Do you think that Elden Ring is rather unfair than hard?

[Forever Culé]

You can tell me to git gud but the more I play, the more I feel like this game is rather unfair in many ways. Like enemies can hit through obstacles while you cannot, not just their melee attack but some of their skills also can go through obstacle. Their jump attacks will track your evasion like a homing missile while yours will be missed if they keep moving. I did test this with some enemies, it's clear that they can redirection their attacks mid air if you evade a bit early, they can also fly further to hit you if you step back. The rule that is applied to you doesn't apply to the enemies, it's just unfair. Then there's the size of the bosses and the stupid camera.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the game but I wish it could be a bit more fair.

[praise the sun]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Zombie:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Noeat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV2wTjQ9ijw

Why is it that every video of Malenia ever only has her do her waterfowl dance a single time or sometimes not at all? Her issue is when she uses it constantly. Though great to know you can just tank it with a shield if you're a tank build but is it -dodgeable- without bloodhound step?

it is, the same guy in the video linked has a tutorial for it, even for when you're right under her

[ZTL-Altima]

Opprinnelig skrevet av PrimeBrew:

Yeah it's DS2 2. Gank squads and AOE bosses abound

Exactly.

Mechanically, game is a very low standard one for From Software.

Main character is also very badly animated compared to DS3. It really seems like just an updated DS2 main, too. Even the horrendous running animation from DS2 is back.

[Zombie]

Opprinnelig skrevet av tarnished:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Zombie:

Why is it that every video of Malenia ever only has her do her waterfowl dance a single time or sometimes not at all? Her issue is when she uses it constantly. Though great to know you can just tank it with a shield if you're a tank build but is it -dodgeable- without bloodhound step?

it is, the same guy in the video linked has a tutorial for it, even for when you're right under her

And gets hit during that tutorial, and doesn't do it during the second phase when blocking it will cause rot. Most people are fine with dodging it if they happen to be a good distance away from her to run, it's when she uses it as soon as you punish one of her hits and reading many of the comments many people are still saying its so RNG that it's better to just block the first part of the attack and dodge the remaining ones.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Parsify:

Opprinnelig skrevet av PrimeBrew:

Yeah it's DS2 2. Gank squads and AOE bosses abound

Exactly.

Mechanically, game is a very low standard one for From Software.

Main character is also very badly animated compared to DS3. It really seems like just an updated DS2 main, too. Even the horrendous running animation from DS2 is back.

The hell are you talking about DS2 had the best animations DSK 1 and 3 have this tiptoe cadence, wielding massive 1-handed swords with a sprint that looks like they're skating on an Ice rink while it clips into their face. DS2's biggest accomplishment over any other Souls game was that it had way better animations, and Elden Ring doesn't have them. It's more of a refinement of Bloodbornes animations which at the very least are better than DKS1 and 3's.

[Hans Meiser]

From someone who played these games from the day Dark Souls came out on steam for thousands of hours by now. The complaining has always been the exact same.

Elden Ring isn't harder or more unfair than any of the other games, people just like to complain to avoid facing the fact that they're not as good as they think they are and that also goes for me, I complain and moan just the same often times when playing, but that's just in the moment and often doesn't hold up in the slightest in an objective review. If you don't believe me, record yourselves playing and you'll facepalm so hard, so often at what you're actually doing in the fight.

The one thing that does justify legitimate complains for ER bosses imo is the camera, whixh really suffers from the size and speed of some enemies. I play pure melee and sometimes it does feel like enemies weren't really tested for melee. Astel for example was just all over the place in terms of camera among others.

[The Happy Merchant]

Opprinnelig skrevet av PrimeBrew:

Yeah it's DS2 2. Gank squads and AOE bosses abound

That must be why I like it so much, DS2 was by far, the best coop/pvp souls game

Fight me

[ZTL-Altima]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Zombie:

The hell are you talking about DS2 had the best animations DSK 1 and 3 have this tiptoe cadence, wielding massive 1-handed swords with a sprint that looks like they're skating on an Ice rink while it clips into their face. DS2's biggest accomplishment over any other Souls game was that it had way better animations, and Elden Ring doesn't have them. It's more of a refinement of Bloodbornes animations.

LOL

you must enjoy 3 frame animations, man.

DS2 character moving looks like its ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on its pants and you cannot unsee it.

[Zombie]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Parsify:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Zombie:

The hell are you talking about DS2 had the best animations DSK 1 and 3 have this tiptoe cadence, wielding massive 1-handed swords with a sprint that looks like they're skating on an Ice rink while it clips into their face. DS2's biggest accomplishment over any other Souls game was that it had way better animations, and Elden Ring doesn't have them. It's more of a refinement of Bloodbornes animations.

LOL

I will never concede on the superiority of DS2's animations. It was like, the only accomplishment it made over the other games and everyone -at the time- agreed with my statements and only backpedaled to liking DS3's animations because they brought back the old Backstab animation and DS2 had a bad reception.


Back when DS2 released on the PS3 everyone including the community big names like EpicnameBro were loving the new animations, then DS3 essentially undos all of that and brings back DS1's robotic animations and weird jog unbefitting of giant one-handed weapons and they all acted like that's what they preferred in the first place.

[warmy bear]

Yes some stuff like Godskin Duo, but even the final boss etc once you realize how to dodge it etc becomes comparatively easy. Some stuff like Malenia is overtuned ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ compared to Orphan of Kos etc being supremely tough but fair

[Zombie]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Liminal Boundary:

Opprinnelig skrevet av AzureDreams:

godskin duo makes malenia, gargoyles, elden beast, everything after it looks easy... never died soo many times on a boss in this game

What's with people and godskin duo? Seriously, it's not that hard. I beat it in one try, and it was no problem. I did use the broken mimic tear and bleed katanas, but beating them easily with cheesy build is still beating them.

Because most people complaining about difficulty would rather a fight be based on skill rather than how well it can be outstatted or cheesed. With older games most bosses could be beaten on NG+7 naked with your fists, obviously it was a massive time-sink and no one should be forced to play that way but they were designed with Skill being the deciding factor, and any cheese strategies and stats were additional benefits to diversify gameplay.

The game hasn't been out that long, but I don't currently believe that the bosses are designed well enough to be only to fist-only fight them at NG+7 but I could be proven wrong in the future.

Winning isn't the only thing that matters to the people complaining.

Fighting Gehrman is a memorable and fun fight, on top of the beautiful scenery and music behind it his moveset is balanced and fair. You can cheese it by spamming parry on him if you want to(and you might not even consider this cheese) but it was a fun fight and winning it felt good.

Fighting Amygdalas beefed up version in Chalice Dungeons is ridiculous because she can't be approached from the front due to her massive rapid swing combo that can't be dodged, she also can't be sniped from afar because her moveset completely changes to players far away from her especially when she rips her arms off. So the fight ends up being to bait her jump attack and hit her in the head and repeat, or to hit her arm and let her turn around slightly, hit her again, and repeat until she stops making the same mistake.


Both of these fights can be ''beaten'' but which one do you think sounds more fun and fair?

[[Operator] Domsch]

The difficulty is all over the place. There are areas and mini-dungeons that are way too easy, and others literally raep me. What i hate the most, as i did in previous FS titles, homing missiles, and enemie attacks that have an absurd range. Like the "hug" from those rotten corpses, though you are like over 1m away, they still get you.

[Karak Sonen]

The first 3/4th of the game is fine, and fun.

The last 1/4th however was a war of attrition, with my patience just lasting long enough to see the end credits.

Bosses become so aggressive with eratic movesets, endless AOE, little to no windows (ESPECIALLY not for STR weapons) and so much damage that even with 2200 health and 30~ absorption in every category, you end up dead in 2-3 attacks.

It's especially annoying with how inconsistent it is, due to the open world design (Which is a massive detriment to From's usualy level design, where they could balance encounters and whatnot based on where a player is most likely going to be), and how they give players tools like the mimic which feel like they expect you to use them.
(And later bosses do feel like they are balanced around you using these super powerful items)

When a Soulsgame has "Doing it solo" as one of the harder challenges, it does become tiring, and when a basic rat has 1.200 health, and staggers you despite 45 poise, and takes off 15% of your health its even more tiring.

[Fulgrim]

I kinda feel it can be unfair, but at the same time we can make it unfair for the bosses.

I remember I was fighting an Erdtree Avatar, it was going well, but then i saw it split in two. I was just like "wtf, thats BS, no fair".... "Well, two can play at that game". Summoned a mimic and beat the crap out of him.

So, for unfair bosses you have the option to play unfairly as well.

[Mr.Hmm]

Only boss i had to cheese was Malenia, the rest i fought them normally without any cheese and had no problem.

Playing STR+Faith build.

[Zombie]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Liminal Boundary:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Zombie:

To be fair, I probably would have been okay even without the katanas and mimic, they spammed fireballs like crazy and those are easy to dodge.
Also I did co-op with people in divine tower of caelid basement for hours just murdering godskin apostle, even managed to do it without taking damage while distracting it for the whole fight for the host. So even if they're "difficult" I don't think it's to the point it warrants the reaction they're getting.

They're still a bad boss in my opinion. They are a reskinned fight(not even reskinned!) that is just made ''hard'' by slapping 2 really strong enemies in the same room together. Fighting them legitimately feels like fighting a Dark Souls 2 boss that was boringly designed.

The single fights were awesome, on their own their movesets are fun and challenging when you first encounter them and they could have just made the boss a ''godskin master'' or something as a single enemy that is capable of using stronger versions of both of their movesets and it would have been a much more interesting and fun fight.

Things can be hard in a fun way and they can be hard in a stupid way.

The design around being more open to cheesing the game hurts the design in many ways, there is a massive slew of really cool and interesting weapons and spells in the game but none of them perform very good at all save for a few small ones that perform ''good'' because of the games mechanics. Unless some uber diversity option comes into play there is no reason to use any other tear other than the Mimic Tear, it doubles your moveset and adds a massive HP clone of yourself that draws aggro from the enemy. This makes all other loot where you get summons useless, the Mimic can also be used in any build since it takes HP instead of FP.

So even though players can win and ''cheese'' fights and still consider that a good gameplay experience, what are we losing in return here? In previous Souls games cheesing was an optional thing, in ER many late game bosses start feeling so stupid and not worth the hassle that players are outright encouraged to use things that objectively work better than everything else. Why use the vast array of Ashes of War when you can just throw on Hoarfrost Stomp and have a massive AOE that barely costs any FP and does CHUNKS of a bosses health, that can be doubled up with a Mimic to mass-spam and stagger some bosses without them being able to fight back?


If players couldn't use mimic tear and hoarfrost stomp/bleed this game never would have gotten such a big audience and most of the people who have been playing this series since Demon's Souls would be divided on the balance of the game as well.


In Elden Rings late game the enemies become massive HP sponges and have movesets that require so much undivided attention that it is better to just run past them. Crumbling Farum Azula even acknowledges this, as entire slogs of it's design are built around being an obstacle course where you run through enemies and dodge lightning bolts from enemies and a giant dragon sniping you from afar. I've never played a Souls game where my very first playthrough had me determined to outrun all the threats in a new area I've never experienced before in the late game, that was always for subsequent playthroughs. Dark Souls 2 failed in some parts of the game here as well but it ironically had a mechanic where enemies could be permanently prevented from respawning if you killed them enough times so it was always worth it to actually engage in fights.

At the end of the day, yeah you can ''beat'' it, but to me the end-game starts making me want to fight the Bed of Chaos without progress saving inbetween deaths instead and 90% of the awesome and cool loot I got in the game is depressing to use because bosses start to become a hassle rather than an interesting challenge to go through and RNG dependant based on the movesets the bosses decide to use.

It's frustrating and by the time I beat the game I wasn't feeling ''god I overcame such a challenge'' I was feeling ''God this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is finally ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ over''. Chasing the Elden beast to hit it once so it can jump across the map needing me to sprint to it again, having to refight Radogan every attempt and barely getting any chances to actually learn the moveset before I'm killed in two hits damages the gameplay experience to me and isn't something that should be applauded. Cheese and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ coexisted in earlier games just fine so there's no reason to have it be so encouraged in the late stages of the game and have designs suffer because of it.

[Xolorn]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Noeat:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Xolorn:

Malekith and Malenia are both unfair. Because of their pointless "feats", they are both near unbeatable by slow and tank builds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV2wTjQ9ijw

OK.. now let this guy doing the same with my heavy, tanker build. I killed her too, after a respec and doing an anti-Malenia build. But that can't be the point of playing this.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Mr.Hmm:

Only boss i had to cheese was Malenia, the rest i fought them normally without any cheese and had no problem.

Playing STR+Faith build.

Same. Malekith was a problem too, as they both have stupid gimmicks, but the rest was ok. Just hacked my way through the game with the Golden Halberd.
But Faith really isn't optimal for end game, as all high tier bosses are Demigods.