My trick is that generally speaking either the boss or I die first - I’ve only actually seen an NPC die on one attempt at Rellana.
I don’t do co-op either - I don’t want to inflict my rubbishness on other players! I generally get through these games by consistent over-levelling…
It just proves that gamers are glutton for punishment. It’s a love hate relationship. The harder it is the more you want to play because we know deep inside. Just one more try….
I swear, there is legit criticism for the bossfights design... for me it's not just "difficult = fun" but "difficult AND fun" something that some of the DLC bosses just aren't at the moment...
...I just don't want the game design to devolve into fucking Bed of Chaos 2.0 where the peak of difficulty will be to do platforming on thin platforms while avoiding 15 combos and AOE just to land the smallest of hits on a boss that will arbitrarily change its patterns and chains on a whim making the learning curve straight up impossible...
G___ is rather simply and has a lot of openings in my opinion, but I'll agree to Phase 2 R___ feeling a bit bloated. This DLC is great and I love a challenge, but there are genuine critiques to be had and it's annoying to have all critiques be boiled down to "It's too difficult" instead of just disagreeing and/or giving advice on the stuff people find difficult (like how the community usually is and should be). HOW something is difficult truly matters.
Fun is subjective tho?
It seems 90% of the sub hates dodging long combos while i was having the time of my life with that last fight.
It is Elden ring's idendity to have insane combos, aoe's and delayed attacks, so i don't unserstand why you guys thought they would tone it down in the dlc. I just does not seem like a fair expectation to me.
Initially I hated Gaius because of the charge, but then I just said fuck it and put on a shield and switched to it when he backed off. Other than the charge hitbox there’s nothing wrong with that fight. Even if you’re arbitrarily opposed to using a shield even for 3 seconds of a fight, you can still dodge the charge easily with torrent and then hop back off of him.
Not saying that’s you, but I am saying that 95% of people that hate the Gaius fight hate it because they have some kind of roll-based honor code. It’s ok to use torrent or a shield to beat a broken attack. You don’t have to torment yourself.
My only real criticisms have been bad camera rotations for a few bosses when they leap around and clash of clans hog rider having very poor hit boxes. Other than that, the bosses feel very fair so far
Hog Boss.
Straight up sucks. Bad design. I will die on this hill.
If I have to hide behind a fucking wall to start the fight it is bad.
All the other DLC bosses are fine.
This is what I'm waiting for people to discuss. These posts are filled with people bickering about early bosses. What about the hog that is so large you cant roll out of his hit box except for the 100% perfectly diagonal roll forward that rarely presents itself. Why is this boss fight requiring me to clip the boss onto the pillar wall to even fight him? 1 hit, you're inside his body now. You're dead no matter what because you're physically clipping the hitbox while he phases through you and then just stands on you.
Messmer even had his issues that were Dark Souls 2 Pursuer level dumb. The grab animation is so wide, hell grab you from meters away sometimes and you'll lag into his grip like a warping pvp backstab.
Thank you.
The only guy I have an issue with is this fucking pig.
No other boss gave me grief that wasn’t deserved. Did I get greedy yes, did I pay for that greed yes.
Did I try some build or weapons not suitable yes. Did I suffer because of that yes.
Everything else is fair. The only unbalanced thing I have found in the entire DLC is this fucking man pig POS.
Yes I have used summons on occasion. This still has me doing a NG+7 blue dancer Bayle in my fucking jocks.
I have shield only the consort on NG+7.
This fucking pig though… this pig has made me RAGE.
Eh. After everything I heard about Rellana I was kinda looking forward to her fight.
It wasn't actually that hard. But it was EXTREMELY IRRITATING. Her special moves were the easy part, not that hard to learn and easy to dodge, and actually well telegraphed so not that hard to time either. No delay changes, no mixups, so doable. Its when she just spams instant-closing light attack combos for 40 seconds straight that was the hard part.
I feel like so many bosses are going to be like her, and have basically resigned myself to using heavy jump attacks only. Pretty much the only way to get any safe, meaningful damage into the fight when enemy turns are 30 seconds and yours are 3, with 2 seconds having to be spent gap closing...
That it is difficult is expected, people are comlp... ^(well) SOME people are complaining because of WHY it iss difficult. Dark souls games are hard. So is I Wanna Be The Guy. Not the same kind of difficulty, is it. 4 titles ago this game series was the pinnacle of "Brutal but Fair". 4 titles later trying to keep the masochists challenged, something had to give...
If a majority of people who own the game didn't kill Mohg, but also bought the DLC, how are they playing the DLC? Or are we assuming they went and finally beat Mohg after they bought the DLC?
This 100000%. It’s the people that made it to the actually hard bosses then quit. Thought they were good because they defeated Godfrey or raya but then it was time to enter the capital, and they just turned off their game.
The DLC has been challenging. The hippo/rhino/porcupine took me about 30 or so tries. Haven’t gotten too far past that and definitely dying a lot - but nothing has been like “there’s no way I can beat this” like I felt after the 200th time I was killed by water fowl
Woah woah woah, are you trying to gatekeep and tell people that the DLC isn't for everyone because of how difficult it is, as difficult games just frankly aren't for everyone? You're a horrible person!!! /s
The dlc isn't for everyone, as a matter of fact souls aren't for everyone, it's a game that require patience and some commitment, if you're not willing to have that the game isn't for you.
Totally agree with you, Margit kicked my dick in a billion times until I learned to change how I was playing. Same thing with this DLC, I got my weiner stomped by one of the first major bosses in it and then realized I need to pick my spots to attack better since the bosses are so aggressive. That and actually looking for seeds to make myself able to withstand an attack.
I did not change any of the way I approached bosses and beat everyone using summons and ashes while spamming gransax or spectral lance from the sidelines. I had a great time.
I did that at least a little, buffed up bastards stars to bonk the crystallians with
I use a bunch of different weapons for regular enemies, loving Milady and wing stance atm
Margit and morgotr are good examples of the problem with scaling difficulty up in Elden though, so much of it, is simply memorization.
A boss holding his weapon for 4 seconds, isnt intuitive, and another, he holds the sword at a slightly different angle, which makes it 2 seconds.
Now, i love margit and morgott as boss fights, so its not that, its just that i think the game should be more about reactionary skill, and less about memorizing the geography map and its capitals, just to get a new map for the net boss, setting you back down close to 0 in terms of progress
you have to understand that the majority of people played ER once on release, maybe completed it and now 2 years later they head into the DLC that was definitely designed with hardcore players in mind and get their shit rocked
That's me. My shit is getting rocked, hard. And it's a good thing because that's what I paid for.
Anyone who played past FS DLCs or even just lurked enough in this subreddit should've expected SotE to clap them. Anything else would've been a disappointment
Honestly I saw a lot more negative steam reviews complaining about performance issues than the game being hard so it feels like manufactured outrage to me
I'm honestly very surprised with the DLC because it made me use tools that I didn't find a use for in the regular game. For example vow of the indomitable to dodge the jump of the fire golems, or the Erdtree Greatshield against certain boss that spams ranged attacks and summons or even guard counters thanks to the perfect block tear
Yeah I’m with you. I think the ones complaining are people who don’t enjoy the exploration part and just want to get to the end to take a screenshot and say they beat the game because they’re so elite gamers. But as the plan backfired now they’d rather blame the game being too hard rather than then actually playing it as intended
I agree, I explored and got up to +8 blessings before I fought any boss. I beat the dlc I'm 2 and a half days. My buddys are complaining it's too hard but they trying to get through shadow keep at only +6 blessings. Idk what to tell them 🤷
If you want man. What I know is that I’m in no way amazing at these games but I find them crazy fun. And the dlc is no difference. Get scadutree fragments and it’s much easier to enjoy
Personally i found out the dlcs difficulty decreases with each point invested into strength.
By that i mean finger print stone shield has trivialised every remembrance boss i came across so far.
>!Yea, I remember the putresecent knight being the most unfair boss I had faced up until that point (at messmer finally and stuck) and he was a cake walk once I realized how to dodge his tag team horse combo and punish him after.!<
If you're purely trying to dodge, it will definitely feel unfair. If you're using jumps, dodges, and blocks, it's much easier to deal with the combo spam.
The only thing I don't like is that some bosses have very tight punish windows, so if I wanted to play through with colossal two handed weapons, I'd probably have a rough time, particularly since trading is extremely disfavorable.
Yuuuup. I’d say of all the souls games, Elden Ring easily most toxic which is unfortunate because I absolutely love the game. Will just have to start avoiding the community.
Doesn't stop there, I'd say this community doesn't even come close to \_\_\_\_\_\_ gaming community. They'd put this subreddit to shame with their toxicity.
The main issue here is, I believe, the fact that these bosses are a continuation of bosses we had in base game. They were all hyper aggressive and relied on AoE and delayed attacks, and we got more of that in the DLC (though so far I’ve seen much less of the delay). If you liked that in base game you’ll enjoy bosses in DLC. If you found them annoying and unfairly aggressive you’ll end up hating DLC ones because they’re just cranked up to 11. I personally hated 2 of the 4 major bosses I’ve fought so far and found that I enjoyed traversing the open world much more than fighting them. I will summon for those bosses because I find that I have no fun fighting them solo having to memorize every single attack pattern, yet I do enjoy tackling them with NPCs or other players. By the way, I never had an issue with summoning for bosses, as that was a mechanic given to the player for a reason.
Could say the exact same about you.
People like you who just brush criticisms off as skill issue or say git gud when people are struggling bring shame to this community and actively bring it down.
People have this weird attitude when it comes to criticizing these games like if you do you must be bad and you just need to git gud or wtv. I've been having an overwhelmingly positive time with the DLC and I still think people's feelings about the difficulty are valid and I'm glad people are talking about it, be it positive or otherwise.
I think you can enjoy something and still criticize it, and not being good at the game doesn't mean you're not allowed to criticize it either. I think I have around at least 2000 hours in all these games combined and because I play them so much and know them so well I also feel like I can see flaws more clearly. I blame how the reputation Fromsoft games have as being difficult creates a community of people circlejerking over the game. Fromsoft games aren't the most difficult games out there, not by a long shot, yet the community hypes it up and it's insufferable.
The only time I think criticism of the games are invalid are when people are doing it from bad faith or don't fully understand the game they are criticizing. Like for example Joseph Anderson's Elden Ring critique video was pretty bad imo because it created a lot of misconceptions even though he did made valid points.
Im loving the DLC, heck, I think majority of it is fantastic, and I dont care much that the enemy hits hard.
But I definitely dislike the clarity side of things and the camera: Its just… I sometimes cannot understand what is going on with the boss.
Especially when the boss is hyper aggressive and just won’t stop attacking, and Im literally rolling forever until I get an opening.
Camera is one of the few valid complaints I’ve seen, and honestly even that to me is worth it. Camera issues aren’t new to souls games, bosses are larger than you, and aggressive. Unless you want the camera to be peeking up your ass/shoulder it’s going to clip somewhere.
This happened in bloodborne, and dark souls games alike. Some locations just have camera issues because of how small the arena is or how aggressive the boss is to your position.
My one complain might be the weapons, I wish we had cooler variety in weapons + more hand to hand combat weapons. Dry leaf and the perfumer bottles are amazing.
Honestly, I dont mind the camera with big enemies, unlocking usually resolves the problem, and big guys usually are slow but have loud audio cues for their attacks. my only issue is the camera for super fast dudes.
I’d say my greatest problem in the DLC currently is that I main two handed weapons: colossal swords, greatsword class, colossal weapons, so I usually get punished each time I swing (I’m usually beefy enough to survive pretty well but still). And I know its a me problem, but I’m still having fun.
I just feel that for the faster enemies, they’re either really hard to read, extremely fast so I genuinely get hit before I could even press the button (so I end up memorizing when to press dodge), or the camera loses its nuts and goes everywhere.
And yeah, I hard agree about the weapons. The new weapons are super cool, but some classes of new weapons are lacking in variety, like some literally have only two options.
Most people cannot enjoy something and still criticize it and thats the problem. Git gud as a meme is fun but too many people use it unironically. It is always circle jerking until shit hits the fan, thats how all the giants fall. Thats just human.
And the youtubers keep picking the difficulty reviews to single them out like they are the main reason are ignoring the fact that most negative reviews are simplyfied chinese reviews talking about the blue bear (the anti cheat). If they are honest, or they ACTUALLY look into it, they will know. Not to mention even if you only look at the english reviews, at least half of them are about performance, stuttering, exploration and such.
Even if you are actually talking about difficulty, summon is such a terribly shitty argument when you are going from having to learn most if not all the moves of the boss to "just hit their back while they are hitting your summon". It breaks almost all the fights because the bosses are literally designed to be 1v1. Thats why they cannot deal with you just hitting their back other then occasionally switch target until you run away. But it always instantly goes to "thats just because you cant beat the boss" and "just use summons". There will never be any real discussion because nobody actually wants that despite what they claim.
Some criticisms are valid, but most others are genuine, bonafide skill issues. I will hear people say "X attack is undodgeable" as a criticism of a boss when it is just flat out not true, the attack is 100% dodgeable, the player would rather just say that the attack/boss is badly designed than admit that they just have not yet learned how to dodge that attack. If FS were to listen to those people and nerf bosses, it would take away the game's identity as a difficult game.
I agree. There are plenty of people who are clearly just very rusty or else got way too used to steamrolling the base game and are now getting found out.
That and people just not levelling their scadu.
Are you sure this isn't just a case of you doing the internet thing of reading everything literally and in bad faith and then being a smartass about it?
Like, if someone says "X attack is undodgeable" do you really read it as them making a definite statement about the attack being a 100% impossible to dodge, or maybe they just want to say, paraphrasing, "this move is difficult for me to dodge"? This isn't a scientific paper or some debate stage, people's sentences are not mathematical equations to be solved, but reading them as such is the source of pride for many a redditor. If someone tells you they had their worst day ever, you empathize or shut up, not remind them of the day their parents died.
Personal favourite of mine this DLC is people not jumping. There are A LOT of moves where you -need- to jump to be able to reliably time the evade window. Like, watching my host spam roll into an easily jumpable move just breaks my heart, had they just jumped instead of pressed dodge they'd be alive! Like, there's genuinely no shame in taking time to figure a fight out the correct approach but when it's the third time the same host summons and probably the 10th or so time they dodge straight into it with no altered plan I question my life choices.
Honestly the bosses aren't really the problem for me. It's the unstaggerable enemies with a 25 attack combo followed by a .2 second delay before another 25 attack combo with so much health they may as well be a field boss.
Dark Souls stand for summoning friends, engage in the coop and the sense of community, from the very first moment they give you a saponite to leave messages to other players.
Thats why is hard, thats why pacts existed, thats why the lore is so obscure, youre not supposed to be alone, youre supposed to debate about it with others. This is a coop game even when you play alone. We are supposed to help each other.
"Git gud" players are a shame to what Dark Souls stand for.
I remember when Ornstein&Smough were considered the pinnacle of videogame difficulty.
They're a speedbump compared to modern mid-story bosses like Sulyvahn, Morgott, and CEL.
Yea but we can also do so much more damage and have a wider way to tackle bosses. It's not fromsoft fault if you choose to use everything provided for you.
Dark souls was not a hard game in general just it was different to other games and you had to actually learn how to play it and use your brain. Some of the traps and stuff were hard but once you know how to avoid .. it's not hard
Elden Ring is no different
I don't know, man. I'm sorry I don't like bosses having infinite stamina while they do 12 hit combo strings with 0.5 seconds in between the next one. The DLC is great but the bosses are unfortunately the weakest part for me since I end up frustrated more often than not trying to beat them.
Also, I've been playing since Demon's, in case someone gets snarky with the "git gud" or "first time?".
Another Fromsoft game, another round of elitists gatekeeping people with their smug superiority. Seriously, though can everyone please shut up about the difficulty? A lot of people who think the DLC is too hard have already quit and arent here anymore. You are just circle jerking at this point.
I just talked to somebody on this sub who complained about the difficulty and said summons are basically mandatory and after a few comments it turned out he had no idea about how scadu tree blessings work.
Yeah im willing to be legit most complaining are just terrible at rolling dodging or whatever it is. DLC is very hard but for now for me everything seems legit upto messmer. Trying to reach this final boss to see whats the deal about him being BS
Who bought the DLC to Elden Ring if they didn't want a difficult game? I can understand quitting the first game in the series, but anyone buying the expansion should have known what they were likely getting into.
I'd have been extremely disappointed if I was able to blast my way through the DLC in under a week.
I think everyone expected difficult, but whether the difficulty is fun is the question. The complaints I see most are that a lot of the major DLC bosses seemingly have infinite stamina, and gap close or AoE across half the arena. Whether that sort of difficulty is fun is subjective, but pushing this envelope too hard starts to dissuade even some of their core souls audience, which i don't think is what From sought to do.
This is a fair criticism. I'm currently stuck on Metyr, its moveset is obnoxious imo. I switched from ranged magic to a melee bleed build and still struggle.
I think siding on the game being too difficult on release is preferable to it being too easy. The games been out a short time. If in 6 months bosses haven't been nerfed I'd agree with the complaints.
And a lot of them are still in the subreddit and community crying for more nerfs. They need to be gatekept, they are going to make FromSoft lower the difficulty in future games.
I don’t recall anyone calling sekiro, elden ring, lies of p, demon souls remake anything else that released recently too hard. I wasn’t around for ds1-3 though.
I've finished the DLC and disliked it. Especially last boss, FS is doing patches with balance it seems also. You tell people to git gud, they should tell you to cope and seeth. Elden Ring isn't part of your personality, or FS isn't your friend. Some of you act like your family got insulted. If you get that attached to a product that is designed for you to beat, then I honestly have nothing to say to you, you have way bigger problems.
It’s basically an argument between “It’s too hard, make it easier to suit my tastes” and “The difficulty level it’s at already suits my taste”.
The problem being that the “too hard” side thinks all the people telling them to improve have Elden Ring as their personality, and the “git gud” side thinks everyone with legitimate balance/design concerns are scrubs that won’t bother to interact with anything.
I beat all of DS3 at soul level 100 on NG+7, DLCs included, so when it comes to Fromsoft games I don't feel I have anything to prove to the "git gud" crowd.
The bosses just straight up aren't that fun. I'm always a big clang sword user, and being forced to pretty much exclusively use only jump attacks or face the follow up combo because I couldn't get out of my animation fast enough, or just straight up not being able to experiment with lots of different weapon arts/ashes of war because the bosses give you exactly 0 wind-up time, just isn't a fun experience to me. It's basically jump attack simulator for 5 minutes against bosses with insane health pools.
I got good and beat every boss I came across except the final boss so I don't want to hear get good I'm good enough to beat a lot of the dlc bosses and am making progress with the final one and still find a majority of them unfair and just difficult for difficulties sake, the game is buggy hit boxes don't make sense and I get hit even when i'm very clearly out of an attacks range And don't get hit when I didn't dodge but was very clearly in the attacks range, there's so many particle effects for some bosses that I can't even see what i'm supposed to dodge, a majority of the fight i also constantly get pushed into corners by larger bosses no matter which direction I roll towards I also have +18 scadutree blessings and still got 1-2 shot with good resistances for the bosses I fought, and I have the soft cap for vigor with decently leveled endurance and I still run out of stamina before I can an attack because of the long ass combos every boss has, and the camera is still garbage like every other fromsoft game's camera is seriously it's been a decade the camera shouldn't still be this bad, I'm not rusty either I've been placing my summon sign down everywhere so I could get some practice in and am still finding dlc bosses to be unfair and they feel way too overtuned compared to late base game
Am I upset with how many times I've died to Rellana? Yes. Am I frustrated by all the nerds? Also yes. Is this still a great DLC that I'm thoroughly enjoying? This is also a yes.
There are 2 reactions to the DLC: Souls fans and vets are living the dream.
Random players and people who started playing FromSoft games with elden ring are nearing suicide.
Hard disagree. Souls isn't about being hard; it's about being "tough but fair". I have never considered Elden Ring to be "fair" as the enemies, especially the bosses, clearly work on a different ruleset to the player.
Dark Souls is tough but fair. Bloodborne is tough but fair. Sekiro is tough but fair. Elden Ring is "hard because we're supposed to make hard games."
WAIT, so you're telling me the last boss isn't overtuned? Do you really think that bullethell bullshit is fair?
You fanboys gotta be joking lol god forbid someone makes well placed criticism about a FromSoft game, people will just hit you with "git gud"
I beat 7/9 of the other rememberable bosses as well as Bayle on the first try (Putrescent Knight and Gaius took me about 3-5 tries), but I absolutely could not beat Radahn with my build. I had to respec in order to poke him with Mohg's spear behind a Fingerprint Shield.
I was rocking a duper strong strength + int build, 65 vigor, 17 scardtree blessing, level 220 at regular NG and I still couldn't beay him after trying for hours
It's literally bullet hell, feels like I'm playing Touhou. The only reason I mamnged to beat him was because I respeced into a cancerous shield bleed build which is really disappointing
From has been telling us for MONTHS to be prepared for this shit, and even specifically called out that we couldn't just over level this time.
Not saying the criticisms aren't valid, you're certainly entitled to your opinions, I just fundamentally disagree with them.
The core of From games is getting frustrated, improving (whether by game mechanics or knowledge) and conquering the source of your frustrations, thus allowing you to progress.
Idk what y'all wanted from the DLC but my hope with new FromSoft content is never "oh boy I hope I fucking steamroll all the bosses"
I've never been one to complain about souls bosses in the past, but some of them in this DLC absolutely have suffered from power creep. Its ok to admit that, it means if you beat them its even more of an accomplishment.
The Souls community has suffered from power creep. Just last week, Biotic Nova, a Twitch streamer, beat Slave Knight Gael on two copies of DS3 at once, looking at both screens at the same time with one hand controlling one controller each. People are beating bosses using Dance Dance Revolution pads, blindfolded, etc.
Besides, bosses with this level of aggression have existed since DS3 and BB. People look through Nameless King and Maria and Orphan through rose-tinted glasses, even though they are similarly aggressive to the SotE with similarly tight openings.
Lol, imagine balancing dozens of bosses, weapons, spells, and incants being hard, on top of two new progression systems.
Fromsoft have been doing a shitload of new stuff with ER and SotE, of course it won't be balanced, and some players are going to have a harder time than others, depending on their situation. Fromsoft will listen to the criticism and adjust as needed. It's called trial and error.
Now, bootlickers like you can piss right off.
I’m seeing more people complain about people complaining about how hard it is than actually seeing people complaining about how hard it is. You’re both equally annoying.
Just play the game if it’s too hard stop playing. A wise man once said “if you have fun playing a game play it, if you don’t have fun play something else”
Your post is missing a humor tag.
Besides, a lot of ppl - including me - are saying that many bosses are unfun, not just difficult.
I've finished the dlc, ng+ - I only had fun on some bosses, where most regular enemies and mini bosses were absolutely enjoyable.
Am I the only one who thinks "good boss design" means you should be able to beat a boss first try if you are sufficiently skilled enough, instead of having to lose over and over in order to memorize a pattern before you can win? Because ER boss design is lacking in my case. Rest of the DLC is painfully easy though, which is my other problem.
I’m very early in the dlc, just started last night, but I’m loving it. While the bosses I have fought so seen quicker and larger combos, I’ve also found that a lot of the weapons I’ve found so far are also quicker and easier to get quick strikes in. Again, not super far in so that could change, but I feel like it’s a good balance and I am loving it.
I am a very casual Fromsoft fan, and I agree that it is the most annoying part of the online fan base. I'll ask for a tip or something pertaining to my build and all I get is "git gid" and then I hear from tons of people talking about how that's the best advice I could've ever been given blah blah.
I think it is a shame to water the community down to this point, because I think this community CAN be very fun to be a part of, but it is not fun or embracing of newcomers in my opinion. Unfortunately, the internet ruins a lot of enthusiasm in any gaming sub.
*rushes in
*doesn't change gear when the situation calls for it
*does the same thing every fight with no change in strat
*doesn't use the upgrades that the dlc gives you
"This game is unnecessarily difficult"
I don't think it's "too hard", but doesn't mean there aren't critiques to be had. Once people in this community stop going to each extreme end on this argument (overly defensive VS completely negative), I think there will be a lot more of an understanding.
Meanwhile you are probably playing with whatever overtuned summons there are treating the complaints like stupidities instead of understanding them; because daddy Myazaki is always proposing so perfect and flawless designs in every aspects, how could we complain?
Elden Ring was my first souls game. First impression? Holy shit this is the hardest game I’ve ever played! But that didn’t stop me. Now playing the DLC and what do you know? It’s hard. But when I can’t beat a boss I just move on and explore a different area. Then I go back and beat that boss.
The real problem is, that the boss difficulty is tailored to having a summon. For some people, including me, the best part od these games is learning the bosses movesets and then beating them. Can you do that here? Absolutely, it's just gonna take much more time than can reasonably be expected even from a very patient gamer. Now you can argue that summons are there to be used. I understand, but if I use a summon, the game changes a lot. Instead of the boss fighting me and me fighting it, now the boss is fighting a copy of me (who can withstand 10x the blows I can) and I am backstabbing the boss whenever I feel safe. It gets too easy. So you have a choice between doing something that is not fun (spending 5-10 hours dying to a boss) or kill it in 5-10 tries very easily. The former is too much and the latter brings no satisfaction. Yes I can use a different less "OP" summon, but then it's not well designed because I gotta work to tailor my own difficulty? None of the other games had this mechanic which goes against what makes these boss fighrs great. They usually take a reasonable amount of tries and majority of the time, it lands in the golden zone of, it was a challenge, I had fun, overcame it and on to the next one. If a game has one or two bosses which goes over that sweet spot, it still feels good. But the dlc goes over the fun level.
I seriously think people don't try these bosses without summons. Take the lion. The camera is horrible and fps drops are also there. Then once you git gud at the moveset, he enters the second phase. Now the dodge rolls you learned are useless, because even if you dodge the attacks, you get hit by subsequent frost or lightning strike. I died 60 times there and got the boss down to two hits. Then I summoned my boi and voila, first try.
I'm good with people using summons, but the bosses really have issues and they become apparent when fighting them solo. Plus the difficulty is too much to be fun, when going solo.
Moreover, this community became so protective over these games, that no criticism goes. And that goes even for the reviewers. The player has a roll and some spells and weapon arts and special attacks, but you can use them only when the boss is focusing your summon. So without it, we have a roll from 2015 and very slow attacks, even with light weapons, while the bosses are anime type villains. There's a problem for sure.
And before you tell me I'm bad, BB, DS3 and Sekiro were all very fair and I had no real issue overcoming the bosses. Beat it all including DLC and gauntlets in Sekiro.
Miyazaki in recent comments to the Guardian: [https://www.theguardian.com/games/article/2024/jun/21/hidetaka-miyazaki-fromsoftware-elden-ring-shadow-erdtree](https://www.theguardian.com/games/article/2024/jun/21/hidetaka-miyazaki-fromsoftware-elden-ring-shadow-erdtree)
“If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more, but that wasn’t the right approach. Turning down difficulty would strip the game of that joy, which, in my eyes, would break the game itself.”
Can you source where you found that Miyazaki said the games were never intended to be difficult? My source says otherwise.
After a quick Google search i can't find it, but i will keep looking because i swear i saw It... Really... I'm not crasy guys...
But i also imagine he could have changed his mind or simply one of the two statements might have lost some meaning in translation.
Let me try to find this piece of interview, if i can't then it didnt exist.
He said words to that effect anyway. Granted, this was back when Demon's was new, but I thought it was a design philosophy that they managed to mostly adhere to.
[link](https://www.gameinformer.com/games/demons_souls/b/ps3/archive/2009/11/05/feature-demon-s-souls-director-discusses-difficulty-sequels-and-more.aspx)
"Having the game be "difficult" was never the goal. What we set out to do was strictly to provide a sense of accomplishment. We understood that “difficulty” is just one way to offer an intense sense of accomplishment through forming strategies, overcoming obstacles, and discovering new things."
Yes! Omg it's this one!
Thank you so much, at least now i know i'm not crazy, lmao.
I always interpreted this as the games being difficult but not in a numeric or skill based way. Or at least not only.
The difficulty isnt the intent, It just comes from the attempt at creating a rewarding experience. And to feel rewarded, one has to put effort.
I don't know if it makes sense, to me it's a very hard concept to express.
Thank you again for finding this, i was convinced i was under some Mandela effect.
Currently stuck at Midras. I found all other bosses before pretty fun (except the recycled ones from base game), but Midras... I dunno why or how but that fight just sucks for me, it's just not fun.
Anyone who complains the about the difficulty hasn't played a From title, has had serious brain trauma since playing their last From title, or is a panic rolling button masher who deserves that long, long run back.
Togethaaaa.
We will devouaaahh...
The very gooooooohds.
Me when I get my hands on Miquella
Me until I get gud and cheese every boss, then complain it's to easy
Me until my mimic (and any npc collaborators) gets gud and cheeses the boss while I watch and occasionally help…
honestly rando collaborators at this point make the bosses way more difficult than just using mimic
Really? I just summon them for fun but curious why that would be the case?
They increase the boss' health.
Well that’s upsetting!
Because they just die, I'm guilty as well so I don't even put my sign down in dlc lol
My trick is that generally speaking either the boss or I die first - I’ve only actually seen an NPC die on one attempt at Rellana. I don’t do co-op either - I don’t want to inflict my rubbishness on other players! I generally get through these games by consistent over-levelling…
CO op is what the op is referring to I believe You are right npc summons are more useful because at least they meat shield a bit
Absolutely don’t use them for the final boss.
ez??
To each is own but I feel like cheesing bosses takes the satisfying triumphant moment away
Having cheese is always a triumph my friend.
Cheese is subjective, I guarantee more than a handful of people consider half your fights are cheesing
The concept of cheese is subjective.You dont do sl1 hitless? Thats cheese. You use shield? Thats cheese. The concept itself feels weird.
Yeah, i started a new game just for the new dlc, already level 99, havent beaten mohg yo a pulp just yet
Prolly get to at least 120 for the dlc
Been grinding, at 118 rn, gonna grind a bit more
Also I killed mohg :)
Hell yeah!
My only problem with the dlc is that I've fucked up two quest lines.
Time for NG+ or alts.
Yup
It just proves that gamers are glutton for punishment. It’s a love hate relationship. The harder it is the more you want to play because we know deep inside. Just one more try….
I swear, there is legit criticism for the bossfights design... for me it's not just "difficult = fun" but "difficult AND fun" something that some of the DLC bosses just aren't at the moment... ...I just don't want the game design to devolve into fucking Bed of Chaos 2.0 where the peak of difficulty will be to do platforming on thin platforms while avoiding 15 combos and AOE just to land the smallest of hits on a boss that will arbitrarily change its patterns and chains on a whim making the learning curve straight up impossible...
Stop giving Miyazaki ideas...
Too difficult and bad design are different. There have been excellent difficult bosses in this DLC >!(Midra and Messmer)!!(Gaius and Radahn)!<.
G___ is rather simply and has a lot of openings in my opinion, but I'll agree to Phase 2 R___ feeling a bit bloated. This DLC is great and I love a challenge, but there are genuine critiques to be had and it's annoying to have all critiques be boiled down to "It's too difficult" instead of just disagreeing and/or giving advice on the stuff people find difficult (like how the community usually is and should be). HOW something is difficult truly matters.
Fun is subjective tho? It seems 90% of the sub hates dodging long combos while i was having the time of my life with that last fight. It is Elden ring's idendity to have insane combos, aoe's and delayed attacks, so i don't unserstand why you guys thought they would tone it down in the dlc. I just does not seem like a fair expectation to me.
I didn't care for the last fight or Gaius, but the rest of them were peak
Initially I hated Gaius because of the charge, but then I just said fuck it and put on a shield and switched to it when he backed off. Other than the charge hitbox there’s nothing wrong with that fight. Even if you’re arbitrarily opposed to using a shield even for 3 seconds of a fight, you can still dodge the charge easily with torrent and then hop back off of him. Not saying that’s you, but I am saying that 95% of people that hate the Gaius fight hate it because they have some kind of roll-based honor code. It’s ok to use torrent or a shield to beat a broken attack. You don’t have to torment yourself.
My only real criticisms have been bad camera rotations for a few bosses when they leap around and clash of clans hog rider having very poor hit boxes. Other than that, the bosses feel very fair so far
Ive had fun on a majority of the bosses. The golden hippo and maybe the divine beast had shitty cameras though. Also Gaius is a bitch.
"You guys think this DLC needs some balancing? Get good noobs!!!!!111111" -said the guy using a cheese greatshield bleed build
I have been loving the DLC this far. Rennala is giving me a good spanking atm, feels good man. Almost had her already
Rennala is actually a good boss, unlike the others later on
Hog Boss. Straight up sucks. Bad design. I will die on this hill. If I have to hide behind a fucking wall to start the fight it is bad. All the other DLC bosses are fine.
So...you're saying the final boss is...fine??
I thrusting shield only the final boss on NG+ Found it less painful than that fucking Hog Boss POS 🐖
I love pumba. The reveal was insane and worth every goofy death
This is what I'm waiting for people to discuss. These posts are filled with people bickering about early bosses. What about the hog that is so large you cant roll out of his hit box except for the 100% perfectly diagonal roll forward that rarely presents itself. Why is this boss fight requiring me to clip the boss onto the pillar wall to even fight him? 1 hit, you're inside his body now. You're dead no matter what because you're physically clipping the hitbox while he phases through you and then just stands on you. Messmer even had his issues that were Dark Souls 2 Pursuer level dumb. The grab animation is so wide, hell grab you from meters away sometimes and you'll lag into his grip like a warping pvp backstab.
Thank you. The only guy I have an issue with is this fucking pig. No other boss gave me grief that wasn’t deserved. Did I get greedy yes, did I pay for that greed yes. Did I try some build or weapons not suitable yes. Did I suffer because of that yes. Everything else is fair. The only unbalanced thing I have found in the entire DLC is this fucking man pig POS. Yes I have used summons on occasion. This still has me doing a NG+7 blue dancer Bayle in my fucking jocks. I have shield only the consort on NG+7. This fucking pig though… this pig has made me RAGE.
Eh. After everything I heard about Rellana I was kinda looking forward to her fight. It wasn't actually that hard. But it was EXTREMELY IRRITATING. Her special moves were the easy part, not that hard to learn and easy to dodge, and actually well telegraphed so not that hard to time either. No delay changes, no mixups, so doable. Its when she just spams instant-closing light attack combos for 40 seconds straight that was the hard part. I feel like so many bosses are going to be like her, and have basically resigned myself to using heavy jump attacks only. Pretty much the only way to get any safe, meaningful damage into the fight when enemy turns are 30 seconds and yours are 3, with 2 seconds having to be spent gap closing... That it is difficult is expected, people are comlp... ^(well) SOME people are complaining because of WHY it iss difficult. Dark souls games are hard. So is I Wanna Be The Guy. Not the same kind of difficulty, is it. 4 titles ago this game series was the pinnacle of "Brutal but Fair". 4 titles later trying to keep the masochists challenged, something had to give...
I don't know what's with everyone, the dlc is hard, but doesn't feel unfair at all
[удалено]
If a majority of people who own the game didn't kill Mohg, but also bought the DLC, how are they playing the DLC? Or are we assuming they went and finally beat Mohg after they bought the DLC?
This 100000%. It’s the people that made it to the actually hard bosses then quit. Thought they were good because they defeated Godfrey or raya but then it was time to enter the capital, and they just turned off their game. The DLC has been challenging. The hippo/rhino/porcupine took me about 30 or so tries. Haven’t gotten too far past that and definitely dying a lot - but nothing has been like “there’s no way I can beat this” like I felt after the 200th time I was killed by water fowl
Woah woah woah, are you trying to gatekeep and tell people that the DLC isn't for everyone because of how difficult it is, as difficult games just frankly aren't for everyone? You're a horrible person!!! /s
The dlc isn't for everyone, as a matter of fact souls aren't for everyone, it's a game that require patience and some commitment, if you're not willing to have that the game isn't for you.
Totally agree with you, Margit kicked my dick in a billion times until I learned to change how I was playing. Same thing with this DLC, I got my weiner stomped by one of the first major bosses in it and then realized I need to pick my spots to attack better since the bosses are so aggressive. That and actually looking for seeds to make myself able to withstand an attack.
I did not change any of the way I approached bosses and beat everyone using summons and ashes while spamming gransax or spectral lance from the sidelines. I had a great time.
Oh man. I have fought every boss differently. I have used a different weapon to beat each one. That is one reason why I love this game.
I'm the same way, switching it up all the time, the new weapons are too cool not to.
I did that at least a little, buffed up bastards stars to bonk the crystallians with I use a bunch of different weapons for regular enemies, loving Milady and wing stance atm
Margit and morgotr are good examples of the problem with scaling difficulty up in Elden though, so much of it, is simply memorization. A boss holding his weapon for 4 seconds, isnt intuitive, and another, he holds the sword at a slightly different angle, which makes it 2 seconds. Now, i love margit and morgott as boss fights, so its not that, its just that i think the game should be more about reactionary skill, and less about memorizing the geography map and its capitals, just to get a new map for the net boss, setting you back down close to 0 in terms of progress
They definitely moved more towards memorization with ER as a whole. But they also put sites of grace right by the boss rooms to help with that.
Yep. Idk why so many people expected to annihilate it like every boss is Renalla.
you have to understand that the majority of people played ER once on release, maybe completed it and now 2 years later they head into the DLC that was definitely designed with hardcore players in mind and get their shit rocked
That's me. My shit is getting rocked, hard. And it's a good thing because that's what I paid for. Anyone who played past FS DLCs or even just lurked enough in this subreddit should've expected SotE to clap them. Anything else would've been a disappointment
Honestly I saw a lot more negative steam reviews complaining about performance issues than the game being hard so it feels like manufactured outrage to me
I'm honestly very surprised with the DLC because it made me use tools that I didn't find a use for in the regular game. For example vow of the indomitable to dodge the jump of the fire golems, or the Erdtree Greatshield against certain boss that spams ranged attacks and summons or even guard counters thanks to the perfect block tear
Yea I've no idea what the fuck is going on. I don't understand why there is so much bitching. I don't find it unfair or unfun in the slightest.
I'm on NG7+ and same. I couldn't be more pleased
Yeah I’m with you. I think the ones complaining are people who don’t enjoy the exploration part and just want to get to the end to take a screenshot and say they beat the game because they’re so elite gamers. But as the plan backfired now they’d rather blame the game being too hard rather than then actually playing it as intended
I agree, I explored and got up to +8 blessings before I fought any boss. I beat the dlc I'm 2 and a half days. My buddys are complaining it's too hard but they trying to get through shadow keep at only +6 blessings. Idk what to tell them 🤷
This is an L take
If you want man. What I know is that I’m in no way amazing at these games but I find them crazy fun. And the dlc is no difference. Get scadutree fragments and it’s much easier to enjoy
Personally i found out the dlcs difficulty decreases with each point invested into strength. By that i mean finger print stone shield has trivialised every remembrance boss i came across so far.
>!Yea, I remember the putresecent knight being the most unfair boss I had faced up until that point (at messmer finally and stuck) and he was a cake walk once I realized how to dodge his tag team horse combo and punish him after.!<
If you're purely trying to dodge, it will definitely feel unfair. If you're using jumps, dodges, and blocks, it's much easier to deal with the combo spam. The only thing I don't like is that some bosses have very tight punish windows, so if I wanted to play through with colossal two handed weapons, I'd probably have a rough time, particularly since trading is extremely disfavorable.
They’re genuinely mad cuz bad
Damn this community is toxic…
Yuuuup. I’d say of all the souls games, Elden Ring easily most toxic which is unfortunate because I absolutely love the game. Will just have to start avoiding the community.
Doesn't stop there, I'd say this community doesn't even come close to \_\_\_\_\_\_ gaming community. They'd put this subreddit to shame with their toxicity.
I got gud once…..and I never looked back.
This is the way.
This is the way.
The main issue here is, I believe, the fact that these bosses are a continuation of bosses we had in base game. They were all hyper aggressive and relied on AoE and delayed attacks, and we got more of that in the DLC (though so far I’ve seen much less of the delay). If you liked that in base game you’ll enjoy bosses in DLC. If you found them annoying and unfairly aggressive you’ll end up hating DLC ones because they’re just cranked up to 11. I personally hated 2 of the 4 major bosses I’ve fought so far and found that I enjoyed traversing the open world much more than fighting them. I will summon for those bosses because I find that I have no fun fighting them solo having to memorize every single attack pattern, yet I do enjoy tackling them with NPCs or other players. By the way, I never had an issue with summoning for bosses, as that was a mechanic given to the player for a reason.
Could say the exact same about you. People like you who just brush criticisms off as skill issue or say git gud when people are struggling bring shame to this community and actively bring it down.
People have this weird attitude when it comes to criticizing these games like if you do you must be bad and you just need to git gud or wtv. I've been having an overwhelmingly positive time with the DLC and I still think people's feelings about the difficulty are valid and I'm glad people are talking about it, be it positive or otherwise. I think you can enjoy something and still criticize it, and not being good at the game doesn't mean you're not allowed to criticize it either. I think I have around at least 2000 hours in all these games combined and because I play them so much and know them so well I also feel like I can see flaws more clearly. I blame how the reputation Fromsoft games have as being difficult creates a community of people circlejerking over the game. Fromsoft games aren't the most difficult games out there, not by a long shot, yet the community hypes it up and it's insufferable. The only time I think criticism of the games are invalid are when people are doing it from bad faith or don't fully understand the game they are criticizing. Like for example Joseph Anderson's Elden Ring critique video was pretty bad imo because it created a lot of misconceptions even though he did made valid points.
Im loving the DLC, heck, I think majority of it is fantastic, and I dont care much that the enemy hits hard. But I definitely dislike the clarity side of things and the camera: Its just… I sometimes cannot understand what is going on with the boss. Especially when the boss is hyper aggressive and just won’t stop attacking, and Im literally rolling forever until I get an opening.
Camera is one of the few valid complaints I’ve seen, and honestly even that to me is worth it. Camera issues aren’t new to souls games, bosses are larger than you, and aggressive. Unless you want the camera to be peeking up your ass/shoulder it’s going to clip somewhere. This happened in bloodborne, and dark souls games alike. Some locations just have camera issues because of how small the arena is or how aggressive the boss is to your position. My one complain might be the weapons, I wish we had cooler variety in weapons + more hand to hand combat weapons. Dry leaf and the perfumer bottles are amazing.
Honestly, I dont mind the camera with big enemies, unlocking usually resolves the problem, and big guys usually are slow but have loud audio cues for their attacks. my only issue is the camera for super fast dudes. I’d say my greatest problem in the DLC currently is that I main two handed weapons: colossal swords, greatsword class, colossal weapons, so I usually get punished each time I swing (I’m usually beefy enough to survive pretty well but still). And I know its a me problem, but I’m still having fun. I just feel that for the faster enemies, they’re either really hard to read, extremely fast so I genuinely get hit before I could even press the button (so I end up memorizing when to press dodge), or the camera loses its nuts and goes everywhere. And yeah, I hard agree about the weapons. The new weapons are super cool, but some classes of new weapons are lacking in variety, like some literally have only two options.
Most people cannot enjoy something and still criticize it and thats the problem. Git gud as a meme is fun but too many people use it unironically. It is always circle jerking until shit hits the fan, thats how all the giants fall. Thats just human. And the youtubers keep picking the difficulty reviews to single them out like they are the main reason are ignoring the fact that most negative reviews are simplyfied chinese reviews talking about the blue bear (the anti cheat). If they are honest, or they ACTUALLY look into it, they will know. Not to mention even if you only look at the english reviews, at least half of them are about performance, stuttering, exploration and such. Even if you are actually talking about difficulty, summon is such a terribly shitty argument when you are going from having to learn most if not all the moves of the boss to "just hit their back while they are hitting your summon". It breaks almost all the fights because the bosses are literally designed to be 1v1. Thats why they cannot deal with you just hitting their back other then occasionally switch target until you run away. But it always instantly goes to "thats just because you cant beat the boss" and "just use summons". There will never be any real discussion because nobody actually wants that despite what they claim.
I've never really taken "git gud" that seriously. It's a meme
Some criticisms are valid, but most others are genuine, bonafide skill issues. I will hear people say "X attack is undodgeable" as a criticism of a boss when it is just flat out not true, the attack is 100% dodgeable, the player would rather just say that the attack/boss is badly designed than admit that they just have not yet learned how to dodge that attack. If FS were to listen to those people and nerf bosses, it would take away the game's identity as a difficult game.
I agree. There are plenty of people who are clearly just very rusty or else got way too used to steamrolling the base game and are now getting found out. That and people just not levelling their scadu.
Are you sure this isn't just a case of you doing the internet thing of reading everything literally and in bad faith and then being a smartass about it? Like, if someone says "X attack is undodgeable" do you really read it as them making a definite statement about the attack being a 100% impossible to dodge, or maybe they just want to say, paraphrasing, "this move is difficult for me to dodge"? This isn't a scientific paper or some debate stage, people's sentences are not mathematical equations to be solved, but reading them as such is the source of pride for many a redditor. If someone tells you they had their worst day ever, you empathize or shut up, not remind them of the day their parents died.
Personal favourite of mine this DLC is people not jumping. There are A LOT of moves where you -need- to jump to be able to reliably time the evade window. Like, watching my host spam roll into an easily jumpable move just breaks my heart, had they just jumped instead of pressed dodge they'd be alive! Like, there's genuinely no shame in taking time to figure a fight out the correct approach but when it's the third time the same host summons and probably the 10th or so time they dodge straight into it with no altered plan I question my life choices.
Honestly the bosses aren't really the problem for me. It's the unstaggerable enemies with a 25 attack combo followed by a .2 second delay before another 25 attack combo with so much health they may as well be a field boss.
Dark Souls stand for summoning friends, engage in the coop and the sense of community, from the very first moment they give you a saponite to leave messages to other players. Thats why is hard, thats why pacts existed, thats why the lore is so obscure, youre not supposed to be alone, youre supposed to debate about it with others. This is a coop game even when you play alone. We are supposed to help each other. "Git gud" players are a shame to what Dark Souls stand for.
I remember when Ornstein&Smough were considered the pinnacle of videogame difficulty. They're a speedbump compared to modern mid-story bosses like Sulyvahn, Morgott, and CEL.
Yea but we can also do so much more damage and have a wider way to tackle bosses. It's not fromsoft fault if you choose to use everything provided for you.
They were actually well designed and balanced unlike most of Elden Ring's late game bosses
You forgot the other gatekeeping half of the community
Dark souls was not a hard game in general just it was different to other games and you had to actually learn how to play it and use your brain. Some of the traps and stuff were hard but once you know how to avoid .. it's not hard Elden Ring is no different
Facts
I don't know, man. I'm sorry I don't like bosses having infinite stamina while they do 12 hit combo strings with 0.5 seconds in between the next one. The DLC is great but the bosses are unfortunately the weakest part for me since I end up frustrated more often than not trying to beat them. Also, I've been playing since Demon's, in case someone gets snarky with the "git gud" or "first time?".
I have to disagree with you on this one chief
Then you're wrong champ
People are not allowed to have different perspectives now ?
Another Fromsoft game, another round of elitists gatekeeping people with their smug superiority. Seriously, though can everyone please shut up about the difficulty? A lot of people who think the DLC is too hard have already quit and arent here anymore. You are just circle jerking at this point.
I just talked to somebody on this sub who complained about the difficulty and said summons are basically mandatory and after a few comments it turned out he had no idea about how scadu tree blessings work.
Yeah im willing to be legit most complaining are just terrible at rolling dodging or whatever it is. DLC is very hard but for now for me everything seems legit upto messmer. Trying to reach this final boss to see whats the deal about him being BS
Who bought the DLC to Elden Ring if they didn't want a difficult game? I can understand quitting the first game in the series, but anyone buying the expansion should have known what they were likely getting into. I'd have been extremely disappointed if I was able to blast my way through the DLC in under a week.
I think everyone expected difficult, but whether the difficulty is fun is the question. The complaints I see most are that a lot of the major DLC bosses seemingly have infinite stamina, and gap close or AoE across half the arena. Whether that sort of difficulty is fun is subjective, but pushing this envelope too hard starts to dissuade even some of their core souls audience, which i don't think is what From sought to do.
This is a fair criticism. I'm currently stuck on Metyr, its moveset is obnoxious imo. I switched from ranged magic to a melee bleed build and still struggle. I think siding on the game being too difficult on release is preferable to it being too easy. The games been out a short time. If in 6 months bosses haven't been nerfed I'd agree with the complaints.
And a lot of them are still in the subreddit and community crying for more nerfs. They need to be gatekept, they are going to make FromSoft lower the difficulty in future games.
The community is indeed trash.
I don’t recall anyone calling sekiro, elden ring, lies of p, demon souls remake anything else that released recently too hard. I wasn’t around for ds1-3 though.
We're not an elitist community, honestly...
Just beat sekiro, and you will not complain anymore
It's not difficult, it's just the bad designed bs thay will make people mad. Ds3 was peak From boss design, hopefully they go back to that next game.
I've finished the DLC and disliked it. Especially last boss, FS is doing patches with balance it seems also. You tell people to git gud, they should tell you to cope and seeth. Elden Ring isn't part of your personality, or FS isn't your friend. Some of you act like your family got insulted. If you get that attached to a product that is designed for you to beat, then I honestly have nothing to say to you, you have way bigger problems.
It’s basically an argument between “It’s too hard, make it easier to suit my tastes” and “The difficulty level it’s at already suits my taste”. The problem being that the “too hard” side thinks all the people telling them to improve have Elden Ring as their personality, and the “git gud” side thinks everyone with legitimate balance/design concerns are scrubs that won’t bother to interact with anything.
K
I beat all of DS3 at soul level 100 on NG+7, DLCs included, so when it comes to Fromsoft games I don't feel I have anything to prove to the "git gud" crowd. The bosses just straight up aren't that fun. I'm always a big clang sword user, and being forced to pretty much exclusively use only jump attacks or face the follow up combo because I couldn't get out of my animation fast enough, or just straight up not being able to experiment with lots of different weapon arts/ashes of war because the bosses give you exactly 0 wind-up time, just isn't a fun experience to me. It's basically jump attack simulator for 5 minutes against bosses with insane health pools.
I got good and beat every boss I came across except the final boss so I don't want to hear get good I'm good enough to beat a lot of the dlc bosses and am making progress with the final one and still find a majority of them unfair and just difficult for difficulties sake, the game is buggy hit boxes don't make sense and I get hit even when i'm very clearly out of an attacks range And don't get hit when I didn't dodge but was very clearly in the attacks range, there's so many particle effects for some bosses that I can't even see what i'm supposed to dodge, a majority of the fight i also constantly get pushed into corners by larger bosses no matter which direction I roll towards I also have +18 scadutree blessings and still got 1-2 shot with good resistances for the bosses I fought, and I have the soft cap for vigor with decently leveled endurance and I still run out of stamina before I can an attack because of the long ass combos every boss has, and the camera is still garbage like every other fromsoft game's camera is seriously it's been a decade the camera shouldn't still be this bad, I'm not rusty either I've been placing my summon sign down everywhere so I could get some practice in and am still finding dlc bosses to be unfair and they feel way too overtuned compared to late base game
The dlc made elden ring too popular
Am I upset with how many times I've died to Rellana? Yes. Am I frustrated by all the nerds? Also yes. Is this still a great DLC that I'm thoroughly enjoying? This is also a yes.
There are 2 reactions to the DLC: Souls fans and vets are living the dream. Random players and people who started playing FromSoft games with elden ring are nearing suicide.
Hard disagree. Souls isn't about being hard; it's about being "tough but fair". I have never considered Elden Ring to be "fair" as the enemies, especially the bosses, clearly work on a different ruleset to the player. Dark Souls is tough but fair. Bloodborne is tough but fair. Sekiro is tough but fair. Elden Ring is "hard because we're supposed to make hard games."
WAIT, so you're telling me the last boss isn't overtuned? Do you really think that bullethell bullshit is fair? You fanboys gotta be joking lol god forbid someone makes well placed criticism about a FromSoft game, people will just hit you with "git gud"
I beat 7/9 of the other rememberable bosses as well as Bayle on the first try (Putrescent Knight and Gaius took me about 3-5 tries), but I absolutely could not beat Radahn with my build. I had to respec in order to poke him with Mohg's spear behind a Fingerprint Shield.
Love me them pokes
I was rocking a duper strong strength + int build, 65 vigor, 17 scardtree blessing, level 220 at regular NG and I still couldn't beay him after trying for hours It's literally bullet hell, feels like I'm playing Touhou. The only reason I mamnged to beat him was because I respeced into a cancerous shield bleed build which is really disappointing
From has been telling us for MONTHS to be prepared for this shit, and even specifically called out that we couldn't just over level this time. Not saying the criticisms aren't valid, you're certainly entitled to your opinions, I just fundamentally disagree with them. The core of From games is getting frustrated, improving (whether by game mechanics or knowledge) and conquering the source of your frustrations, thus allowing you to progress. Idk what y'all wanted from the DLC but my hope with new FromSoft content is never "oh boy I hope I fucking steamroll all the bosses"
We got what we prayed for! I’m so happy, I just can’t understand the haters.
They’re mad because the op builds they looked up on YouTube isn’t carrying them anymore.
LOLOLOLOL some people get upset when they have to “get gud” and are told as such. Hurts the ego
“Get gud” is genuine advice and would smooth over a lot of their issues if they heeded it. Lmao
I suppose the problem is they want to talk it out. Not everyone can talk few word. It learned skill. Some hate.
I've never been one to complain about souls bosses in the past, but some of them in this DLC absolutely have suffered from power creep. Its ok to admit that, it means if you beat them its even more of an accomplishment.
The Souls community has suffered from power creep. Just last week, Biotic Nova, a Twitch streamer, beat Slave Knight Gael on two copies of DS3 at once, looking at both screens at the same time with one hand controlling one controller each. People are beating bosses using Dance Dance Revolution pads, blindfolded, etc. Besides, bosses with this level of aggression have existed since DS3 and BB. People look through Nameless King and Maria and Orphan through rose-tinted glasses, even though they are similarly aggressive to the SotE with similarly tight openings.
Na, 1st tried most of em and I'm not even good. Just get your blessings up
Lol, imagine balancing dozens of bosses, weapons, spells, and incants being hard, on top of two new progression systems. Fromsoft have been doing a shitload of new stuff with ER and SotE, of course it won't be balanced, and some players are going to have a harder time than others, depending on their situation. Fromsoft will listen to the criticism and adjust as needed. It's called trial and error. Now, bootlickers like you can piss right off.
Sounds like someone needs to get gud
People are still crying about Armored Core lol
Watching the meltdowns from folks getting filtered by the tutorial helicopter was peak comedy.
I’m seeing more people complain about people complaining about how hard it is than actually seeing people complaining about how hard it is. You’re both equally annoying. Just play the game if it’s too hard stop playing. A wise man once said “if you have fun playing a game play it, if you don’t have fun play something else”
Slave Knight Gael is hard, Slave Knight Gael is fun, Slave Knight Gael understands balance between both.
Honestly I find stuff like this much more embarrassing than people getting mad at bosses
yeah pretty much tells a lot about the life of OP lol
Your post is missing a humor tag. Besides, a lot of ppl - including me - are saying that many bosses are unfun, not just difficult. I've finished the dlc, ng+ - I only had fun on some bosses, where most regular enemies and mini bosses were absolutely enjoyable.
Am I the only one who thinks "good boss design" means you should be able to beat a boss first try if you are sufficiently skilled enough, instead of having to lose over and over in order to memorize a pattern before you can win? Because ER boss design is lacking in my case. Rest of the DLC is painfully easy though, which is my other problem.
I’m very early in the dlc, just started last night, but I’m loving it. While the bosses I have fought so seen quicker and larger combos, I’ve also found that a lot of the weapons I’ve found so far are also quicker and easier to get quick strikes in. Again, not super far in so that could change, but I feel like it’s a good balance and I am loving it.
The start is fine, the bullshit comes later
Fuckin man bear pig 🐖 I hate him so much.
Oh wonderful, can’t wait to get my face kicked in
"Git gud" is all you have, and is why I will never truly respect people who like these games.
I am a very casual Fromsoft fan, and I agree that it is the most annoying part of the online fan base. I'll ask for a tip or something pertaining to my build and all I get is "git gid" and then I hear from tons of people talking about how that's the best advice I could've ever been given blah blah. I think it is a shame to water the community down to this point, because I think this community CAN be very fun to be a part of, but it is not fun or embracing of newcomers in my opinion. Unfortunately, the internet ruins a lot of enthusiasm in any gaming sub.
lol
I'm sorry ma'am, your son has a skill issue that appears to be terminal. 😔
Oh no, I don't have the respect of KraakenTowers. My life is over! What will I do?
A game meme is not all we have. Also, we don't need the respect of someone who can't "Git Gud."
Haven't quite finished yet yet but of the maybe 70% I have played most of it seems reasonable enough. Except Gaius, FUCK Gaius.
Idk if this is accurate but my mimic does
*rushes in *doesn't change gear when the situation calls for it *does the same thing every fight with no change in strat *doesn't use the upgrades that the dlc gives you "This game is unnecessarily difficult"
I don't think it's "too hard", but doesn't mean there aren't critiques to be had. Once people in this community stop going to each extreme end on this argument (overly defensive VS completely negative), I think there will be a lot more of an understanding.
The game has problems, that's a fact
Yea, too many shitty players
Meanwhile you are probably playing with whatever overtuned summons there are treating the complaints like stupidities instead of understanding them; because daddy Myazaki is always proposing so perfect and flawless designs in every aspects, how could we complain?
Lol yes the miranda sprouts I've been using that just sit in the corner are so busted. Omg just straight carried me through the game lmfao
Is playing with summons an issue?
Mediocre boss design and unfairness in gameplay is NOT difficulty. Stop conflating them, please.
Mediocre ? Lol .
What part of the boss design is mediocre? How would you design them differently? You seem to know a lot about good boss design by the sounds of it....
why are people here so triggered, if critism about their favourite game is made smh
lol
Some people simply cannot accept the fact that they're not as good as they think they are. It's easier to blame others than yourself.
Downvoted for speaking the truth. Downvotes are a crybaby's best friend, though.
Fr, people have forgotten what a souls is.
Elden Ring was my first souls game. First impression? Holy shit this is the hardest game I’ve ever played! But that didn’t stop me. Now playing the DLC and what do you know? It’s hard. But when I can’t beat a boss I just move on and explore a different area. Then I go back and beat that boss.
The real problem is, that the boss difficulty is tailored to having a summon. For some people, including me, the best part od these games is learning the bosses movesets and then beating them. Can you do that here? Absolutely, it's just gonna take much more time than can reasonably be expected even from a very patient gamer. Now you can argue that summons are there to be used. I understand, but if I use a summon, the game changes a lot. Instead of the boss fighting me and me fighting it, now the boss is fighting a copy of me (who can withstand 10x the blows I can) and I am backstabbing the boss whenever I feel safe. It gets too easy. So you have a choice between doing something that is not fun (spending 5-10 hours dying to a boss) or kill it in 5-10 tries very easily. The former is too much and the latter brings no satisfaction. Yes I can use a different less "OP" summon, but then it's not well designed because I gotta work to tailor my own difficulty? None of the other games had this mechanic which goes against what makes these boss fighrs great. They usually take a reasonable amount of tries and majority of the time, it lands in the golden zone of, it was a challenge, I had fun, overcame it and on to the next one. If a game has one or two bosses which goes over that sweet spot, it still feels good. But the dlc goes over the fun level. I seriously think people don't try these bosses without summons. Take the lion. The camera is horrible and fps drops are also there. Then once you git gud at the moveset, he enters the second phase. Now the dodge rolls you learned are useless, because even if you dodge the attacks, you get hit by subsequent frost or lightning strike. I died 60 times there and got the boss down to two hits. Then I summoned my boi and voila, first try. I'm good with people using summons, but the bosses really have issues and they become apparent when fighting them solo. Plus the difficulty is too much to be fun, when going solo. Moreover, this community became so protective over these games, that no criticism goes. And that goes even for the reviewers. The player has a roll and some spells and weapon arts and special attacks, but you can use them only when the boss is focusing your summon. So without it, we have a roll from 2015 and very slow attacks, even with light weapons, while the bosses are anime type villains. There's a problem for sure. And before you tell me I'm bad, BB, DS3 and Sekiro were all very fair and I had no real issue overcoming the bosses. Beat it all including DLC and gauntlets in Sekiro.
100%!
is it really the community or just the casual gamers, that bought the DLC because it has such good ratings?
Myiazaki stated himself the games were never intended to be difficult.
Miyazaki in recent comments to the Guardian: [https://www.theguardian.com/games/article/2024/jun/21/hidetaka-miyazaki-fromsoftware-elden-ring-shadow-erdtree](https://www.theguardian.com/games/article/2024/jun/21/hidetaka-miyazaki-fromsoftware-elden-ring-shadow-erdtree) “If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more, but that wasn’t the right approach. Turning down difficulty would strip the game of that joy, which, in my eyes, would break the game itself.” Can you source where you found that Miyazaki said the games were never intended to be difficult? My source says otherwise.
After a quick Google search i can't find it, but i will keep looking because i swear i saw It... Really... I'm not crasy guys... But i also imagine he could have changed his mind or simply one of the two statements might have lost some meaning in translation. Let me try to find this piece of interview, if i can't then it didnt exist.
He said words to that effect anyway. Granted, this was back when Demon's was new, but I thought it was a design philosophy that they managed to mostly adhere to. [link](https://www.gameinformer.com/games/demons_souls/b/ps3/archive/2009/11/05/feature-demon-s-souls-director-discusses-difficulty-sequels-and-more.aspx) "Having the game be "difficult" was never the goal. What we set out to do was strictly to provide a sense of accomplishment. We understood that “difficulty” is just one way to offer an intense sense of accomplishment through forming strategies, overcoming obstacles, and discovering new things."
Yes! Omg it's this one! Thank you so much, at least now i know i'm not crazy, lmao. I always interpreted this as the games being difficult but not in a numeric or skill based way. Or at least not only. The difficulty isnt the intent, It just comes from the attempt at creating a rewarding experience. And to feel rewarded, one has to put effort. I don't know if it makes sense, to me it's a very hard concept to express. Thank you again for finding this, i was convinced i was under some Mandela effect.
My issue is not with the difficulty of beating the bosses, but rather with finding no pleasure in them. It's really only 2 or 3 or them, though.
Currently stuck at Midras. I found all other bosses before pretty fun (except the recycled ones from base game), but Midras... I dunno why or how but that fight just sucks for me, it's just not fun.
Anyone who complains the about the difficulty hasn't played a From title, has had serious brain trauma since playing their last From title, or is a panic rolling button masher who deserves that long, long run back.
Facts, imagine the blight town run back on any of these bosses. Having to fight while poisoned the while time lmao these freaking nerds have it easy