FINAL BOSS UPDATE: As of patch 1.14, Radahn's cross slash can now be dodged normally, the VFX in phase 2 are much clearer, and his recovery frames on some moves are a lot more generous. Is he easier? Sure. But he's also way more fun to fight. This is what he should have been at launch.
I don't really know what to say to that, because I think the damage is already done. Fuck knows that Radahn isn't the only boss I have issues with, and I'm not going back to the game just because they fixed him, if even you can call him fixed. One thing's for sure tho, FromSoft isn't getting any of my money anymore, they're going in a direction where I don't wanna play their games anymore
@@Raidon484 people like you get on my fucking nerves, this is the only game they have made which made you feel this way, why are you instantly assuming all of their future games will be like this? the game they made before elden ring was sekiro, whicu pretty much unanimously praised, and then qfter elden ring they made amored core 6 which you seen to have forgotten about or just haven't played for whatever reason. fromsoft have already said that they prefer making new experiences and new IP rather than sequels, and that they don't plan to make any more open world games in the near future. if elden ring wasn't for you, their next game could still be one that is. fromsoft also has multiple directors working on different games, miyazaki is no longer the only one leading the projects, and if that has you worried then keep in mind that sekiro and AC6 did not have very much input from miyazaki yet ended up great. basically my point is that fromsoft will continue making unique games with unique combat systems etc. the soulsborne franchise is pretty much over now with elden ring which was basically the last hurrah of the series which combined everything they have accumulated from past games and put it into a new open world environment, I'm sure fromsoft also knows that the souls style of game cannot go much further than this. TL;DR be patient and wait to see their next game before you say this.
I think I feel more positively about this DLC than you, but your critiques are valid and echo many of my own, and you give the devil his due and acknowledge the things you liked about this DLC in a fair way. Part of what keeps me from being too pessimistic about Fromsoft's future output is that they put out Armored Core 6 in between Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree. That fact is easy to forget for people like us who mostly like the Souls formula, but it is a monumental feat. I never cared about Armored Core previously, only tuning in to From's work in the era Demon's Souls kicked off. But AC6 ended up as my GOTY 2023, when I thought Baldur's Gate 3 had already settled that issue earlier in the year. This is the studio that followed up Dark Souls 2 with Bloodborne, and followed up Dark Souls 3 with Sekiro. From has creative juice to spare, and has proven they're willing to try new things, even if they've just iterated on something familiar. I really appreciate your style. This is a wonderfully level-headed video in a field crowded with sensationalism and overstatement. I'm happy to be your 2nd dozenth subscriber. In on the ground floor before that counter hits the dozens of thousands. Keep it up sir.
I loved AC6 probably should have mentioned it as another reason why I'm not overly pessimistic about the future. I hope to see more projects like AC6 for sure
It should be noted that Miyazaki said the narrative and base of Shadow of The Erdtree was already established before the DLC by him and GRRM. And I disagree with the story being the same as it always has, primarily because of the NPC’s and nature of the narrative’s unfolding. More so than the base game, character motivations, actions and the plot are much more clear on top of each character having their own divergent quest lines that eventually intersect. People don’t like the gank fight but in terms of narrative, it’s the most important moment aside from the ending. All of these characters interacting with, conversing with and going to war for different reasons. It makes the plot emergent in a way no other game prior has. You’re not just a person wandering into a conflict that’s happened, you’re in the epicenter
Maybe AC6 development is the very reason that SOTE has so many signs of lacking polish, like empty worlds, poor technical performance and unbalanced gameplay, all things that should be caught by any decent playtesting team. They either lacked proper and timely testing or the development resources to address issues before release.
See, I don't quite know whether or not to agree with the creativity thing. On one hand, areas are stunning as always, the visuals are by no means anything to scoff at. On the other hand, there are parts of the experience that make me feel like they're running out of ideas: moves or entire bosses copied from previous games with basically a new coat of paint are one thing. Then there's the constant reuse of shit. Everywhere and anywhere you go, even in the dlc they couldn't refrain from reusing bosses. Was the fallingstar beast and the 4 ulcerated tree spirits necessary or are they just padding? Romina is Quelaag adjacent enemy Nr. 573 in my opinion. But it really comes through with the final boss: first off all, Radahn again. No matter what you do, it's Radahn again. Then he's basically also Lorian and Lothric but Lorian isn't paraplegic. And the way in which you access the final cutscene reminds me strongly of Bloodborne's dlc. The swords you get as a reward are the same sword twice and it took me someone shoving me into it face first to notice the fucking difference between these swords and the base game Radahn sword. The fact that Mohg is the vessel for Radahn is honored by one move and and some horns growing out of him. And the final cutscene tells you a conclusion all the rest of the dlc's story worked like hell to make you stumble over, meaning working to find this out on your own was wasted time, except maybe the darkness in the cutscene is there so some theory crafters can speculate on the implications this has on Radahn missing a testicle (sorry, had to vent that one). The interconnectivity with the base game is nada, zilch, zero, something we had in every other game and was prime real estate in this one. The remembrance bosses feel really out of place in a way that's hard to describe... Fucking hell, Gaius' weapon is a regular smithing stone weapon! There is zero reason for that other than someone forgetting to change it after he was made a remembrance boss as padding. There is a second dancing lion. They learned fucking nothing from people's reaction to Astel and Godefroy. This doesn't scream creativity to me. The only thing really creative here seem to be the visuals. That's about it. The combat system seems to largely be the same as DS, maybe a bit further evolved but if changing the formula of a years old game the slightest counts as creativity I don't know what doesn't. Hell, I'd argue any day that the combat got worse, so what do I know. But everything else screams "running out of ideas" straight into my face with a megaphone.
The souls combat system just needs more sekiro style parrying, bloodborne style dodging and more group fights/ battle scenes. The deflecting hardtear is a step in the right direction but the visual feedback isn't as satisfying as sekiro's where you truly believe your watching an epic sword fight. The combat system going forward needs the aesthetic focus sekiro and bloodborne's combat systems had. We have to "believe" whats going on, on screen. More fights with multiple allies vs multiple enemies would be cool too.
Honestly, I kind of hate the hardtear. It turns any discussion about challenge or game/build advice into “just use this completely game changing tear” and kills it.
both sekiro parrying and bb dodging already exist in ER through a physick and weapon art. Group fight wouldnt be that great considering the npc gank fight at the end of SOTE
@@Scowleasy I don't think it does. It's simply another option that still requires skill to master to change the flow of defensive combat from Dodge/Parry/Block. It's really the midpoint of Bloodborne's Guns (safe and easy parries for high intensity, reckless aggression) and Sekiro's Deflections (the center of fast, violent, thoughtful combat).
Shadow of the erdtree was definitely an additional experiment as was the base game eldenring. The dlc was very vertical in the map layout, working out how to make future maps feel truly 3D. It reminded me of a metroid style game
I don't think it worked at all. Super Metroid is tiny compared to SotE with its giant open fields and wide corridors to pour over, and in that vastness are hidden incredibly miniscule details you can miss which are the only way to unlock entire regions of the map. One of course is the hidden wall leading down to the abyss woods. I don't think it's good to mix this kind of huge vastness with tiny details. Do I have to inspect every single rock? Look at every bit of rubble from every single angle? Do I have to walk towards every single dead end and look off every cliff? The vertical map creates kind of a fake open world where you can't really get anywhere other than the field you're currently in. And with these tiny little details like needles in haystacks, that just happen to lead to something important like a huge new area or fragments, how do the giant open areas fit and why are they necessary? They're just a bunch of emptiness and cliffs taunting you as you try to figure out how to get down there or how to find the item you need. They should have just stuck with the tight, devious dungeons they have been so good at.
I'm a big fan of this game and the DLC but I must say, the fact that all the weapons are in "categories" and there are no unique weapon animations really really REALLY bugs me
@@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERS Super Metroid is 30 years old, too, but its genre is still highly influential. I do agree this wasn't the best way to tackle it. It still feels that eldenring and SotE was one big test in figuring out how to merge a vertical labyrinth (SotE) and an open world environment (base game)for future game development. I'm curious what takeaway notes Fromsoft gathered in what was considered successful/failure and potential methods in tackling such moving forward.
@@briggy4359 So you'd rather just have less weapons because that's what will happen???? They clearly design moves/animations that make sense for each weapon type. There's only so many of those so... you just want less of each weapon type?
Comparing Fromsoftware with Bethesda is nonsensical. Bethesda's issue was not "stagnation", it's that their games lacked quality to begin with, the best Bethesda game wasn't even made by Bethesda. Fallout 4 was a massive downgrade compared to Fallout New Vegas in terms of story quality, role playing and RPG mechanics, so Bethesda games didn't just stagnate, they downgraded, because Bethesda couldn't do as good a job as Obsidian. This is not the case with Fromsoftware, they are the best at what they do, and continue to polishing the combat with each game, and all of them have their fair share of amazing bosses despite some misses, the problems you mentioned with some of the SOTE bosses are just a few of the misses (including overtuned difficulty), this is not an indication that there's no way to move forward with the combat.
Really good video dude. I'm glad you brought up the topic of exploration and navigation becoming easier over time with each iteration, and how that inevitably affects the boss design and the pressure the developers feel to live up to their reputation of difficulty, its something I feel most people tend to not think about. As someone who always appreciated the level and encounter design, story telling, atmosphere and art direction over the combat itself in these games, it saddens me to see more and more of this obsessive fixation on boss fights, both from the community and fromsoft themselves. At the expense of almost everything else this series used to do so well.
I don't think we need to worry about FromSoftware's future innovations in souls-like games. Through past titles like Bloodborne and Sekiro, they've clearly demonstrated the formulas and key elements of the genre while achieving their goals through different gaming experiences. The success of Elden Ring lies in its lack of restrictions on player experience; you could ask hundreds of people, and most would have different initial experiences. However, I believe this also highlights some weaknesses in the souls-like genre and paves the way for other studios to make significant strides in their own souls-like games. . . . In other words, let them cook!
The problem, to make it short, is that they want to make a dmc game instead of sticking to the fundamentals of souls combat. We truly do have reached the limit and instead of polishing what's there fromsoftware wants to one up themselves. They desperately need to make other type of games and give this formula a break, specially seeing how rapidly soul-likes are catching up in terms of quality
6:55 You have to dodge a billion+ times to make any build work. Thats the problem with this new design. Its not fun. Sometimes Im mid fight and just stop dodging like F it Ima vibe to this death and then lose all my souls and give 0 fux. Thats the DLC.
I think the DLC was a oice of art, especially the map, my god thr density andintricacy of the physical world is brilliant. Can i somewhat agree that the formula is (deliberate choie of words) "every so slightly approaching stale" yes i could agree with that. But we all wanted some more ER and what rhey delivered with soe was fantastic. I believe with ER and the dlc they have taken the souls model to its Nth degree. I dont think we can argue that at this point. Their formula has spawned its own genre of games for gods sake. And they may well create a game that adapts or follows the skeleton of tjeir souls formula in future that reaches the same level of brilliance as the titles we know and love. However i believe ER and soe was Froms way of saying, its been good, heres our best and biggest attempt at the formula weve used fo many times... Now were gonna look at other styles of games
I agree that with companies like Bethesda and Ubi, they stagnated after they released their respective peaks. but I feel like it also has to do with the fact that at the time, up and coming games like Dark Souls were released that shook things up and made their game design look stale in comparison. FS is in a unique position bcs I feel like no other AAA company can give Fromsoft adequate competition where they should really feel that pressured, especially in the open world genre. Some might argue Wukong as a contender but despite being really good, I don’t think that game is really that innovative in terms of showing us things we haven’t seen before, and I also don’t think that game would do quite as well if it wasn’t for its homebase Chinese audience (since most of them get firewalled from playing foreign releases). All of this to say I still don’t think From should feel complacent tho, all it takes is one amazing game to reduce them to a has-been.
I love that we had such similar takes on the DLC! I really enjoyed most bosses but found the visuals or over-aggression overwhelming at times. I'm interested to go back to Radahn after the VFX updates to see if I can actually tell what's going on now. I do wish Romina and Putrescent Knight were a little more difficult since I really loved their movesets and design, but overall the most fun experiences for me were Rellana, Midra, and Bayle. One thing I actually took issue with was the fact that most roads leading out of the main area that you start in go through the Shadow Keep, but there's nothing (at least to me) indicating that Messmer himself is intended for late DLC scaling. I wish there was some sort of seal locking Messmer's door that you have to find the key to so that you're still encouraged to explore through Shadow Keep early on and venture into the other areas of the map without wandering into Messmer's arena and banging your head against the wall like I did thinking he was just intended to really be That Hard. I think I'd have loved the boss so much more if I'd fought him when I was a more intended level, but placing him somewhere that you have to explore to get literally anywhere else made him seem more to me like he filled the sort of Godrick position of the DLC. Otherwise I had such mirrored opinions to a lot of what you said. Most areas were visually stunning to the point that I had to sit and take it in when I got to a new place but then actually roaming around the areas felt like I was searching for something to do with a magnifying glass. It felt like lots of empty time. I'll definitely be interested to see how they adapt in future soulslike titles, especially with actual competition like Lies of P coming out and sort of using their own formula but doing it better in a lot of ways. I think they've hit the same point as Pokemon where they've pushed their original formula so far that they have almost no choice but to try and overhaul some things for better or worse if they want to stay fresh. I remember being new to the series with Elden Ring and being absolutely baffled when I realized that you could dodge THROUGH fire giant's massive shield with i-frames, it's getting the the point where the bigger and crazier the bosses get, the more it just feels like it doesn't make sense to play which I think makes those fights less engaging overall. Playing Shadow of the Erdtree after games like Lies of P, Sekiro, and Stellar Blade definitely made me realize how much tighter and more specialized combat can be when not everything is about an i-frame.
I also think that with Elden Ring, and especially with Shadow of the Erdtree, Fromsoft has hit the limit of how complex they can make the bosses within the Souls dodge-focused combat system. This is their 5th game with that combat and I think it’s time they move on to a more Sekiro-type combat and innovate on that system as it has a huge potential for crazy anime bosses with never ending combos because it doesn’t require the enemies to have openings for the player to attack. In Sekiro, defense is the best offense and they can go all out on Inner Father-like bosses and it could be insanely fun. Some of the modded bosses like Ultimate Isshin are amazing and it’d be a shame if From didn’t innovate on such an incredible combat system.
wut.... The whole appeal of Souls games was they AREN'T crazy anime. If Fromsoft moves towards a more Devil May Cry cringe fest they will lose what makes them unique and appealing to non-weebs
Building on parry-based Sekiro combat is one obvious direction they could take, and I would welcome it. But I think a much more important step would be to either remove s completely or restrict them to more sporadically used special moves. Like you point out in the video, the s-based dodges often feel downright silly and I also have the suspicion that they're a big reason for the arms race FS is in with boss fights. Think of how many of the more annoying habits of ER's bosses are a direct response to roll-spamming. So I think getting rid of the incentive for that entirely could be a great first step to evolve the formula.
have you played armored core 6? that game has 0 I frames, you just get a quickboost dodge that helps you reposition around attacks, and the only "I frames" you can get are from a plasma shield you have yo equip (which I have never used) and some limited use super moves that put a forcefield around your mech that lasts about 5 seconds. it's exactly what you're looking for.
@@ramen3643 I love that game, have played it to death, currently going through older AC games while waiting for a DLC or sequel. I didn't mention it, but it was one of the games that made me notice the problem with i frames.
Subbed mate, I hope you get the recognition you deserve, actual opinions without either rose tinted glasses or corporate interests are rarer than you think this platform these days!
I like the more critical approach to from software I feel like a lot off the time ppl dismissed the problems with these games too quickly I would even say they your criticism was a bit soft at times but I share your sentiment for the most part the combat need more
Oh people definitely are defending and giving from way too much credit with elden ring in some areas. This game already has the biggest number of analysis where everything is a mixed bag. The only other title that surpass elden ring here is dark souls 2 for obvious reasons. There are 3 main reasons for this : the horrible state of the industry, the fault of the gamers with how weird they are, and bias of comfort they tend to have with certain things or developers.
I don't see the parallel between Bethesda and FromSoft. One has released 1 exceptional game (Morrowind) in between 3 good games (Daggerfall, Oblivion, Fallout 3) and then it only went downwards from there. The other has released 6 exceptional games (DS, DS3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Elden Ring, AC6) and 1 good one in between (DS2). And the Elden Ring DLC was wonderful. Yes, one day FromSoft will dissapear. But they got 100x more talent than Bethesda ever had.
Bethesda been running on morrowind hype for years. I finished oblivion but it was pretty lackluster. Skyrim was more of the same. I doubt I'll pick up the next one. I tried playing Skyrim a few years ago and it was just to similar to every other reskinned game they make.
Funny you point that out. His vid dropped right as I was in the middle of production on this. I had already written and recorded that intro by then but contemplated changing it for that exact reason. I ultimately decided it wasn't worth completely restructuring my intro just because another creator made a similar comparison. It's understandable how it may have come across that way, but I had no intentions of copying anyone. Maybe the comparison just isn't as unique as I thought it would be 🤷
@@TheRedHood64 Thanks for clarifying. If this is true would it be worth mentioning in the description or something? Stuff like that calls into question the critical/creative process of a video. Just an observation.
I certainly hope I don’t grow disdainful of the makeup of Fromsoft games like I did with Bethesda. I played Fallout 4 and suddenly couldn’t remember what I enjoyed about those games in the first place. Haven’t touched anything Bethesda since. I became disillusioned w their design philosophy as a whole because of their refusal to evolve it over time. Is Fromsoft not comparable when the same camera issues persist across 15 years of games for example.
Man...i get saying how the dlc is disappointing. But it feels pretty unfair to harp on how FromSoft has fallen off. I mean, theres been plenty of evidence that theyre interested in new directions. Sekiro back in 2019, Armored Core last year, the interview you brought up at the end of the video. Mikizaki even said he wasnt going to try to try to follow the success from Elden Ring- which even the base game was a cool experience. This is the same group that ended Dark Souls at 3 of their own volition evwn though the fans would have, at the time, wanted more. And with the DLC, from my impression(havent played it) i think they did an admirable job at trying to reinvent their method of making a DLC to be true to what Elden Ring was about. Im not a FS fanboy, nor have i played the DLC. It just doesnt seem fair, all things considered
I think the sales will bear out the strategy of combining RPG with this 10 year old combat system. Sekiro sales were smaller in comparison- the best-selling Souls copies recently show that this now familiar structure is a huge market to tap for many years à la GTA.
"at this point you're probably wondering what any of this has to do with elden ring" Yes you're right I have worms in my brain so I am wondering that. Video far too smarty for me
A vid this long will take me 2 days to watch but I've gotten through the early part of the critique. I agree that the scadu tree blessings are poopy. I like the barren landscapes better than the base game though. I hard agree with your Lore critiques so far.
One thing that struck me while watching this video is one big difference betweenn the flask upgrades in the base game (sacred tears and golden seeds) and the Scadutree Fragments. The flask upgrades are inherently "lose-less" upgrades, they help you survive longer in fights, and thus die fewer times, both against bosses and the environment. The Scadutree blessing affecting your damage output as well as your core survivability (how many hits you can take at once rather than over time) makes them lean more strongly towards "win-more". Thus when you upgrade your flask it lets you make more mistakes. When you upgrade the Scadutree blessing it makes the fight shorter but with largely the same room for error.
I think what sucks to me about the scadutree fragments/revered spirit ashes, and the exploration being generally unrewarding in terms of item rewards, is that it could have been easily fixed imo. The level for scadutree blessings and spirit upgrades should have been raised, even if it meant less immediately noticeable change in your damage/resistances per level. Make all of the current scadutree fragments/revered spirit ashes considered "greater", and have them give you a large boost of like 3-4 levels. Then replace a majority of the redundant items like smithing stones and cookbooks with "lesser" fragments/ashes that only serve to level your blessing up once with an increase in required items to get more levels the higher your level is, like how it is in the current version. I dunno, maybe that isn't as good a fix as I think, I'm not a game designer. I feel like they came so close to solving the issue of DLC scaling but made one small mistake and it snowballed into several aspects of the DLC feeling underwhelming. It sucked being walled by Gaius because I knew I needed to get the fragments past his arena, but feeling like he did way too much damage even with a decent blessing level. I beat him after a while but by that point I'd gone back to Dark Souls III and don't know when I'll get around to finishing SotE because I'm so burnt out on it.
I've watched a alot of critiques and this was by far the best. You balanced your personal taste against the more general palate in a way that tied purely logistical problems with the more thematic/abstract ones. If you wanted something constructive I'd say having a simple concise question (one one that gets at the overarching themes of the problems) to call back to and hammer home is nice particularly in a long video like this. I sure a shit produce a critique like this or what I suggested though. Keen to see your next vid
Really good video, all your points are well articulated, and you didn't sit on a point for too long; you made your point and moved on to the next segment. Keep it up, I'm glad i found your channel.
@@Scowleasy Pretty terrible example tbh. Dark Souls 1 and Elden Ring are the exact same in how the Estus/ Healing flask is given to the player. Fromsoft would never put a key component to the gameplay of a video game behind a missable or optional quest, that’s absolutely absurd to even think to argue. That’s like saying if dodging or moving was locked behind some obscure quest. No fundamental part of the gameplay will ever be put as a quest reward, never has and never will. Think before you speak please.
How empty the world is never really bothered me because it made sense. If the lands between is a dying world, the land of shadow is a dead world thats been dead for a long time. It gave SotE this really ominous feeling like you werent supposed to see this place. Its hard to put the feeling in words but it gave a sense of "oh shit... some really bad stuff went on here". I get how you feel though cause I felt that way about both finger ruins and over all the rewards for exploration in the dlc were pretty bad.
In other souls games the worlds were dying yet they didnt feel as empty. I ngl thought the finger ruins were really cool, because they were clearly just a cool landscape that doesnt have much in it, like radahns arena. On the other hand if you explore a castle or something and find a cookbook or a talisman that lowers your hp to 3 but increases your arcane by 2.7 on a very rainy day while a half moon is out and you havent mowed your grass for a few weeks, it can understandably not be very great.
I agree with all of your points. This was the first From DLC that didn't surpass the main game for me. I have faith that they will continue to improve though, and I look forward to the next release.
Holy shit only 600 views! My man, you are underrated. Im sharing. I think for a next game they should push their expanded playerbase more in the direction of sekiro/bloodborne playstyle. Its the only way that the same combat system will still feel fresh and rewarding enough. From artorias, fume knight, penetrator, owl (2nd), maria, and now rellana, the fast paced humanoid dances will never ever tire me out.
The lens you are viewing from is as you said your 1st exp w/ Souls but for us Vet players who have grown w/ the evolution of the games is an entirely different lens. There's an ole saying, "ignorance is bliss" I'm glad you are able to enjoy it but for a lot of us vets the combat is broken.
@@heyguyslolGAMING This is something I should have clarified in the video for sure. My perspective is very much that of a veteran and while I stand by it, I didn't fully consider how that might come across to the many fans that are just discovering the games for the first time through ER
Happy to say there’s plenty of previous games for you to play, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but unfortunately if your argument wouldn’t apply to a Call of Duty clone, it doesn’t apply here. I may never have played Pokemon, but that doesn’t excuse every new Pokemon game having the same gameplay as the previous one with little to no fundamental changes for the 38th time in a row. Any given kind of game may be a new experience for people who have never experienced the genre, but a huge number of players are not new to this anymore, and the existence of players not familiar with the combat doesn’t excuse a lack of development or creativity in a very old formula that, by many people’s assertion, is reaching its limits with regard to being able to design new encounters that both aren’t repeats of bosses that have been done before, and yet aren’t pushovers. In a game with base defensive mechanics limited to rolling, jumping and sprinting (even being kind and including guarding), each with very distinct timing and/or stamina limitations, this lack of development is starting to yield bosses that in the name of difficulty start to require, negate or remove all intuition from even the player tactics that used to be niche skill expression, such as positioning close to or behind bosses, strafing attack, or even poising through certain attacks to gain an extra attack on the boss; they do this by means of huge damage, inconsistent visuals of things like explosions, long and sometimes inescapable combos and huge health pools that make single mistakes over a long fight potentially deadly to inflate the difficulty of learning, ultratracking, insanely fast or comparatively unreactable moves or combos, disengages that jump the boss too far away for a counterattack, unnatural gotcha delays, incredibly precise roll timings, AOEs or chunky hitboxes on every hit, and sliding across arenas with standard attacks in the name of baiting out the all-powerful roll rather than giving even so much as a hint of what’s happening and what to do about it. If the only thing a boss can challenge is your memory and execution of a roll timing, and occasionally your roll direction and spacing, then if we don’t get at least an overhauled defensive system at this point, we’ll either run out of unique bosses, or fair ones, and neither eventuality seems all that fun to people who’ve played the last five-six games.
@@TheRedHood64i think you got tired of some things, and it's not games fault, it's normal to need different gameplay after a while. I don't know your content well sorry, but if you didn't you should try to randomize these games, to fully appreciate and vary the difficulty
I think all your arguments are on point here. I think FS pushed the limits of their combat system to the point of breaking and the only ppl who disagree are the ashes of cheese users and non-vet souls players. ER is a good game but its not a GREAT game sadly bc it really lacks replay ability that the past games still have. For those making the argument that it does are just wanting some sort of target to beat up on w/ ease bc each time you play thru the game gets easier and limiting your build really starts to show the flaws in the design and why it looses replay ability. I'm also very concerned for FromSoftware's future to the point where I will not be pre-ordering their next title bc I want to make sure its not going to be a further extension of what ER is bc if so its going to be a hard pass for me and this is coming from a guy who has 2000+ hrs combine of all Soul's game except DS2 as I've never played it. At this point my fav's of the series is DS3 & BB. DS1 is also up there but due to my evolution as a player its hard to get challenge out of that game now even as an SL1 run but it's def one of my favs especially w/ the best world design I've experienced.
I'm not bothered that there is boss just as hard as Malenia in the DLC. I'm bothered that it is specifically the final boss, the one a player needs to beat to bring the main story of the DLC to a close. Contrast this with the base game, where not only is Malenia not the final boss, she's a secret boss sequestered away in a hidden zone that most casual players might never even find without looking up a guide. The equivalent in the DLC should have been something like Midra, not Miquella's Consort. ... Otherwise, however, Ivery much agree that one of the bigger problems with the DLC isn't necessarily the raw difficulty of the bosses in a vacuum, but rather in contrast to how increasingly easy the level navigation an regular enemies are. In older games just getting to the boss was half the challenge of beating the game, but now it feels like the bosses are the ONLY challenge and it's made the whole experience feel lopsided at best, if not entirely disjointed at worst. It used to be in older games that as long as my build was good enough to reach a boss, it would also be good enough to beat that boss. In Shadows of the Erdtree, however, for the first time ever I found myself having to juggle between two separate gear loadouts. During exploration I felt still free entirely free to experiment and customize my character for flavor, but during boss fights I increasingly felt the need to resort to only the most mechanically optimized options. By the time I finally scraped out a win against the DLC's final boss, I derived no real satisfaction because my character no longer really felt like my own. Yeah, the whole combat formula probably needs a full overhaul, but honestly, I'd settle for just a more balanced overall experience that doesn't rely entirely on over the top bosses and instead puts some of the challenge back into basic level design and the standard enemies which populate it. I want a game that teaches me the lessons I need to learn throughout the entire the journey, not a cakewalk that does nothing to prepare me for a final exam difficulty spike. If all I cared about was super tough bosses, there are boss rush games that cut out everything else in-between entirely.
There’s just very little reason to even fight the dlc final boss. The items are meh, you *definitely* don’t need the runes, the “ending” is empty, and up until 1.14 the fight itself was mid to terrible. The 1.14 patch did a lot to make the fight more enjoyable, but even then it’s still a lower point for the dlc.
It's the horse and the open world. You can just run past anything that threatens you. Somehow this feels like it extended into the dungeons themselves. Feels like there's hardly any level design in SotE.
@@Scowleasy: It's not really about whether the rewards or the ending itself are underwhelming. It's about having closure, about being able to finish what was started. It's fine for Melania to be so hard some players might never beat her, and that the rewards for doing so arguably aren't worth the effort, because she's side content. It would be a whole different thing entirely if Elden Beast was that hard. Ostensibly some people might try to argue the entire DLC is just side content, but the difference is that unlike Melenia, it's side content with a separate price of admission.
@@EmeralBookwise except there isn’t any closure. We just get a lame cutscene of something we’ve already been told multiple times. After you beat PCR the first time, there really isn’t any reason to do it again.
@@Scowleasy: The closure isn't about the cutscene, it's about finishing the game and being able to close the book on the story without nagging feeling that giving up would have. I will entirely agree that having done it once, however, I feel no desire to ever do it again.
I feel not pessimistic about the DLC but came out with the conclusion that this is indeed the answer to the question, “How much further can the souls formula increase the challenge formula before it stops being fun?” SOTE is the peak of the souls formula as it is today. I believe FROM knows this and I have faith in them. Myazaki said it himself he doesn’t really like doing sequels. So I have every bit of confidence they will try something new and innovative like. They have a great track record in this field so am, as always, interested in what they do next. EDIT: the Deflecting Hard Tear turned my Samurai build into Wolf from Sekiro. And the Striking Shields (particularly the magic one) is just divine. Peak Tear I agree. Oh and script weapons still suck😂
Great video! I especially liked the lore criticisms. The dlc's world felt unsatisfying and empty for me. I was desperatrely waiting for the lore to get better but the ending just made it much much worse and I didn't like how they handled Miquella's plotline tbh.
Lots of cool threads but it feels like the pinnacle of Miyazaki's "half-trabslated book" philosophy. I personally love that style, but I totally get why people don't care for it.
Bro most of this boils down to one thing - You are burned out on these games. Elden Ring has only JUST brought Fromsoft and the souls gameplay loop to the mainstream. It's not anywhere near stale yet.
Why should he or I or anyone care what happens in the mainstream? I was disappointed in the game. That's all I care about. Hell I liked AC6 better, and even Lies of P. That's an off-brand knockoff product.
It's fine not to care. I do that too. But I don't keep consuming content about it and hang around with people who do. If you don't care you don't care. It could be burnout. It could be the game is bad. To you it doesn't matter, so you also don't have criticism to put up. You're explicitly not going there. But that means you hanging out here is pointless. Subjective bias matters when someone is trying to present critique. If a critic presents a whole rationale, when the reality is they just don't care and aren't engaging with the information. There is this no logical or real world connection to the observations and the whole thing becomes a waste of everyone's time, because there's no practical value to anyone but that critic. And the only meaningful action is to disengage. You can't blame something you already dislike in your gut for giving you bad experiences! And if you can't explain it beyond that, nobody is learning anything truthful about the game from you.
@@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERS actually it's interesting that you mention Lies of P because I'm curious if competition from games like that will end up being good for Fromsoft overall. Lies of P is the first TRUE soulslike with such success and positive reception unless I'm forgetting something, and competition breeds creativity.
I completely agree with your sentiment at the beginning. I grew up with Morrowind, still one of my all time favs. When Fallout 4 dropped, it was good, but it just didn't feel the same. And then Starfield drops. Played all the Souls games, Elden Ring is great, but I had similar feelings to Fallout 4 with ER and the DLC. It's great but how many times can I dodge roll counter against mostly reused/slightly modified assets?
You know its almost somewhat fitting really on how absurd the combat has gotten. Like at DLC's end you are facing down a frankenstien's monster abomination of a demigod and a god who has achieved the peak of his strength. An idea that in previous souls games would have been considered insane. Most gods and monsters are narritively depowered but here its like the kid gloves are off. A final exam that is not holding back. On a hype perspecitve it makes me look back on the journey fromsoft went through as a whole but it does also concern me on what they could posiibly do in the future to keep up with the arms race.
@@Stanzbey69 Now hold your horses. I'm not saying that this design is bad. I'm not one of those git gud types. I'm just saying that it has gotten more complex, a complexity I like actually. I'm actually kind of disappointed in the Radahn nerf a little bit because it kinda loses the narrative punching power a bit. I loved going into the fight with a variety of builds. Making builds is my favorite part of the game to be honest. Be it magic, melee, bleed, hell summons are gonna be fun too when i get around to it. Mostly because the deck was stacked against you very purposefully. You are supposed to use every trick in the book to beat this monster and it's a mindset that I love using when going back to older titles and using new strategies there. Elden ring has taught me skill is great, but using your brain is better.
@@TheUltimateMachineGod oh my bad, thought u were one of those ‘hi guys, souls vet here, the game sucks because it isn’t jank slop like ds1’. Glad it was just a misunderstanding. These critique vids have melted my brain with their horrible takes.
@@Stanzbey69 hey as nostalgic at ds1 really is I admit there are some things in that game that age poorly. It will still be a classic in my heart though. Hell honestly makes me envy not having an actual jump would've made bed of chaos a bit more tolerable too tbh.
@@Stanzbey69 Bruh you're just hating because those games were made precisely with their limited resources. It can feel kinda janky but atleast the game is made to match your limited movement. In elden ring it really doesnt make any sense when you're fighting gods at their peak. Everyone moves and attacks like they're at their peak, which is just nearly impossible to fight against. Also jumping works rarely and most of the time rolling works just as well. I swear yall have a humiliation kink or something. Every single person repeats the: "Miyazaki really showed us what his games are about haha!" slogan like you're in a cult or something. Yall cant comprehend a boss (that isnt clearly gimmicky and just bad like bed of chaos or something) that is insanely hard could be designed poorly. Bosses should have clear telegraphs and not stuff like rellana, in all of her attacks she pauses, swings again, pauses, swings again, pauses, roll catch, and then pauses, and then suddenly stops combo. I know you're a god in gaming and you can find obnoxious stuff like that fun to learn, but even an above average player will just have to resort to atleast semi op stuff to just get it over with. I got like 300 hours in elden ring and i try to explore everything in the game, i like the scadutree fragments, but saying "oh just go explore if its too hard for you!" really doesnt do anything, because it doesnt fix the fact that the attacks are way too hard and really not fun to learn.
What’s next? Hopefully not another trash open world. ER is the easiest game by far because YOU CAN BECOME GOD WHILE BARELY TOUCHING ANY BOSSES. I feel blind hearing people talk about these bosses. So many people playing with a post patch Scadu level of 15+ and turning the bosses into jokes, yet they still complain. Like *BOY!* you are fighting baby numbers, making the bosses hit you with pillows! This isn’t even the best DLC by Fromsoft. And now that Cross Slash is gone, somehow people went from making claims that Radahn was the peak of difficulty, to now calling him a joke. These people I mentioned are CLOWNS, because there are many MANY changes that are more important than Cross Slash. This community of Wanna Be tryhards just couldn’t understand the simple concept of positioning.
What part of the lore is a mess? Also FromSoft lore especially in soulsborne genre is always disjointed you have to piece together 95% of it. I agree to your critique that the combat system has reached its limit they can of course make another game and include more QoL features like what Lies of P and make boss fights with larger enemies something more interesting than just hitting the legs or head.
I disagree on basically 90% you said in this video. Also, to say that Sekiro is the only game where From branched off from the classic souls combat is ridiculous and does not take into account Bloodborne. From has proven over and over that they can both innovate the formula, change it or enrich it, delivering very successful titles. At this point I seriously question if you have played the previous titles at all
im seriously questioning if youve played any other games other than Fromsoft, ever heard of Devil may cry? Soulsborne has been slowly going more and more in the direction of action game over rpg yet the base mechanics of the character is mostly the same. And no, adding a dedicated jump button is not an "innovation" since many games have jumps. No animation cancels, quickstep (bb quickstep>> dodgeroll), jump cancel, sekiro parry etc etc, the combat IS still dodge and then hit, R1 spam is not a "Perfect combat system" the combat is good because the bosses and enemies are well designed but where else can Fromsoft go with a formula thats fundamentally similar to Demon Souls
@@arshyarshy4414 ....right, I'm starting to see a trend here of people playing 1 game or maybe 2 out of the entire franchise and then talking out their asses about things they know nothing about. It's good that this small, mentally challenged community has somewhere to gather. Cya never.
Yeah I absolutely disagree that FromSoft needs to change their combat system. This is a case of "if it isn't broke, don't fix it." Elden Ring is their most popular product by a long shot, why would you risk ruining that by drastically changing your combat system, simply for change sake? This is why games like Monster Hunter are special. Those devs stuck to their roots and just keep refining what they had, because it was great gameplay from the start. There was no need to drastically change that combat system. Same for souls/ER titles. Not saying that they should never put out anything but souls games, but changing the foundation of souls games when it's a tried and true formula would be very unwise to put it nicely. Also you said with the combat system being so old, it limits what FromSoft can do from enemy design standpoing. ...Have you seen the stuff we are fighting in Elden Ring? Lol they aren't limited at all when it comes to what enemies can do.
The enemies aren't limited, my character is since I notice myself getting slapped around trying to have fun with mildly slow attacks while the enemy gets more armor and speed than my attack can deal with throwing me into a combo for trying to get a preemptive strike. It just limits my options to "the ones that just work" and I end up ignoring the others. After trying lightning spells against Rellana I found I could only effectively use the basic ass lightning bolt uncharged lest she simply dodge it or start unloading on my ass for using any other spell I brought. I just want to be a primary caster but the sheer lack of poise damage and atrocious cast times even with Radagon Icon feels like an oversight when poise stagger is an imperative mechanic and I can't access it through my chosen means limiting my options. Every time she casts anything I'm forced to react and allow it to happen but I'll just get staggered for trying to enforce my game plan. I shouldn't have to fish for single pokes to be punished with a full string and treating every encounter in the most passive way possible to not lose a majority of my health in seconds is really boring.
@@Alter_Ego_V1.1037 you have access to hundreds of weapons, spells, consumables, throwing items, armor, shields, spirit ashes, ect. You are far from limited. You are just likely not using everything that's available to you. Milady is one of the most op weapons in the game and rellana should not be too much of a problem with it. A lightning or cold infused milady with wing stance will absolutely destroy her. Also if you want to do poise damage with sorcery, you have access to spells like cannon, gavel, and gravity magic. And spells like night comet, catch flame, carian slicer ancient lightning strike, dragon incantations and pest thread spears will literally cheese the entire game. Fishing for openings to attack is literally how you are supposed to play these games. If you are losing majority of health very fast the question is, do you have your vigor leveled to at least 60? Are you using defensive talismans like the dragoncrest talisman and things like golden vow? I guarantee that you are not utilizing all the options available to you and that is why you are having a hard time.
@@jy1178 Yes I have all of my characters homogenized to have 60 vigor and golden vow and boiled crab just like everyone else (I love choice why do these games insist on having stats when it's just tedious, busy work). If I'm supposed to make a character to my liking I'm not going to have room for "everything" and I think armor doesn't give enough defense, poise is for hit trading, and I hate what they did to medium roll it was usable in Dark Souls 3. They also further ruined consumables which were already obnoxious to have to maintain via farming and now they've only exacerbated it by making me have to find three blades of grass, the tooth of a feral hog, and this flower that only grows between my balls to make one throwing pot where I can now only have like 15 at a time in general instead of stockpiling more efficiently. I've dabbled in shields but it's either kinda boring or I get guard broken from the fun enemy combos. Yeah, yeah parrying but I've never been a big fan of that either, admittedly I'll call my thoughts on parrying a preference but I think it's better the way Sekiro handled perfect deflect than Souls/Bloodborne which feels more like I don't want to deal with the enemy than engaging with it, especially Bloodborne making it feel too necessary particularly for Gehrman lest the camera have a seizure. I have melee characters I know how to play the game and deflecting hard tear is broken (and should be a CORE MECHANIC), I want to play "Primary Caster", I mentioned my faith caster so I don't see their use in sorceries, besides the ranged spells are slow even without charging (night comet gets to bypass the auto dodge which is actually really dumb that they'd let that spell stay so broken when the rest suffer) same goes for dragon communion and most of those are breath attacks that eat most if my FP so maybe I'll skim a fast enemy or just get hit. Carian slicer and catch flame are too much miming melee while spending resources unlike just using a long sword, I want casting for the range benefit that doesn't apply in boss fights somehow. "Do something else because it's better" doesn't make me feel like my choices have any agency which I thought was part of the fun. I tried a magic weapon character and as much as I wanted to use new toys like Onze's Line of Stars it was just less useful than Moon Veil or Dark Moon Greatsword. Why shouldn't I be able to set up an offense and try to react accordingly to how the boss tries to escape like in Sekiro. I've been rolling like a pill bug waiting for small openings for a decade now can't the game be bothered to shake it up further than "you can jump sometimes" this would've been welcome and cute in Bloodborne or DS3. Even chaser spells on the side feel useless when Lionel can annihilate me with Ancient Death Rancor while wearing a cast-iron stove but if I put on every spell buff talisman, and lusat's staff, and this and that I barely get to see the yellow bit of the depleting health bar I should just toss a Bloodborne pebble "quite thrilling". Not to mention the stat spread to be able to roll at all in Lionel's set plus wield ADR and I believe he has Lusat's staff or otherwise you'd need at least 34 int and enough faith for golden vow. Also why can't I put magic ashes of war on staves and seals, like wouldn't it be better overall for my equip burden and potential play style to put Carian Sovereignty on my staff or give a purpose to Redmane's flame since Flame Strike is simply better.
You do realize he critiques the game as well as glaze it, right? In summary, he liked it, but he doesn't think it's peak. As someone who begs his friends to let him buy them From Soft games, I respect his opinion. And if you need to feel his opinion invaldated, he said he beat the DLC 4 times. That sh*t ain't easy.
IMO the DLC made the base game unplayable for me. Every boss on the DLC including Rhadan was a fair boss. The dodges were intuitive and the weapon variety made everything good even better. In the base game we instead have fire giant rolling arround the entire arena and spamming projectiles, Godskin duo which is just a pain to fight, Maliketh being unpredictable af with multiple atks that look identical but have different followups, and mogh phase 2 flying arround the entire arena and stalling for bloodflame bleed procs. Mallenia is mostly fair but waterfowl is stll a bitch to dodge. Now to the DLC; Dancing lion: easy af to dodge, Rellana: phase 1 is a joke and phase 2 is phase 1 but with 3 more atks all of wich are free dodges, Furnace golems: Just stay between his legs, jump the stomps and run away from the jumps. Mesmer: His combo is a much easier version of waterfowl to dodge and he gives you arround 3 full seconds of end lag on it. Romina: Did anyone genuenly struggle with this one? Midra: Mogh phase 1 (the fun half) but even better. Skidootree Avatar: A dragon disguised as a tree. I switched to a longer weapon to get headshots easier. Even w/o that his absurd fire weakness makes him really easy and his ground atks can be jumped. Mitir: The adds die in 1 hit and her atks are really fun to dodge. Bayle: Did anyone dislike this fight? Orphan of Koz w a horse: Remember there is a jump button and the fight is trivial. You can read the atks that are coming from beind you by looking past the boss. Commander Gaius: Base game Rhadan but better in every way. Rhadan: I was expecting to struggle a lot cause everyone said he was too dificult and such so i optimized the f out of my build and he just died in 6 tries. Overall easier than the base game. My build was backhand blades w 40 Faith, 80 Dex.
