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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am trying to fight Ragahn "normally" - just melee. Why is it always suffering?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For the love of all that is good I want them to improve how spells are cast. The amount of combos you can do with the spells in Elden Ring is glorious but too vast to fit in a single scrollbar of an inventory

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

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

What armor is that with the nice cape?? The one your running around with at the beginning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A lot of the new weapons have a trend of utility strong attacks and evasive/offensive ashes of war that I find could be really interesting if all the weapons revolved around that idea. E.g. the backhand blades leaping strong attack and default ash of war, the spell sword with the strong being a spellcast, and the milady with the light being a good poke and the heavy being better for starting strings of attacks. I also really love the deflecting hardtear and wonder if it could become a way for blocking to be a more central mechanic (imagine better blocking on 2-handed weapons or a spellcasting shield)

We need a bonfire mimic

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

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

For the love of Kos, please just give us a Bloodborne port

19:13 Weapon that also acts as casting focus is actually from older games. There was a sword exactly like that in DS2.

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

I want to see them make a magic-only souls game, where the entire game is balanced specifically around spellcasting. It's probably the most neglected mechanic in the entire series (from a design perspective, they've basically not changed since Demon's Souls)

For the love of God congrats on the 30k subs, you really deserve it ! What is the next goal, 50 k or 100 k ?

What I like about bloodborne boss tutorials on youtube is that it tells you what their capable of instead of just saying what builds to use.

for the love of the tarnished, we need an Elden Ring 2

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

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

I feel like I've had this exact conversation with every new game with my friend about how the stuff they want to do is still within the confines of that classic jank and it's so annoying sometimes. For example, the camera. The bosses move like freaks, are absolutely massive at times and the camera can't keep up. -The insane combos and moves of Sekiro was alleviated through the deflect mechanic and lack of stamina which made these feel fair. In Elden Ring, stuff like Radahn wombos just feels like "Figure this bullshit out however you please, with a Mimic Tear or some L2 cheese." Btw nice Risk of Rain 2 background music!

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

The only thing I need them to change is co-op. I want seamless shared progression.

One of the best videos I've listened to. I fully agree with the idea that I felt compelled to respec into a bleed build out of a Carian Knight because I could not beat many of the bosses solo otherwise, and that felt bad.

For the love of FromSoftware, I really hope that they take the series in a more focused rpg direction if we get a sequel. Starting classes actually meaning something, more passives and buffs based on armour and talismans etc. I think to curb the high difficulty its kinda needed. Also its pretty impossible to be a solo spellcaster in the dlc which is a bit unfortunate but i can't think of a way to fix it and still keep the integrity of the boss design, as its hard to deny that issues aside fights like messmer and bayle are by far the best and most fun bosses Froms ever made. That being said, screw Gaius and the pig he rides on

If you wanna play DMC, Nioh or Bayonetta go play those. The souls games are fine, theyre clearly still doing very well. If you don't wanna play them anymore then dont.

I literally did fight all of the bosses just with a straightsword. It is viable, nor was it "unfun," which is a completely subjective evaluation. The problem that people who want to play Elden Ring "normally" have is that they still think Elden Ring "normal" is Dark Souls 3 "normal" when this couldn't be farther from the the case. If you want to play Elden Ring "normally," which I did both in the base game and the DLC, you HAVE TO use your ENTIRE moveset, and play aggressively for posture build up. This means, you need to be using heavy attacks, charged heavy attacks, ashes of war, and light attacks (usually within combos to keep posture from resetting). Many of the people who claim Elden Ring needs to expand its mechanics haven't realised that it already did, both on the player end and the boss end. In Dark Souls 3 there were for all intents and purposes basically two main responses to any attack: roll or light attack. Shields were optional and parrying was also possible but the primary way the "normal" mode of that game functioned was rolling and light attacking. What Elden Ring did was update the amount of responses to bosses that were viable or necessary, by making the stance breaking system more effective and varying boss movesets. For example, many of the "delayed attacks" with long combos that people complain about are actually openings for light attacks, or opportunities to reposition yourself for a heavy or charged heavy attack; many AOEs are openings for jumping heavy attacks. In general, Elden Ring plays more like a timing puzzle, where you have to figure out what moves fit into what windows according to your risk tolerance in order build up posture damage, which is the most important "status effect" for people playing "normal mode." The game expects you to mind the direction of your roll, and often jumping or repositioning is just as or more advantageous than rolling. Instead of the five basic responses found in previous games, which for most players were effectively two, the player now has to make a calculus between light attacks, heavy attacks, charged heavy attacks, jumping heavy attacks, using ashes or war, rolling left, right, diagonally, or backwards, running, jumping, blocking, parrying, guard-countering, and repositioning; multiple of which might be possible in a given situation and some of which will be more advantageous than others. The bosses do more and are more aggressive, and you are expected to do more and be more aggressive in response. It's the people who didn't realise this, or don't like it because they feel having less options made the older games more intuitive, that have felt Elden Ring left the player behind, or that the combat is "turn based," or there are no openings, or whatever, which is fair not to like, but to pretend this is "bad game design" because you haven't adapted to or don't like the new systems is disingenuous. Also "poise breaking" is not a form of "slightly cheesing" the bosses, it's literally how you're meant to play as a melee only build without other status effects.

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

6:05 I actually play like this. I still use summons, but only to accelerate the second phases of certain fights. For example, I beat Malenia's first phase with just the Bloodhound blade and Bloodflame blade incantation, no shield, and no summon. I summoned the Mimic Tear for her second phase to tank some hits for me. But foe the most part, I play pretty "traditionally" and still had an amazing time with the DLC. The progression system threw me off at first, but once I got a few Scadutree levels, things opened up to me very well

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

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

I don't really agree with a lot of the points made in this video, specially the one about BB trick weapons being more 'complex' than ER (Bloodborne itself is honestly way behind many other souls games not just Elden Ring), but i will say you should 100% play Nioh 2 if you haven't, because weapons there have all the complexity you're talking about. 3 different stances (which involves moveset, speed, damage, the type of roll you do, some weapons change form, they gain or lose range, etc), weapon skills, combos, weapon switch attacks, different riposte attacks... And i'm not getting into all the other systems like your magic, Yokai skills, the Ki/Stamina system (which also applies to enemies) all of which also have their little complexities... It's seriously wild to me how such a gem of the souls-like genre is not talked about as much as it should be (guess they should have slapped a bloodborne skin on it since it seems that's what people get obsessed about). And yeah, a new Shadow Tower or FPS-RPG-Dungeon Crawler would be sick, it feels like that sort of game has not been tapped into much by the industry (except for indie games like Lunacid). But ngl, the project that i'm more interested to see is the next Armored Core.

Unpopular opinion: Bloodbornes “trick” weapons are underwhelming

The fact that a lot of people here are confusing difficulty for a fun is disturbing,a game can be both difficult and fun but it can be difficult and unfun too P.s I can't read this comment section too many fanatics,I'm getting too angry

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

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

I'd mainly want to see more QoL. There's so much unnecessary clunk in this game, it feels like they were collaborating with Bethesda. Like, why does my guy into the "can't summon" animation after I step through a boss portal and my summon icon is lit up, yet the game specifically needs my guy to completely stand still before pressing the summon button. Why won't the camera zoom out in battles vs. large enemies? Playing melee, the only thing I see are the boss's feet and I can't see a thing of what it's doing. Why am I handicapping myself by using the lock-on feature?? A game mechanic that is put in the game with the intent of making it easier to duel with an enemy is actively working against me, how?? Why do I need to scroll through my items and spells to find what I need, and even worse, it's a 1-way scroll. Are we back to the 90's?? Why do I have to go through a confirmation window to summon an NPC in the middle of a boss arena while the boss is shooting lightning and erupting volcanoes at my position, and on top of that, the window defaults to "No". What were they thinking??

What do people mean by saying that FromSoftware made the bosses too op and that they can't win without cheesing them? I played through the whole DLC with the claymore and had the time of my life doing it. The game was sooo fucking fun that it enrages me to see people talk badly about it. P.S m: I don't use no summons or buffs or anything like that, I simply use a great sword and a normal shield.

My main problem is the type of boss difficulty and how we can overcome it. Elden ring has super overtuned bosses so overcoming them will take summons, incessant buffing, status effects, heavy attacks that break poise and super fast ashes of war that can deal alot of dmg fast. Problem is once you do all that you then trivialize the boss killing them before they have a chance to do anything. So you either exploit mechanics and make your life super easy but it does not feel fullfiling or do it the traditional way and feel like a masochists wet dream. In classic souls overcoming adversity took a need to learn boss patterns and find openings but realistically you could achieve this with any type of build and in a reasonable amount of time and with proper consistency, cause little if any bosses straight up invalidated a playstyle. Fr the only bosses i think have true openings with very few potential unreactables and not that blatant input reading are Malenia and Radahn somehow and these are the only ones i am looking forward to fight again in any playthrough while the others i will try to rush as fast as possible.

Wait, you CAN use Torrent in the Abyssal Woods? How? I've ran around the entire place, and I also heard that killing the Winter Lanterns doesn't make Torrent less afraid either. So how exactly does that work?

When using the church pick in bloodborne in short sword mode the first r1 is a poke and the second is a swipe. The first are two is also a poke. This allows u to take advantage of thrust weakness by using r2>r1 to get a double poke, u can charge the r2 into r1 as well. Just one example but that's the kind of mechanical complexity I love about those weapons.