Elden Ring

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Imagine if every boss in ER was designed with Rivers of Blood spam in mind.

That pretty much summarizes the DLC.

 

[Sneedifarms]

That pretty much summarizes the DLC.

With exception of Consort Radahn who was blatantly broken at launch, I don’t think any of the DLC bosses are particularly overtuned compared to the final bosses in the base game. Like, do you really think Rellana or Messmer are that much harder than Godfrey? I don’t. I would even argue that Bayle is easier and less tedious of a fight than his DS3 counterpart, Midir, despite having much more complicated attacks.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

With exception of Consort Radahn who was blatantly broken at launch, I don’t think any of the DLC bosses are particularly overtuned compared to the final bosses in the base game. Like, do you really think Rellana or Messmer are that much harder than Godfrey? I don’t. I would even argue that Bayle is easier and less tedious of a fight than his DS3 counterpart, Midir, despite having much more complicated attacks.

Before the rework with the Scattree, the only real method of damaging was bleeding them dry since it did %HP damage. But even then the DLC bosses are too much particle effect shit, felt like half the battle was chasing them down.

 

[Sneedifarms]

Before the rework with the Scattree, the only real method of damaging was bleeding them dry since it did %HP damage. But even then the DLC bosses are too much particle effect shit, felt like half the battle was chasing them down.

The stupid sunflower is very annoying with having to chase it down, but it’s not necessarily a difficult boss fight. And aside from that and Commander Gaius, who is better fought on horseback regardless, I don’t think any of the bosses were particularly prone to running away from the player. The humanoid bosses, if anything, tend towards extremely aggressive and give the player little breathing room to heal, which has been consistent in the series since Bloodborne.

 

[Left Ass Cheek]

The having your cake and eating it too solution to this is Nightreign’s Night Lord bosses; all difficult, skill-based bosses that feel extremely different mechanically. And some of them even have arena gimmicks, just to put the cherry on top.

Haven't played Nightreign so I'll take your word for it. My point ultimately is that there isn't one definitive way to design a boss in these games, there's only hits and there's only misses. Some gimmick bosses are hits, others aren't. Some conventional bosses are hits, others aren't.

In Fromsoft's tireless endeavor to appeal to the people who really liked the Artorias fight they seemed to forget that Artorias was made infinitely cooler by virtue of being one of only a few boss fights of its type within Dark Souls. If Nightreign does have more variety I'm at least grateful that they seem to be on the right track in terms of boss design, even if everything else looks really sloppish.

I also just don't see why both tastes couldn't be be catered to sooner. Personally, I prefer a boss like Old Hero to Flamelurker any day of the week with or without the thief ring. Same goes for base game Radahn vs Miquella Radahn, I could probably fight the former 50 times in a row and enjoy it with or without the giant arena/summoning gimmick, whereas I beat Miquella Radahn once and ER has remained uninstalled ever since. I couldn't give less of a fuck if Flamelurker or Miqeulla Radahn are more difficult than my favorites if the fights are boring.

 

[Sneedifarms]

If Nightreign does have more variety I'm at least grateful that they seem to be on the right track in terms of boss design, even if everything else looks really sloppish.

There’s:
Tricephalos: Standard beast fight but with the gimmick of splitting into 3 dogs midway.
Gaping Jaw: Gaping Dragon on crack. Lots of grab and charge attacks, gravity magic midway through.
Sentient Pest: Moth and Crawler duo that have to be fought separately at first, and then together. Spawns eggs on players’ backs that can only be broken by other players or cause instant death.
Augur: Weird Bloodborne alien that floats around spamming bombs and creating tentacles that create arena hazards. Actually incorporates sleep as a status effect.
Equilibrious Beast: Demon that spams madness spells, casts sigils that buff him or send him into a frenzy where he essentially fights like Manus.
Darkdrift Knight: Centaur thing that charges around, uses a staff, and then spawns a fucked up arm halfway through like Gundyr that creates huge area of denial.
Fissure in the Fog: Ice Dragon with lots of arena based gimmicks, like requiring you to hide behind ice rocks she spawns or bringing the entire roof down on the arena that requires hugging the boss.
Night Aspect: Typical humanoid swordsman boss, but with a lot of caveats like randomly summoning elements from other bosses.

I think this an excellent variety of distinct bosses with their own gimmicks and mechanics.

Personally, I prefer a boss like Old Hero to Flamelurker any day of the week with or without the thief ring.

You and virtually no one else, considering Flamelurker is seen as a highlight of Demons Souls while Old Hero is just “that boss you cheese with the thief ring”.

 

[namelesstacotruck]

For Nightreign. The way some of the bosses interact with their weakness is good. What isnt good is that for some of then it basically doesnt exist. The very first boss its so hard to get the weakness mechanic to proc its best just to ignore it. It helps alot on every other boss.

Then you have Libra. Where the only way to proc it is a random world event that you have no control over proccing.

 

[Left Ass Cheek]

You and virtually no one else, considering Flamelurker is seen as a highlight of Demons Souls while Old Hero is just “that boss you cheese with the thief ring”.

So what? I've seen how Souls fans design their own Souls bosses, I'm not about to hold whatever consensus that community has reached as sacrosanct lmao what a shit metric to use

I don't even get the point you're making here. I said "I don't see why Fromsoft couldn't do a better job of catering to both preferences sooner" and provided examples of two bosses that have gimmicks that trivialize the fight but can still be fought conventionally without the gimmicks. I'm sure I'd like the Nightreign bosses based on my preference and based on how you've described them.

 

[Sneedifarms]

For Nightreign. The way some of the bosses interact with their weakness is good. What isnt good is that for some of then it basically doesnt exist. The very first boss its so hard to get the weakness mechanic to proc its best just to ignore it. It helps alot on every other boss.

Then you have Libra. Where the only way to proc it is a random world event that you have no control over proccing.

I think the bigger problem is that weakness element camps aren’t guaranteed within runs. For example, if I’m doing Darkdrift Knight, there’s a very real chance that no lightning camps will spawn on the map and that’s a real problem because that boss is a bitch without his weakness keeping him in check.

So what? I've seen how Souls fans design their own Souls bosses, I'm not about to hold whatever consensus that community has reached as sacrosanct lmao what a shit metric to use

I don't even get the point you're making here. I said "I don't see why Fromsoft couldn't do a better job of catering to both preferences sooner" and provided examples of two bosses that have gimmicks that trivialize the fight but can still be fought conventionally without the gimmicks. I'm sure I'd like the Nightreign bosses based on my preference and based on how you've described them.

The point is that people who actually like Old Hero or Adjudicator are an extremely small minority that FromSoft hasn’t had any real reason to cater to in decades. Guys who watched 3 Matthewmatosis videos are not exactly topping FromSoft’s list of demographics to please. I don’t see why “we should make a regular boss and then add a gimmick that just totally walks all over it and turns it into a retard cripple you can bully” is good game design.

Also, I don’t know if Starscourge Radahn is a good example of a gimmick boss here considering he’s been gutted for a while now. At launch he was a truly challenging fight even with the summons, but now he’s a pushover regardless of them.

 

[Peep Plops]

Game is fun but way too easy once you've come to grips with it. After the goatman I one-shot every subsequent boss and there is a crushing lack of variety in the map. Hope they add some new stuff soon.

 

[Nameless One]

Worst boss for me I had to cheese the l2 spam against in a corner was the stupid fucking boar rider. Most of the dlc bosses are bad and mediocre compared to their usual dlc qualities. Felt like the DS2 dlc again. Tells me everything I need to know about the direction they're going. The only saving grace is the visuals. The twin moon boss was alright. Messmer was fucking pathetic compared to what I thought he'd be.

With exception of Consort Radahn who was blatantly broken at launch, I don’t think any of the DLC bosses are particularly overtuned compared to the final bosses in the base game. Like, do you really think Rellana or Messmer are that much harder than Godfrey? I don’t. I would even argue that Bayle is easier and less tedious of a fight than his DS3 counterpart, Midir, despite having much more complicated attacks.

 

[Incredible Mister]

Mathewmatosis is Fromsoft Satan and anyone who dislikes any aspect of a holy Fromsoft product clearly only does so because a youtuber from 10 years ago brainwashed them into doing so.

 

[Sneedifarms]

Mathewmatosis is Fromsoft Satan and anyone who dislikes any aspect of a holy Fromsoft product clearly only does so because a youtuber from 10 years ago brainwashed them into doing so.

It’s a little bit more like “maybe these people advocating for bosses no one really remembers or talks about except a drunk Irishman might be parroting him wholesale to sound smarter than they really are”.

 

[Just don't like em.]

My biggest problem with the game is how many fucking delayed attacks there are in this game. having a delay as a mixup is one thing. But it is something else entirely to have a boss like midra who is nothing but delayed attacks. I hope they walk this back for whatever their next game is.

 

[Kofi Drinka]

It’s a little bit more like “maybe these people advocating for bosses no one really remembers or talks about except a drunk Irishman might be parroting him wholesale to sound smarter than they really are”.

Drunk Irishman won. He said From should make an action game and stop pretending to be an adventure game. Nightreign is a pure action game with boss battles like Mathew asked for. Only the final boss, Fell Omen and Bell Bearing Hunter have Elden ring style roll catches. The bosses all have a gimmick you have to interact with to avoid a party wipe or a super mode that leads to a party wipe.

Nightreign bosses are a true return to form from From. The particle effects are excessive and messy but most attacks are easy to dodge once you learn them. They are learnable in 5 or less deaths and require basic execution to beat. They could be Dark souls 1 bosses if you toned down the explosions. If they made more interesting maps for the exploration phase this would go down as a classic.

 

[Sneedifarms]

My biggest problem with the game is how many fucking delayed attacks there are in this game. having a delay as a mixup is one thing. But it is something else entirely to have a boss like midra who is nothing but delayed attacks. I hope they walk this back for whatever their next game is.

The delayed attacks exist because people like you think spamming the roll button is a cure all. The point is that you should be paying attention. I’ve never had a problem with Midra because I don’t panic roll.

Drunk Irishman won. He said From should make an action game and stop pretending to be an adventure game. Nightreign is a pure action game with boss battles like Mathew asked for. Only the final boss, Fell Omen and Bell Bearing Hunter have Elden ring style roll catches. The bosses all have a gimmick you have to interact with to avoid a party wipe or a super mode that leads to a party wipe.

Nightreign bosses are a true return to form from From. The particle effects are excessive and messy but most attacks are easy to dodge once you learn them. They are learnable in 5 or less deaths and require basic execution to beat. They could be Dark souls 1 bosses if you toned down the explosions. If they made more interesting maps for the exploration phase this would go down as a classic.

Except Nightreign is also an experimental side game focused almost entirely around combat. In a way the drunk Irishman is getting what he wants, but FromSoft isn’t conceding “we suck at the adventure aspect and just want to make action games” either.

And mechanically speaking, Nightreign bosses are effectively just dumbed down Elden Ring bosses with less crazy attack chains and more AOE attacks. They may be slower and easier to learn overall because they’re designed for groups to have one shot at every 45 minutes rather than for an individual to repeat to master, but the design lineage between, say, Caligo and Bayle is quite obvious.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The delayed attacks exist because people like you think spamming the roll button is a cure all. The point is that you should be paying attention. I’ve never had a problem with Midra because I don’t panic roll.

Delayed attacks are absolutely retarded design that make bosses even longer and more annoying. If I could at least attack the boss to break him out of the attack then it would have been actually well designed and a fun mixup, but instead they have super armor and you just wait for them to arbitrarily execute the attack because it is also combined with them lunging at you at 10 meter radius.

Action games are fun when you get to actually fight the enemy, not when it's a glorified quick time event.

 

[Sneedifarms]

If I could at least attack the boss to break him out of the attack

Yes, you can in fact posture break bosses in Elden Ring. If that fails, bleed and frost procs will snap even Malenia out of Waterfowl Dance. The options exist for you to take advantage of.

Action games are fun when you get to actually fight the enemy, not when it's a glorified quick time event.

There are already a dozen action games like DMC, Ninja Gaiden, or Bayonetta that do this. Why is it so critically important that FromSoft follow the path already tread instead of doing what they already know works and people like?

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Yes, you can in fact posture break bosses in Elden Ring. If that fails, bleed and frost procs will snap even Malenia out of Waterfowl Dance. The options exist for you to take advantage of.

Unless you know where the invisible stagger bar is, then there is no sane reason to attack during the delay. It's just more anime bullshit.

There are already a dozen action games like DMC, Ninja Gaiden, or Bayonetta that do this. Why is it so critically important that FromSoft follow the path already tread instead of doing what they already know works and people like?

Besides the fact that I expect an action game to be more on reflexes than memorizing attacks, not being able to play the fucking game since the animators wanted to show their work is just frustrating.

 

[Sneedifarms]

Unless you know where the invisible stagger bar is, then there is no sane reason to attack during the delay.

Hasn’t stopped Youtubers like Ongbal from doing hitless SL1 kills on the hardest bosses you can imagine all while taking risks that you wouldn’t because you don’t understand the boss’ mechanics like he does.

Besides the fact that I expect an action game to be more on reflexes

Again, there are like half a dozen franchises out there that cater to this. Why is FromSoft mandated to do what everyone else is already doing when they’ve clearly carved out their own niche? Why do you insist that game devs cater to you and not to the 30+ million people who bought and enjoyed Elden Ring?

not being able to play the fucking game since the animators wanted to show their work is just frustrating.

You can play the game, you’re just demanding to play it in ways that FromSoft has never shown any interest in catering to but other game devs have. Go play their games instead. Stop demanding Fortnite add hero characters when Apex Legends already exists.