Opinion: Any boss that can one shot you is bad game design

[Krythic]

Edit: It seems I should offer a definition of "one shotting" here, because this appears to be a matter of contention. I define one-shotting as any attack that can outright kill a player with an average stat spread. Or in other words, 40 vigor as a baseline.

First off, this isn't me raging because I can't "git gud". Look at my achievements, I've tackled a good portion of bosses in the game. I'm near the end. I played Ds3 and beat it twice. I know how souls games work. I understand that you have to dance with your enemies and punish them.

So with this out of the way, I just wanted to say that any boss being able to one shot you is bad game design. There's really no intelligent way to argue against this, either. If you try, I'll laugh at you. It's not fun, it's not engaging. It's not even difficult, it's just overtly unfair. And I think that's the main problem with Souls games as a whole. There are too many bosses that can kill you instantly. I'm lvl 94 right now, wearing armor that negates 40% of physical damage, and I think around 20% in collective elemental resistances (I haven't looked that well tbh, but it's not a negligible amount.

I have 40 Vigor. Enemies can still one shot me. I might as well be running around naked because it doesn't matter what you have equipped in this game. Armor seems more like a "feel good" mechanic. Does it protect you? Allegedly. But because enemies deal a set amount of damage instead of set + percentile of max health, and that set number can clearly be within the thousands, 40% reduction, etc, doesn't matter. Bosses are designed to kill you instantly by doing such absurd levels of damage. The game is simply imbalanced in this regard.

I'm not asking for the game to be easier. I'm merely attempting to articulate that allowing bosses to one shot you is not good game design. What's worse is enemies that have no cooldown between attacks, and can just pulverize you six to seven times in less than a second. You miss a single dodge, or anything gets in the way, you're dead. Lmao, have fun taking five minutes to run back just to do it all over again.

And I know what a lot of you guys are going to ask: "How can you fix it?". Well, it's quite simple. Don't allow one-shot kill attacks. The damage for those attacks should be deferred to a percentile of max health. Massive attacks from huge bosses can deal 75% damage of max health + a modifier of straight damage. Reserve truly one shot damage attacks to massive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bosses, like giants, but make these attacks telegraphed and avoidable. Any attack combo that a boss does should not be allowed to outright kill you, unless you get hit with each and every component of the combo. If you get hit with every attack, that's you messing up, and you should be punished for it. A player dodging 5 out of 6 attacks shouldn't be instantly killed for failing to dodge the 6th one. They should be punished for it, sure. But not killed.

There we go. That's my rant.

[Nero Armis]

I kinda agree. Though against radahn. I played against him 3 times already on different characters. When he pulls out the giant meteors to follow him. ( I think this is more a glitch? )
Fought him on one character has medium armor 20 in vigor got hit by 1 I lived just fine.
Fought him on another character with 30 vigor light armor got hit by 1 lived just fine.
Fought him with blaiid ( which is sorta heavy? Atleast the chest ) with 40 Vigor. Got hit by 1 meteor instant death.
I was really confused... I ended up going again and beat him like it was nothing as he is easy.
Just seemed really odd as I was even wearing magic resist talisman just incase.
I have only seen 3 other bosses that do complete one shots. But they normally have a big tell....Unless they take literally most of a room in a map.. good luck and dodge like crazy into the boss.

[zero]

Първоначално публикувано от Fen'Haral:

Първоначално публикувано от zero:

agree, this is a new issue with the souls games, priror games did not really have 1 shots if you had proper life, but it doesn't appear to be the case here.

not sure what the problem is exactly, if armor just is bad or if bosses are just way overtuned, but no boss should be 1 shotting if you have the proper stats for that area.

lol this game has exactly the same boss mechanics, if anything these are easier. There are No Mechanical One Shots.

same boss mechanics does not mean anything? its a from game using the same engine(or at least core gameplay), of course its using the same mechanics, but mechanics are not damage values.

[NewYears1978]

What I have kind of learned in Elden Ring vs previous souls games is that this one is MUCH more reliant on vigor. If you try to do a build without much vigor like you might do in Dark Souls 1 with a low Vitality build, yeah, you get one shot a lot.

I was trying to run with only 20 Vigor and was getting one shut by a lot of the bosses as well. Even with boosted Vigor you don't have much room for error.

[Krythic]

Първоначално публикувано от Nerevar:

someone didnt level vigor enough. welcome to why the 60 softcap is important. no boss can oneshot you with that.

Good name. Morrowind was a great game for its time.

[Fen'Haral]

Първоначално публикувано от zero:

Първоначално публикувано от Fen'Haral:

lol this game has exactly the same boss mechanics, if anything these are easier. There are No Mechanical One Shots.

same boss mechanics does not mean anything? its a from game using the same engine(or at least core gameplay), of course its using the same mechanics, but mechanics are not damage values.

lol do you even know what the discussion was about before you chimed in then. there are no one shots.

[Anthreris]

Първоначално публикувано от Emerald Lance:

If a boss can one shot you, your vigor isn't high enough.

The previous games worked with lower Vigor amounts, my mage should be squishy but I shouldn't need 15-20 more levels just to ensure I can survive one hit. In Dark Sous it was roughly 3 hits for a squishy mage, now everyone needs way too many points into Vigor, unless they are capable of doing no hit runs on everything. This is equivalent to the Bloodborne Chalice Dungeons where your health was halved.

[Krythic]

Първоначално публикувано от Fen'Haral:

Първоначално публикувано от zero:

same boss mechanics does not mean anything? its a from game using the same engine(or at least core gameplay), of course its using the same mechanics, but mechanics are not damage values.

lol do you even know what the discussion was about before you chimed in then. there are no one shots.

I also enumerated two bosses that can one shot you. And I've heard that Melina is a boss at one point, and she has tons of one shot kills. I can't verify that, though, because I'm not there yet in the game.

[Corona Scurrae]

use proper armor and invest some points in vigor. have seen too many get one shot at bosses because of that.

[zero]

Първоначално публикувано от Fen'Haral:

Първоначално публикувано от zero:

same boss mechanics does not mean anything? its a from game using the same engine(or at least core gameplay), of course its using the same mechanics, but mechanics are not damage values.

lol do you even know what the discussion was about before you chimed in then. there are no one shots.

i mean there are, hence the discussion title.

i am very impressed you think a spell being blue vs a hammer swing has any bearing on the damage as the game shows it, especially when multiple people have stated this issue in the thread alone.

there are many things, especially in the end game that can 1 shot you with 40 vit, which is strange.

[Fen'Haral]

Първоначално публикувано от Gman:

Първоначално публикувано от Emerald Lance:

If a boss can one shot you, your vigor isn't high enough.

The previous games worked with lower Vigor amounts, my mage should be squishy but I shouldn't need 15-20 more levels just to ensure I can survive one hit. In Dark Sous it was roughly 3 hits for a squishy mage, now everyone needs way too many points into Vigor, unless they are capable of doing no hit runs on everything. This is equivalent to the Bloodborne Chalice Dungeons where your health was halved.

Thoughtful, pretty much the reason everyones saying just level the vigor and we're not really in arms about it is, the enemies that do massive damage, they make sense to. Fromsoft built a world of a larger scale with elden ring and likewise our character levels and progresses on a new scale

[Fen'Haral]

Първоначално публикувано от zero:

Първоначално публикувано от Fen'Haral:

lol do you even know what the discussion was about before you chimed in then. there are no one shots.

i mean there are, hence the discussion title.

i am very impressed you think a spell being blue vs a hammer swing has any bearing on the damage as the game shows it, especially when multiple people have stated this issue in the thread alone.

there are many things, especially in the end game that can 1 shot you with 40 vit, which is strange.

But the point is, nothing can, mechanically, one shot you. Its all on your stats and conditions of the fight.

[Red Phantom]

I can agree that some of the boss design is more "cheesy" or less fun in general but by the time I got to 40 vigor I didn't find anything that could outright one shot me.

[Krythic]

Първоначално публикувано от zero:

Първоначално публикувано от Fen'Haral:

lol do you even know what the discussion was about before you chimed in then. there are no one shots.

i mean there are, hence the discussion title.

i am very impressed you think a spell being blue vs a hammer swing has any bearing on the damage as the game shows it, especially when multiple people have stated this issue in the thread alone.

there are many things, especially in the end game that can 1 shot you with 40 vit, which is strange.

It's like I said, I'm fine with contextual one shots that make sense. A dragon plummeting from the sky and dive bombing me into the ground should be an instant kill. A giant picking me up and slamming me repeatedly into the ground should be an instant kill.

[FireShark]

vigor no longer = ezpz mode. git gud.

[zero]

Първоначално публикувано от Fen'Haral:

Първоначално публикувано от zero:

i mean there are, hence the discussion title.

i am very impressed you think a spell being blue vs a hammer swing has any bearing on the damage as the game shows it, especially when multiple people have stated this issue in the thread alone.

there are many things, especially in the end game that can 1 shot you with 40 vit, which is strange.

But the point is, nothing can, mechanically, one shot you. Its all on your stats and conditions of the fight.

mechanically multiple things, as the examples provided in this thread alone, by multiple people, can 1 shot you at 40 fit.