of regular game mechanics rather than any glitch so I'd call it valid.
@@pinou1894 you can also begin the festival by doing Ranni's questline, after talking to Blaidd in Siofra then speaking to Selivus and Sellen the festival is triggered
Playing Elden RIng makes me second guess the immense enjoyment I felt when playing Dark Souls 1 and 3. Those games' bosses definitely challenged me, yet I don't remember having to earn a degree in their combos just to land a single hit like in Elden Ring.
@@arynasabalenka3173 my favourite fight in the entire series is the fume Knight in ds2. He was tough to learn but I still beat him in less than 10 tries. He is imo the toughest fight in DS2 (other than the cancer that is Lud and Zallen and maybe Ancient Dragon but this fights suck so whatever) and yet he feels like a breezy walk in the park compared to some of the late game bosses in Elden Ring. Finally beating him I felt a rush I've rarely felt in my life and yet finally beating maliketh and fire giant all I felt was a rush of relief like "holy Jesus thank Christ I don't have to do this again!"
What you say about the player needing new counters, i think, is why Bloodborne is so timeless. Fromsoft effectively built a new system with their old one as a template and not only made it unique but also outdid any other competitor who tried to do similarly.
It seems really natural, it's weird he's not there. Someone I talked to mentioned there should be a spiritspring activating when he leaps into the air, so you could fly up there and smack him down, and I agree 'cause that would be super hype
I literally never even tried to use it. Because I assumed I couldn't because I'm in a zone that previously I was not able to use it. I didn't even think I need it either.
Yeah, so far that's the thing I'm hating. Waiting for my turn to get a single hit it, otherwise I get knocked down. I can deal with one Margit and have fun, find it again later on I just get annoyed.
I watched some Bloodborne, yknow the really aggressive fast game, and it’s like watching pudding roll down a slope compared to the speed of Elden Ring bosses
I appreciate the depth and length of this video and your analysis. But what I really want to point out is how slick that Shania Twain reference was. Impressive indeed.
Hey Joseph. Big fan of your videos, because of how technical and in-depth they are. Due to that, I want to recommend you try out Rain World at some point. I'll admit I'm biased because I love it so much and just want to see a really cool video on it, but beyond that it is an utterly fascinating and unique game in terms of its design. It is the only game I've ever played that breaks its own rules in an interesting and somewhat positive way (in my experience) so would love to see you take a crack at it, if you ever have the time! Definitely think you are one of the few youtubers who could dig past the initial layers and discover what really sets it apart.
@@couchwilly5575 I mean, that's probably not such a bad thing. With Godfrey and radagon coming right before him, I would have been ok with elden beast being a spectacle fight vs what we ended up getting, but yea you're probably right it had to have been a last minute decision.
I agree. I think the combination of Radagon / Elden Beast as a final boss fight on horseback is very reminiscent of Ganondorf/ Beast Ganon in Zelda BotW. As FS took inspiration from BotW anyway these similarities don't seem arbitrary to me.
@@spinningchurro Yup. But only during co-op. I think people were saying it's a latency glitch where Malenia would heal if she hits summons in the host's world, even if the summons dodged it on their screen. So it ends up looking like she's healing from hitting the air.
Just put Seath's immortality crystal in her room and make it immune to everything except moonveil, NaF sword, Rivers of blood, bloodhound stepping through it and ash summons. Fits perfectly with the design philosophy of that fight.
Finally!!! I gave up on new content from J.Anderson, then I randomly check his channel and find out I'm late. He's now officially the George R.R.Martin of youtube games reviewers 😅
My biggest complaint is that yet again Fromsoft release a poor PC port, I also find it amusing that they added ray tracing but no upscaling meaning no one can use it. They really need to stop being lazy with the PC ports shits getting old now, I shouldn't have to download widescreen fixes, fps unlockers and others alike.
I agree with the movesets of the bosses being excessive. They aren't unconquerable, they aren't even totally difficult to dodge or outright avoid, but they are absolutely excessive. Their windups are unclear at best, downright impossible to read at worse, and they often inflict unavoidable damage to you despite your best efforts in rolling and reading their acts. A perfect analogy I have for this is that boss fights are more like a mugging then a proper duel in Elden Ring. Either the boss is mugging you, or you're mugging the boss.
I feel like, part of my issue was how little room it left me to operate. If I wanted to I could dodge all of their attacks, but what's the use in that if I'm not allowed to hit back once they're done? In the other games this would have been incredibly rewarding, in ER I feel forced to bargain for hits every time I play, which is not a good way to design bosses. The only way to be guaranteed attack windows is by summoning ashes or players in your aid, which is... stupid beyond belief.
@@Solaire_of_Astora13 then there's the new players that defend the shitty boss design by saying "well it was designed with summons in mind so just use that 🤓". As if being forced to use certain items or gang up on bosses that aren't equipped to deal with multiple adversaries is good boss design lol
The observation about the "natural" world being built on ruins struck me too. Mostly because by the endgame I had noticed that almost all the lifts in the game are rising pillars instead of platforms. This is unusual among from soft games. The column lifts in cylindrical shafts gave me the distinct impression of machine pistons rising from deeper machinery.
@@Farengast I will be.. But “almost all the lifts in the game” is a pretty big exaggeration, I ain’t seen one yet and been about quite a bit in every area up to and including Lyndell.. Countless lifts, all platforms
Hey I know this is an oldish video but I just thought of an idea to make dodging attacks work towards beating the boss. Since FromSoft’s boss design in the later parts of Elden Ring gives you just about enough wiggle room to squeeze only one attack in, why not make that attack count? Perhaps every successful, consecutive dodge roll charges up your next attack to make it more powerful. I feel like it would make the more restrictive design of these bosses a bit more justified if you could put the equivalent of multiple attacks into just one. Of course, this has the potential to be very overpowered, but that’s for the game designers to figure out. Make it so you have to act quickly before the charge runs out. Maybe the “dodge-roll-charged” attack takes up more stamina than a normal one. There are ways to make this a balanced mechanic, I know it! It doesn’t solve everything, but I think it would be a welcome expansion of the player’s move-set that could possibly help alleviate the more bull-sh***y bosses without fully copying Sekiro. What do you guys think?
I didn't finished it yet but just finished the video. If you don't care about seeing the main bosses, I don't think there's something here to be spoiled. Still, good luck beating the game, don't give up!
@@reggieisnotadog4841 It's more than that, you need to be in a specific range, because she's faster than you, also near the end she does a dash catching everyone that tried to keep distance. This still might not be a lot, but I feel like this is more than any other attack in the game.
One more comment I'd add is how frustrating uneven terrain is on many of these bosses. For instance, when you're fighting a dragon, even a slight slope, all of a sudden you can't hit his face. God forbid the boss also has big rocks they can roll on (fire giant).
they shouldve really lowered the dragons heads of centre of gravity or what have you. dragons are the only real gripe i have with this. easily the best game they made by far.
Sometimes slopes also interrupt boss move-sets. So if an enemy is finishing a 10-minute long combo and steps off a lip they'll enter an extremely short falling animation that pretty much makes them skip the recuperating animation and will allow them to transition into another chain. Effectively taking away your window
With bosses now able to read your button inputs, I think that a good addition would be a feinting mechanic that allows you to press down a button before either doing a swing or taking a swig in order to bait out a combo extension that can then ALWAYS be punished.
@@kinin4400Bosses can and do absolutely input read. And they can and do that since Dark Souls 1. It's just that in the previous games it didn't happen that often. In Elden Ring there are bosses that do it regularly and since you fight the same boss countless times, it is just way more noticable.
@@1Aldreth margit and the godskin duo do input read u chugging a flask, but literally every other boss and decision the boss makes is based on ur positioning from the boss if ur close range the boss does a close range attack if ur far away the boss does a long range attack thats not input reading
Glad some one noticed the extremely odd feeling of the combat of this game. Some times I'm blown away by how the hit boxes are so spot on, but have been killed many a times through walls or other "solid" objects because the enemies weapon is just so large it clips thru every thing. The game needs to make it that all weapons, enemies, abilities and magic respect the rules that the player is forced to. Nothing more jarring when an enemy is pushed by a cliff but some how just hover on the ledge so they don't fall. Also fuck crucible knights
The player can also hit enemies through walls. Not sure what you're on about here. And so can the player hover on the ledge. Hitbox will probably be smaller but still present to permit that to happen in such cases. Especially with some animation.
@@Alienoiable I literally did say it was a bad excuse so. Also you're right, the same flaw can extend to players. It's stupid when my thrust animated as getting blocked on a wall but the damage goes through anyway.
Elden ring's later bosses kind of make me sad because many of them were so close to being great. Malenia would be phenomenal if Waterfowl Dance were changed or removed, as well as perhaps the removal of lifesteal. Godfrey was one of my favorite bosses but Hoarah Loux needs to act more like a living creature and not like a machine testing your ability to count seconds for dodging. In fact, that applies to most bosses, they don't act like a living thing. When a boss takes a while to heft up a massive hammer before striking, that's fine, but it's not fine when three seconds later they swing it around like it weighs nothing. The AOEs on attacks are also ridiculous, I love when a guy hits the ground near me and I spontaneously keel over dead. Overall, I want to like Elden ring, but it has too many flaws in its combat for me to really enjoy it a lot.
it's rare for people to bring up that second point: many bosses are frankly, poorly animated. margit, the leonine misbegotten and the omen all have at least 2 jumping attacks each, but they all fall down at different speeds! some of them even float in place for a moment, then suddenly slam down like a tetris piece. inconsistencies like these made the learning process very frustrating: visual cues are all we have to go on, after all. I don't wanna know what the animation curves look like in this game, lol. probably like an electrocardiogram.
Whatever makes the game fun for you is valid. I'm not disputing that. However, it feels like this game in particular was designed with hybrid builds in mind. I got the most enjoyment out of the game with a melee option and a ranged option so that I can weave in and out and do range attacks when the boss is doing those long anime combos weaving in damage while I'm dodging and melee attacks during more tame melee versus melee segments. It feels fluid and intentional on the developers and also because many of the incantations you have to work with are melee ranged aoe combo finishers. That can be chained into melee attacks
I was actually thinking about this today! Making builds for the DLC. It was during the Morgott fight. I was doing pure melee. And I realized how perfect it would be to have a handful of spells for when he leaps away or does an attack that forces mw to retreat. Great observation. Id like to see a souls-like where ranged/mage and melee attacks arent antithetical to each other but interwoven
Elden Ring Bosses felt like their 'vulnerable' animations and 'attacking' animations were completely separate. And random. if i were unlucky, i would get attacking animation after animation without any vulnerable state. With some trys being almost a cakewalk while others felt insanely relentless.
From my experience bosses kinda of lack these long windows after combos (like DS3 has it) because the combat itself ISN'T like DS3 combat. Elden Ring has a literal fuckton of boss attacks and animations that will punish players for being too passive, but reward them for being daring and rolling/moving towards the bosses, and most of those actions will give opportunities for dealing damage. If a boss doesn't seem to have a "downtime" after a combo, then the combo itself is flawed and an opportunity for you do deal damage. Is that immediately obvious? No. I also got quite frustrated with some bosses my first time around. But after defeating bosses like radagon and elden beast like 50+ times i genuinely got to appreciate them more, since it just took some time to actually understand their fights.
The thing that gets me are how attack anims are structured In every game, once you start swinging, you're swinging. But enemies will literally step over themselves and hold that initial pose for weirdly long, turning what should be reactionary in to a question of explicit knowledge, and it's MADDENING Like, fuck me I guess, I assumed a swing was, a swing, and not falling with style, so I deserve to get punished for that
Yeah the attack pattern RNG is so bad that it feels like the difference is as big as fighting O&S with sorcery vs fighting them with just a whip and no shield. You can walk through the same fog gate 10 times and get 5 Midirs, 3 Friedes, 1 Capra Demon, and 1 Covetous Demon. Which boss you get is just a dice roll when you walk through.
@@axelnova123 The boss patterns are perfectly fine, you just gotta stop approaching it as Dark Souls 4. Start being more aggressive, roll into attacks and utilise the jump more (not to just do jump r2 attacks but as a tool to avoid attacks) and don't roll preemptively, instead waiting with the roll until the attack actually is being signalled by the boss and suddenly the combat feels a lot more smoother and actually works better. Especially the last couple bosses have moves that actively punish players for rolling away and being too passive and as soon as you try to stick to them more and start being less passive they'll have a lot more openings. Malenia and Margit both have moves that are far more punishing if the player is further away with followup attacks. Radagon has a bunch of roll catches that wouldn't leave a big window of opportunity if approached passively/defensivly, but if you roll into them it's both far easier to avoid any followup damage and to deal damage. Malenia has the quick triple slash that acts as a roll catch but if rolled into it you can easily avoid the 3rd slash. Most of if not all of Fire giants melee attacks can be avoided by just running towards him while on torrent (fighting him on torrent makes the fight pretty simple). I can go on about boss behaviour and attacks, but yeah. Once you stop playing the game like Dark Souls 4 it becomes a lot more fluid and engaging to play.
I agree with some of this , granted I did explore "harder" areas first and made me appreciate when I could 1 or 2 hit enemies especially after beating the game
I saw a negative Steam review in another language for this game, might have been Chinese. When translated it said "It only looks like the boss is having fun", which is pretty succinct. While the boss is doing these cuhrazy badass DMC-tier combos, you're still some regular chucklefuck rolling around on the ground. All this game has made me want to do is play Devil May Cry again.
Having your L2 button be the “just borrow a boss’ combo” isn’t exactly the same as actually having the dynamic fluidity and movement that these bosses have, it looks flashy and cool but you then realise it’s just a single button for a flashy move that you have limited uses of and the rest of your kit is the usual dark souls kit which at this point in the series is both getting kinda stale and ineffective against these sekiro tier spammy enemies
@@rankestdweller4239 Not to mention you immediately get shot down by a single slap while casting/charging, while the bosses can just casually superarmor through your hits. The best example of this would be Fortissaxx's lightning spears
@@Flackon some bosses have such small attack windows that ashes of war become glorified normal attacks that don't compensate for the lack of options against them.
"Malenia, who is the Blade of Miquella, by the way..." I get the feeling I was not the only one mightily pissed of by her re-introducing herself after wiping the floor with me. Again. And again. And again. Blade. Of Miquella.
@@jjstraka1982 Oh, I have really fond memories of these teleporting freaks, too. But Malenia still takes the cake, because, unlike with her, I always felt that I could actually beat the twins without cheesing, and did so. Apart from that, the constant repetition makes the title "blade of Miquella" sound pretty pompous and cheesy.
Only having finished Elden Ring now, 10 months after your video. I just wanted to say that I appreciate your critical view. The idea of universal upgrade items isn't even new to From as there was a system like that in the original Shadow Tower which had a hybrid leveling system of upgrading by repeating actions and by spending "Soul Pods" of varying capacity which you could assign to your chosen stat/skill.
18:57 Dude the ladder discovery was arguably the thing that made me love every single souls game from software made before and after. It was literally a revelation.. I wanna wipe my memory and replay DS1 all over again.
