Elden Ring

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Decided to finish the rest of the bosses to find if anyone of them is good. Petulant Knight is yet another "holy shit stand still" boss, it's annoying as hell that the game is so stubborn not to let you ride Torrent during boss fights even the enemy itself is riding one. Big bad dragon is just another boring dragon boss where you somehow miss a 10 ton dragon because the camera is ass when you lock on. Finger Lady might be good but she died before anything due to how hyper lethal my build became, felt like a cut Bloodborne boss. All those took me at most 3 times to beat. Spent more time finding them.

I think the best bosses were Gaius due to actually having Torrent and it felt like Jousting (despite being very janky) and Scadtree even if it also was annoying in rushing to the ass end of the arena.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
and Scadtree even if it also was annoying in rushing to the ass end of the arena.
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That boss is fucking terrible.
>One of many that opens up with an arena-wide attack that forces perfect summoning timing or eating a hit
>Homing orbs stagger the projectiles enough that even roll spamming won't evade them all, running isn't reliable either
>Second phase introduces another arena-wide attack that's impossible to punish
>Weak point is a fucking pain in the ass to hit because it's always extremely mobile
 
The easiest boss in the game is the one you need to kill to reach the final boss. Which happens to be the hardest/most unfair boss in FromSoft history. What did they mean by this?
 
Discourse around shadow of the Erdtree has given me more enjoyment than the entire souls series put toogether.

Its really funny watching people who spent the past 15 years fetishizing what the souls games are trying to pass for difficulty think the dlc crosses the line when it comes to difficulty but are deserately trying to word their way around it (i.e. say its too hard without having to admit its too hard) in fear of losing their alpha macho gamer card and being told the dreaded "gg".
 
Adidas Queen said:
The easiest boss in the game is the one you need to kill to reach the final boss. Which happens to be the hardest/most unfair boss in FromSoft history. What did they mean by this?
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I feel like they got shit from people having said the final bosses in Dark Souls and Bloodborne were too easy when the final bosses were basically a victory lap. Gywn and Gherman were great thematic bosses with great soundtracks.

Elden Ring had basically two great penultimate bosses and then a frustratingly annoying final boss. Radagon has a good theme, but it’s just the main theme.
 
HodgePodgeRogerDodger said:
I feel like they got shit from people having said the final bosses in Dark Souls and Bloodborne were too easy when the final bosses were basically a victory lap. Gywn and Gherman were great thematic bosses with great soundtracks.

Elden Ring had basically two great penultimate bosses and then a frustratingly annoying final boss. Radagon has a good theme, but it’s just the main theme.
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Orphan, Murder Hobo, and Cry Baby Manus were the actual final bosses and none of them were easy.

Not a single boss has felt as hard as Laurence or Orphan. They do feel bullshit and beating them feels less an exercise of skill and more you whipping out your own bullshit.
 
I was thinking it over at work, and I think the main issue one the base game also suffers from. When you have this big open world full of catacombs and caves and dungeons for players to explore and find all sorts of fun things, you end up with players going in to face the "main" bosses at wildly different power levels based on how much they've explored. From doesn't want players to just streamroll their first time through, so they've erred towards upping the difficulty with stuff that can't be overcome with just bigger numbers, like delayed attacks to throw off timing and bosses hitting like a truck. I've noticed most of the players saying the difficulty is fine also stated they took their time and explored to find all the new stuff, while the players complaining it's too hard are trying to beeline to Messmer. I don't think this is a From issue, I think this is a consequence of making it open-world and it's not something any studio could have handled easily.
 
Not sure if anyone has noticed or mentioned it, but the lock-on targeting in this DLC is all sort of fucked. It seems to prioritize the head part of a boss more than the closer body part that you want to aim for.
This is most noticeable with the Scadutree boss, but that makes sense because like dragons, hitting its root does reduced damage. The thing is that the head isn't moving like a dragon head so most of the time your attack will miss, so the only way to guarantee a hit is to wait for the head to be at the exact same low position.
However, this lock-on targeting is fucked with most dragons in this DLC, barring Bayle. You are locking onto a dragon's leg yet the camera somehow is still pointing toward the head part. Free aiming seems to work better.
 
M3xus said:
I was thinking it over at work, and I think the main issue one the base game also suffers from. When you have this big open world full of catacombs and caves and dungeons for players to explore and find all sorts of fun things, you end up with players going in to face the "main" bosses at wildly different power levels based on how much they've explored. From doesn't want players to just streamroll their first time through, so they've erred towards upping the difficulty with stuff that can't be overcome with just bigger numbers, like delayed attacks to throw off timing and bosses hitting like a truck. I've noticed most of the players saying the difficulty is fine also stated they took their time and explored to find all the new stuff, while the players complaining it's too hard are trying to beeline to Messmer. I don't think this is a From issue, I think this is a consequence of making it open-world and it's not something any studio could have handled easily.
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Bullshit, it's a DLC after you kill Mohg. That's a pretty easy problem to solve, just get rid of the Sucktree collect-a-thon trash and then nobody will need to explore shit anymore and just go to kill big monsters with their lv 200 characters.

But Elden Ring is an open-world ubisoft-like slop so you can't have that.
 
My personal problems with the whole design (especially after playing Dragon's Dogma) is that the world isn't dynamic in any way at all. Everything is strictly scripted. I had hope they'd go DD way of handling things when I heard things about caravans dynamically moving around, but I guess that never really happened. Having random encounters and perhaps rewards associated with that could've helped the exploration so much more in my opinion.

YumeNoHero said:
Free aiming seems to work better.
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Tbh I don't use lock on for giant bosses since DS2 or DS3 perhaps. Lock on really kills you more than it helps you in this DLC especially. I found that having a free camera to check wtf the boss is doing is just way better (like when it's the weird shit the peepeepoopoo knight does or sunflower racing towards you from different directions). Only time lock on is super useful during DLC is when you are turtling since it just makes your guy face the right direction at the very least.

Raging Capybara said:
But Elden Ring is an open-world ubisoft-like slop so you can't have that.
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Admittedly I'd prefer a more linear path or semi open world at this point. DLC itself had too many areas that just had nothing to them. And by nothing I mean the two fughueg finger ruins that just had one talisman reward each, Highlands which for the most part had nothing so they put a respawning Tree Sentinel there just because, Abyssal Forest which was ... genuinely really boring for a madness themed zone and zero rewards until you get to the mansion. In general so many areas and new zones which were full of enemies that you could fight in the base game anyways. I know some of them had/might have secrets, but it's literally fighting for scraps type of deal.
 
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I will point out you're better off free-aiming against Bayle. You lock on to his head, but that's only one weak spot, the other is his injured leg, which is far easier to hit. Managed my first kill against him when I figured that out.
 
namelesstacotruck said:
Orphan, Murder Hobo, and Cry Baby Manus were the actual final bosses and none of them were easy.

Not a single boss has felt as hard as Laurence or Orphan. They do feel bullshit and beating them feels less an exercise of skill and more you whipping out your own bullshit.
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The DLC bosses were always a fun challenge. They all typically had a fucking bullshit super boss and then a well crafted hard boss fight that challenged the player.

Kalameet was bullshit, but was mixed with the idea to have Gough ground him and was really only hard if you went for a tail cut (I am forever angry they did not bring this mechanic back ever).

Dark Souls 2 DLC all had these as well. Each DLC had like 3 bosses and a well crafted dungeon.

Elena is the worst boss From ever created. Pure bullshit she is. Awful hitbox, bullshit summons, spells, teleporting, and her melee is broken.
 
M3xus said:
I was thinking it over at work, and I think the main issue one the base game also suffers from. When you have this big open world full of catacombs and caves and dungeons for players to explore and find all sorts of fun things, you end up with players going in to face the "main" bosses at wildly different power levels based on how much they've explored. From doesn't want players to just streamroll their first time through, so they've erred towards upping the difficulty with stuff that can't be overcome with just bigger numbers, like delayed attacks to throw off timing and bosses hitting like a truck. I've noticed most of the players saying the difficulty is fine also stated they took their time and explored to find all the new stuff, while the players complaining it's too hard are trying to beeline to Messmer. I don't think this is a From issue, I think this is a consequence of making it open-world and it's not something any studio could have handled easily.
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I thought the base game handled it much better, it's divided into sections that readily tell the player they aren't prepared to take it on. Limgrave, Caelid and Liurnia are the first section, then altus, leyndell and volcano manor are the second, and then mountaintop and haligtree are the third. Each time you start a section the difficulty jumps up a step, so you know you have to be careful. But in shadow, the character I used to beat every boss in the base game got two hit by a dog five minutes in. It's not a great system.

That said I have been having a blast playing today, I've changed from my dual wield great stars to what I want to call The Build Of Good And Evil - the sacred relic sword in my right hand and the blasphemous blade in my left. It's a good build for several reasons - primarily the health regen when you power stance, and the reach on the two skills is great against dlc bosses.

But it's the dungeons I'm really liking. The gaols look awesome, as do the forges, and even the catacombs don't look as cut and paste as in the base game, and they're all so much more labyrinthine and tricky. The Belurat gaol is my favourite so far, although that's partly learning about how jars are born. I thought the jars were just cutesy jap lunacy in the base game, like moogles or something. A breather from the nightmare world surrounding you, something a bit more silly and innocent. I really should have known better.
 
Before getting into the spoi I'll say that Midra was another fun boss and the lead up to him was great (even if the whole thing felt tacked on.)
The Abyssal Woods probably has the best atmosphere in the entire DLC, it's only a shame it was so short. You mount up on Torrent ready to charge into the spoopy, foggy woods only for him to rear up and buck you off, then when you try to summon him again, instead of just groping for your ring like in every other area you're forbidden from riding, you get a message telling you that Torrent is too frightened to appear. Then as you go further you see some goats on the path, you approach one and see the flame of frenzy glowing in its eyes before it runs off. Then you run into the game's equivalent to Winter Lanterns, only they're invincible so you're forced to sneak around them. Eventually, you reach this palatial estate, and out in front is a line of corpses in meditative poses, their heads missing and some weird yellow crystal sticking out where the heads should be.
They're just little things but it's really good mood setting.

Lorewise, Midra's Manse doesn't really add to the lore of the Frenzied Flame, it doesn't even really add questions. It's more like a self-contained story involving the Frenzied Flame than any big lore revelation. Midra being someone who tried to become Lord of the Frenzied Flame and failed feels like a throwback to the Unkindled from DS3. Makes me wish the DLC was centered around this area and Midra instead.
On the subject of regular enemies instead of bosses, the Hornsent Warriors can fuck off. Their poise is so busted I'm convinced somebody at From misplaced a decimal when putting in their stats.
Tenshi Eating A Corn Dog! said:
Pretty good DLC with more hits than misses. Would pronounce "scadu" as "shadoo" again / 10.
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The big problem that's stuck out to me is it feels less like one big DLC and more like several small DLCs stapled together, like there was some plan to do something like the Crowns trilogy in DS2 but they ran out of time or money and decided to take all their unused ideas and put it in one place.
 
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Oilspill Battery said:
Its really funny watching people who spent the past 15 years fetishizing what the souls games are trying to pass for difficulty think the dlc crosses the line when it comes to difficulty but are deserately trying to word their way around it (i.e. say its too hard without having to admit its too hard) in fear of losing their alpha macho gamer card and being told the dreaded "gg".
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Think you mean git gud. Anyways I'm sure there are a lot of people doing this, but I've seen personally more complaints about system issues that have been present since even before Souls was being designed and marketed as a hardcore game series for capital G gaymers. The shitty camera, the overly aggressive input queueing, and the shoddy performance have remained the only characters within the Souls series to span every single game since Demon's Souls
 
M3xus said:
I will point out you're better off free-aiming against Bayle. You lock on to his head, but that's only one weak spot, the other is his injured leg, which is far easier to hit. Managed my first kill against him when I figured that out.
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I'm starting to think that he was never meant to be fought with a lock on. Even during his flight it is more convenient to use free camera than a lock on due to all the shit being from at you and markers appearing on the ground for the lightning strikes. As silly as it sounds, I think his head lock on is just so you wouldn't miss one of his weak points if you actually get close, after which you drop it immediately and start defending yourself. Even if his wounded leg is a far more convenient target. Is it a good design? EEEEEEH. He is certainly much more fun to fight without a lock on, but I think the issue is less with lock on and more with camera. They really need to zoom out for bigger fights like this.

Wendell X said:
But it's the dungeons I'm really liking. The gaols look awesome, as do the forges, and even the catacombs don't look as cut and paste as in the base game, and they're all so much more labyrinthine and tricky. The Belurat gaol is my favourite so far, although that's partly learning about how jars are born. I thought the jars were just cutesy jap lunacy in the base game, like moogles or something. A breather from the nightmare world surrounding you, something a bit more silly and innocent. I really should have known better.
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I had tons of fun with different dungeons they made and it was genuinely disappointing that they hadn't made any for the already super empty zones they have. I'm sure some people hated Catacombs, but I loved the revamp of the idea they do. More puzzles and challenges, but give people checkpoints so it remains fun if you die to some trap and not do a tedious run back.

Oilspill Battery said:
Its really funny watching people who spent the past 15 years fetishizing what the souls games are trying to pass for difficulty think the dlc crosses the line when it comes to difficulty but are deserately trying to word their way around it (i.e. say its too hard without having to admit its too hard) in fear of losing their alpha macho gamer card and being told the dreaded "gg".
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Games are getting harder and I am only getting older...
 
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Sniperwoof said:
You guys know you don't have to buy this if you don't like it right?

It's literally completely optional content designed for people who want an exceptional challenge.
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Kind of a gay way to dismiss criticism, especially since it could dissuade people who might end up liking it even if they don't get the best first impression. I thought I hated the DLC because Divine Lion was such a garbage boss and it took me exploring Shadow Keep and fighting Messmer to realize that I nearly missed out on what is currently my favorite content in any Souls game.
 
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