Does anyone else agree that the boss fights in this game are mostly bad?

[Iskandar]

Just to preface, I love fromsoft games, I've completed dark souls 3 fifteen times, and played every single souls/Bloodborne game multiple times. I even almost completed a no hit run on dark souls 3 a few months back (got hit against Twin Princes), so I am not a bad player by any means. I have also completed Elden Ring as well.

But honestly the boss fights in this game just seem really poorly designed, almost everys ingle boss outside of the story bosses are reskins (I must have fought Erdtree avatar over 10 times now lol) and they all just spam attack quickly like a BloodBorne boss giving you no opportunity to heal and do a full attack combo (in Bloodborne the HP regeneration attacks and the fast paced nature make this balanced), the bosses themselves just dont seem fun to fight for me. I cannot think of a single Elden Ring boss that even comes close to the fun of fighting Ludwig, Gael, Friede or Midir, hell even some DS2 bosses like Alonne and Fume Knight are way better than the bosses id describe as fun in this game.

Also there are no standout boss soundtracks, no boss track in this game comes close to Abyss Watchers or Ludwig.

Also can we talk about the amount of unfair gank bosses in this game? Seriously it's like Dark souls 2 all over again, FromSoft forgot what made O&S such a good and fair boss fight. 2 crucible knights and 2 GodSkins is just really awful boss design.

I love this game and I'd give it a 9/10, but honestly out of all of their games this is one of the worst Fromsoft games for boss fights, the worse being Dark Souls 2. BloodBorne and DS3 bosses top this games bosses in literally every single way. It feels like the game is trying to force you into using spirit summons to defeat certain bosses.

[folko1]

引用自 rebb：

Given how huge this game is, i wouldn't be surprised if they simply hadn't enough time to thoroughly balance each and every boss, sadly.

Suppose so.

I just hope they actually bother to balance stuff tho..

[Bleezip]

引用自 BruhBruhMan：

引用自 Lowell：

Shame to see people being dismissive/rude of other people's opinions in this thread/forum.

I'm taking Elden Ring very slowly, trying to take in as much in as I can whilst I journey through it. (I'm still at the starting area at 20 hours lol).

I've only fought a handful of bosses so far but I think godrick is really cool. You sound like a very experienced souls player whereas I'm a bit of a casual but I wouldn't say the boss encounters are bad at all! - I've enjoyed each one so far

Godrick was a decent boss, but I'm in the late game and I have never seen such bs in any souls game

Have you managed to beat the gargoyals? Because I seriously can't. :P

[ChiefKeefSoldier]

引用自 Bleezip：

引用自 BruhBruhMan：

Godrick was a decent boss, but I'm in the late game and I have never seen such bs in any souls game

Have you managed to beat the gargoyals? Because I seriously can't. :P

Yeah I just tried rushing the first gargoyle asap. Stay near the entrance because the other idiot will walk most of the way there

[Zyrconia]

Margit, when I first encountered him about 13 hours in left a really bad taste in my mouth. It was an omen of what is to come, with the horrible cheap boss design.

It is only fitting that yesterday I rage quit after fighting a boss a single time: Morgott, who is definitely not Margit, and is definitely not significantly more cheap and unfair and just completely fitting Dark Souls. Sarcasm ends here. This guy is almost too fast for Bloodborne. Maybe he would work in Sekiro if most of his attacks were parryable.

I put in today bout 40 tries on him, got him to phase 2 about 3 times and each time I dies to his special new one-shot red weapon hit. How I am going to counter that? Hopefully not by keeping my distance. I refuse to do that. Bosses should have opening, sit still and be beatable by keeping close distance on them. That is the Dark Souls way. I don't know what this is.

I'm definitely not going to beat him. I won't even try for now.

The question is if I should delete the game or go ♥♥♥♥ around more in the open world?

[A-Silly-Bun-Bun]

引用自 Zyrconia：

Margit, when I first encountered him about 13 hours in left a really bad taste in my mouth. It was an omen of what is to come, with the horrible cheap boss design.

It is only fitting that yesterday I rage quit after fighting a boss a single time: Morgott, who is definitely not Margit, and is definitely not significantly more cheap and unfair and just completely fitting Dark Souls. Sarcasm ends here. This guy is almost too fast for Bloodborne. Maybe he would work in Sekiro if most of his attacks were parryable.

I put in today bout 40 tries on him, got him to phase 2 about 3 times and each time I dies to his special new one-shot red weapon hit. How I am going to counter that? Hopefully not by keeping my distance. I refuse to do that. Bosses should have opening, sit still and be beatable by keeping close distance on them. That is the Dark Souls way. I don't know what this is.

I'm definitely not going to beat him. I won't even try for now.

The question is if I should delete the game or go ♥♥♥♥ around more in the open world?

Summon the maiden girl and use mimic tear and just nuke morgott. But if you dont like Morgott you arent in for a good time with the rest of the game ahead of you. There are some faster and more aggresive bosses

[nssBoB]

dunno, i enjoyed most fights in the game. yes the reskins are little glaring but i suppose thats the price we have to pay for the sheer size of the world that actually feels alive.

[Nauct]

引用自 Grad：

It sounds like your expectations were too high when you say you have played the series to death and seriously attempt no-hit runs.
I am not saying you are wrong in your assumptions, but a lot of the bosses almost require the player to utilise spirit summons, and they went hard on the sheer amount of them.

I didn't use any spirit summons for any of the bosses, why are you saying this?

[###Major Error###]

引用自 Zyrconia：

I am not going to read this whole thread, but in short, yes.

These bosses are super cheap, super fast, intentionally made to annoy and juke you, the have random number of attacks in combos, timing specially designed to get you, chases, follow ups, grabs, heal punishes, can cross the whole arena in one move, etc.

The worst part is that most booses are so unfair and annoying that you want to get over them as fast as possible. This combined with the fact that they have very little openings, often just enough for 1-2 hits, created the following universal strategy that so far works the best and is safest: keep your distance, wait for the right moment, dash in, use a single OP ash of war that has more than double you weapon damage, reach, comes out fast and doesn't use any stamina, then dash out.

This completely neutralizes two of the core design pillars of Dark Souls: weapon choice and move-set (they are all equal with the same ash of war) and stamina (in ER fighting is not about careful management of stamina while keeping DPS up).

Additionally the whole stupid debate about easy mode (yeah there should be both easier and harder modes from the start, including NG+7 from he get go) has lead tot his stupid "organic" "choose your own difficulty system", which is lauded as something good, but it so much worse. As an example, summons either do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, or fully trivialize the mechanics of the fight. How about an inorganic completely artificial and unnatural difficulty slider, where instead of turning the fight into utter chaos and robing me of the experience of a one on one duel, I just select easy mode from a menu and the boss has 10% less damage and moves 5% slower? That would be better.

This is a great game and I really like it, but the bosses are really bad by DS standards. I'm really starting to think that Miyazaki and From Soft do not understand the essence, the spark of what they originally created, it was not intentional, they just stumbled into it by chance and went with it. And once they tried to innovate and iterate upon it, since they didn't understand it, are missing the point.

The series has moved away from the concept of one-on-one honor duels against a formidable but utterly fair and readable bosses, who barely have any cheap attacks.

The series has moved away from booses and enemies where if you get hit it is your fault. Now it is often the game's fault, both by making timing too tight and by intentionally using juke moves and having combos where timings are intentionally selected in such a way that you can't read them, you need to memorize unnatural timings instead.

And the game has moved away from good tight labyrinthine level design that loops back on itself and has meaningful shortcuts.

I really like the open world in this game. It is its best part, the one good thing and other open worlds will now suck in comparison. Can you really go play Assassin's Creed Valhalla after this? Nope.

But it came at a steep price: every minute you are spending in the fantastic open-world you are not spending in traditional "legacy dungeons" and when your each them, they are not as good.

Added on top of that that I still see some of the annoyances introduced in Demon' Souls and the same bugs and it looks like From Soft are refusing to learn. Because they don't know what good games are and did not reach an understanding of said concepts, they just randomly stumbled upon it and ran with it.

So yeah, bosses are really poorly designed by DS standards. Are they bad by general game standards? I don't know. If the same bosses came in the Surge 3, would it not face intense criticism for have implemented bad bosses? How about Lords of the Fallen 2? Mortal Shell 2.

Nioh 3? Wait, no way. I played Nioh 2 recently, and even the cheapest and most annoying boss in that game was instantly readable, when it hit me was my fault and was not designed to be unfair and juke you.

I agree, with the exception that the open world is also bad. It looks nice but i found it very shallow (my favourite open world was in Gothic games). Regarding Nioh, would you recomnd it? I may want to try it instead of this.

[Zyrconia]

引用自 Ectier：

引用自 Zyrconia：

Margit, when I first encountered him about 13 hours in left a really bad taste in my mouth. It was an omen of what is to come, with the horrible cheap boss design.

It is only fitting that yesterday I rage quit after fighting a boss a single time: Morgott, who is definitely not Margit, and is definitely not significantly more cheap and unfair and just completely fitting Dark Souls. Sarcasm ends here. This guy is almost too fast for Bloodborne. Maybe he would work in Sekiro if most of his attacks were parryable.

I put in today bout 40 tries on him, got him to phase 2 about 3 times and each time I dies to his special new one-shot red weapon hit. How I am going to counter that? Hopefully not by keeping my distance. I refuse to do that. Bosses should have opening, sit still and be beatable by keeping close distance on them. That is the Dark Souls way. I don't know what this is.

I'm definitely not going to beat him. I won't even try for now.

The question is if I should delete the game or go ♥♥♥♥ around more in the open world?

Summon the maiden girl and use mimic tear and just nuke morgott. But if you dont like Morgott you arent in for a good time with the rest of the game ahead of you. There are some faster and more aggresive bosses

Yeah but isn't that incredibly lame?

Isn't that the point of this whole thread? That if you are an average skill player who finished the rest of the Souls titles with relative ease, will feel one of these two things.
a. That the bosses are too hard and unapproachable, not beatable solo in a fair fight
or
b. That the boss design is really bad or unfair, regardless if you can beat the boss or not

I'm sure if I persevere, use some cheaper strats, level up 5 more times vit, summon, etc, I can beat him. But why should I? What motivation do I have to beat a boss that feels bad. There are literally hundreds of really bad games out there with bad boss fights in them. Made by people who lack talent.

But I came here to experience good combat with good bosses made by old pros. Yet I walk away disappointed.

[Zyrconia]

引用自 ###Major Error###：

I agree, with the exception that the open world is also bad. It looks nice but i found it very shallow (my favourite open world was in Gothic games). Regarding Nioh, would you recomnd it? I may want to try it instead of this.

Don't know, I'm super biased: I love that game. Both Nioh 1 and 2. At the time it came out it out-souled souls games for me. It has incredibly high skill ceiling.

You can play it as a standard Dark Souls games, just dodge, use one weapon, block (and yes, block is very strong in Nioh, as is dodge, different tools for different jobs, you'll need both), never ki pulse, never stance change, never combo and I think you'll have a jolly old time. All the bosses are fair and beatable. Well, there are about 2-3 less fair bosses/game and one ghimick boss/game.

Or you can go absolutely wild and use combos to lock down foes and dominate, while fully and actively controlling you stamina regen like in these random videos from Poofer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PYb-2OC1X8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5x9IWBRFuo

You can play it as Dark Souls or a weird slower but still combo heavy Devil May Cry-ish game and anything in between.

Here is my favorite early game Nioh 1 boss with some imperfect gameplay (not from me):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DemQ15Iy7HQ

This boss is actually quite hard in the beginning, but compare it's speed and movement readability with Elden Ring cheap bosses. When I was new this boss took me multiple game sessions to beat, but once I beat her, the boss "clicked", like it does in good DS games. Suddenly you can dodge all the hard hitting attacks and you win the fight relatively untouched. And after beating her I got that DS post boss high and satisfaction.

Something that doesn't happen in ER BTW. Stupid staggered 10 hit combos that all have different timing, the final attack has a chase and a hold and when you finally think it is all over, the boss uses a back swipe followed by an AoE? Yeah, things like that don't click. And this doesn't happen in Nioh.

My biggest criticism to Nioh is the loot. You get tons of Diablo loot. Tons. Like so much that it is annoying. It is doubly annoying since random ♥♥♥♥♥♥ loot and builds will barely impact your damage, except for the weapon, which is super important, but really optimized BiS gear will make super OP.

I hate grinding in general and went though the games with relatively bad gear, using my skill, not my gear. And it was fine. But for end-game I grinded a lot, optimized my gear, got decent gear, and I was 2-3 shotting bosses. with BiS gear you can one-shot most bosses.

[DeadlyFred]

I feel like a lot of the enemy design and tuning is generally "off" in this game. Thankfully you can just summon your Nekromon and/or leverage OP weapon arts to take care of them but... that kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it? As much as I'm generally enjoying Elden Ring it is genuinely the least engrossing and satisfying Souls game I've ever played. And I mean yeah... I don't HAVE to eat the cheese but it seems as if the game wants me to because it has gone out of its way to make its formula as unapproachable as possible?

It really does just feel like the game was made for the tryhards rather than intended to be "hard but fair", but then they sprinkled in plenty of stuff you can exploit to get through it anyhow. Personally I'd rather have a well balanced game with a cohesive design ethic but that's just me.

[nateraade]

引用自 Snefru：

First thing I do in games like this is turn the music off so I’ll trust you on that part.

Who the ♥♥♥♥ does that?! XD

[Troglodyte]

引用自 Grad：

It sounds like your expectations were too high when you say you have played the series to death and seriously attempt no-hit runs.
I am not saying you are wrong in your assumptions, but a lot of the bosses almost require the player to utilise spirit summons, and they went hard on the sheer amount of them.

I think thats the point, players have a lot of more thing they can use now so they make Bosses unfair to make players utilize those things like spirits, food, alchemy

[darlliu]

Yeah same played all soulsborne, not a fan of the boss design of this game. I feel that Sekiro is a huge step forward for what combat experience From can give players, while Elden Ring is mostly a step back. I get it -- the game has tons of content and variety of strong builds, on the other hand.

Some of the unfun aspects of DS2 made a comeback. For example gank fights, reskinned bosses, very long combo testing your patience + delay attack + insta punish you for pressing button when it's not the attack window. Also late game mobs have way too much HP tempting you to run past everything even on first clear.

[Incomparable Groan]

Legacy dungeon bosses have been on point so far I think. Not a big fan of the dungeon or world bosses though.

As far as I can tell, many of the world bosses seem to be reused and as for the dungeon bosses it's usually just a normal mob with a health bar in a square room with adds. It was a bad idea in DS2 (congregation) and it was a bad idea here.

But then again, Elden Ring is a huge game so at least they've got a valid excuse for the lazy design in this particular aspect.