what i want in a souls boss

[SOLOMON]

i see a lot of complaints about specific fights, bosses, etc. and it seems like there's a bunch of confusion or outright non-communication about what makes a good fight that people actually enjoy

i'm curious for the explanations. tell me, especially if you are outspoken about how you think some bosses suck, what do you think makes a GOOD fight. i want to know what kind of boss you could spend an hour wiping to and still feel like damn this is a good fight.

i'll give mine a little bit later because i really want people to share theirs first instead of focusing on what my opinion is.

[TyresTyco]

My take on this is pretty simple. Give any boss that is fast, agile with a lot of dmg, life steal mechanics... and the boss turns into ♥♥♥♥.

My favourite fights in the series are.. orphan of kos, maria, gael, sinh, artorias and ofc O&S. These are excellent designed bosses. Now if they slapped life steal on any of them. I would hate them as much as Malenia.

Granted.. she is an optional .. kinda useless to do a second time boss.. which makes it at least bearable for me to not complain much about her. But since you asked what bosses I want. Yeah.

From soft did an excellent job with most of the bosses here imho. Besides the life steal mechanic Malenia has.. and maaaybe some aoe pool attacks that are far to hard to completely avoid. Like for example the valiant gargoyle poison pool and that god awful rot type avatar slam.

[MingQWERTY]

I'm interested to see as well. But I think what it will boil down to is
1. Less aoe
2. Bosses should not be big
3. Bosses should be slower

I think those 3 are the main complaints when it comes to Elden Ring bosses. Or at least the 3 main ones I've seen.

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by TyresTyco:

My take on this is pretty simple. Give any boss that is fast, agile with a lot of dmg, life steal mechanics... and the boss turns into ♥♥♥♥.

My favourite fights in the series are.. orphan of kos, maria, gael, sinh, artorias and ofc O&S. These are excellent designed bosses. Now if they slapped life steal on any of them. I would hate them as much as Melania.

Granted.. she is an optional .. kinda useless to do a second time boss.. which makes it at least bearable for me to not complain much about her. But since you asked what bosses I want. Yeah.

From soft did an excellent job with most of the bosses here imho. Besides the life steal mechanic Melania has.. and maaaybe some aoe pool attacks that are far to hard to completely avoid. Like for example the valiant garoyle poison pool and that god awful rot type avatar slam.

not to be an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ or anything but you didn't really explain what you think makes any of those fights good fights. haha. i'm looking for specifics. things in particular that you can recognize and verbalize makes a fight "good" from a design perspective.

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by MarkQWERTY:

I'm interested to see as well. But I think what it will boil down to is
1. Less aoe
2. Bosses should not be big
3. Bosses should be slower

I think those 3 are the main complaints when it comes to Elden Ring bosses.

less aoe- what do you mean by that?

bosses should not be big- why is that? the main thing i can think of is it makes the already kind of jank camera worse. do you think they would benefit from more camera pullback so you can see the boss better?

bosses should be slower- in what way? and for what purpose in your opinion?

i'm really just looking for elaboration. i want to understand better what really makes for a good encounter in these games for other people.

[Freak4Leeks]

i like bosses that require perfection, and ELDEN RING is the closest to that, especially malenia due to her life steal, i know we will never get a boss that will ever 100% require perfection especially since seeing people complain about how "hard" ER bosses are. Some people don't want to spend the time to do that.

Maybe one day we will get a awesome optional boss that does require such a thing

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[MingQWERTY]

Originally posted by SOLOMON:

Originally posted by MarkQWERTY:

I'm interested to see as well. But I think what it will boil down to is
1. Less aoe
2. Bosses should not be big
3. Bosses should be slower

I think those 3 are the main complaints when it comes to Elden Ring bosses.

less aoe- what do you mean by that?

bosses should not be big- why is that? the main thing i can think of is it makes the already kind of jank camera worse. do you think they would benefit from more camera pullback so you can see the boss better?

bosses should be slower- in what way? and for what purpose in your opinion?

i'm really just looking for elaboration. i want to understand better what really makes for a good encounter in these games for other people.

1. From what I've seen people really really hate aoe. And like almost every main boss in this game have some kind of aoe. I'm guessing it just makes the fight more annoying because it's hard to dodge these attacks.

2. Big bosses will mess with your camera a lot and since the camera has always been trash it just makes things a lot worse.

3. A lot of bosses in Elden Ring are extremely fast like Malenia or Malekeith. Every complain I've seen on the latter is his speed. I'm guessing it just makes the fight way less fun for people because they can't react fast enough and will just keep on getting hit and the boss will just not stop.

[RG4327]

Bosses like Blackflame Friede, Abyss Watchers, Gael, Midir, Fume Knight, Sir Alonne, Artorias were my favorite bosses before Elden Ring came out. So far the only fight that gave me the same satisfaction is Margit.

I like bosses that can punish you if you are reckless but if you play cautious that can make it feel like some sort of dance.
I think that a bossfight needs a good rhythm, not the unending erratic flailing around with unholy amounts of damage.

I hate bosses that are fast, deal high damage, never stop attacking, heal themselves if they hit you, can hit you from across the room, can inflict Scarlet Rot and are called Malenia.

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by Freak4Leeks:

i like bosses that require perfection, and ELDEN RING is the closest to that, especially malenia due to her life steal, i know we will never get a boss that will ever 100% require perfection especially since seeing people complain about how "hard" ER bosses are. Some people don't want to spend the time to do that.

Maybe one day we will get a awesome optional boss that does require such a thing

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i'm not sure what "perfection" means though in regards to what a boss design requires.

perfection meaning the encounter is tuned in such a way that you have only 200ms to react to each attack? that you must utilize every status effect in the game to defeat it? that it has an enrage timer where if you don't do the maximum amount of DPS possible in the game that the boss will enrage and insta-kill you?

okay that last one is extreme but you get what i mean lol. describe what requirement you have for "perfection"

[Tiniturtle]

Originally posted by RG4327:

Bosses like Blackflame Friede, Abyss Watchers, Gael, Midir, Fume Knight, Sir Alonne, Artorias were my favorite bosses before Elden Ring came out. So far the only fight that gave me the same satisfaction is Margit.

I like bosses that can punish you if you are reckless but if you play cautious that can make it feel like some sort of dance.

I enjoy a good rythm in a bossfight, not the unending erratic flailing around with unholy amounts of damage.

I hate bosses that are fast, deal high damage, never stop attacking, heal themselves if they hit you, can hit you from across the room, can inflict Scarlet Rot and are called Malenia.

u know u can also dance with malenia lol what u need is practice dogde her waterflow
so i suggest stock up ur physic damage negate and fight here
with 50% physic negate and 45 vigor u wont die from the first flurry combo if u ♥♥♥ up and dogde the 2 last flurry is very easy

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by MarkQWERTY:

Originally posted by SOLOMON:

less aoe- what do you mean by that?

bosses should not be big- why is that? the main thing i can think of is it makes the already kind of jank camera worse. do you think they would benefit from more camera pullback so you can see the boss better?

bosses should be slower- in what way? and for what purpose in your opinion?

i'm really just looking for elaboration. i want to understand better what really makes for a good encounter in these games for other people.

1. From what I've seen people really really hate aoe. And like almost every main boss in this game have some kind of aoe. I'm guessing it just makes the fight more annoying because it's hard to dodge these attacks.

2. Big bosses will mess with your camera a lot and since the camera has always been trash it just makes things a lot worse.

3. A lot of bosses in Elden Ring are extremely fast like Malenia or Malekeith. Every complain I've seen on the latter is his speed. I'm guessing it just makes the fight way less fun for people because they can't react fast enough and will just keep on getting hit and the boss will just not stop.

okay, i understand those criticisms.

but what do YOU think makes a good boss. what specific mechanics or things the boss does that you like. things about the fight that makes it feel fair, rewarding, fun. i know there's a lot of things people don't like but i'm trying to find the things people do like.

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by RG4327:

Bosses like Blackflame Friede, Abyss Watchers, Gael, Midir, Fume Knight, Sir Alonne, Artorias were my favorite bosses before Elden Ring came out. So far the only fight that gave me the same satisfaction is Margit.

I like bosses that can punish you if you are reckless but if you play cautious that can make it feel like some sort of dance.
I think that a bossfight needs a good rhythm, not the unending erratic flailing around with unholy amounts of damage.

I hate bosses that are fast, deal high damage, never stop attacking, heal themselves if they hit you, can hit you from across the room, can inflict Scarlet Rot and are called Malenia.

lol. okay, i feel you.

i have a similar opinion to you i think when it comes to rhythm. could you go into that more? like what specifically about a fight having rhythm is appealing? what sort of things GIVE a boss that "rhythmic" feeling?

[RedEssence]

Personally one of my favorites from Elden Ring is crucible knight (specifically the one in stormhill evergaol)

When I first fought him I hated him, thought he was the worst fight in the game because he severely punishes panic rolling and panic chugging (probs some of the most punishing chug pokes imo)

But after being forced to git gud against him you can learn his dance and it feels so good

He has some of the best telegraphed attacks, he is not incredibly fast but also not slow, He has good openings and frequent openings if you know what to look for. Overall one of my favorite fights

He rewards mastery of the fight

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by Tiniturtle:

Originally posted by RG4327:

Bosses like Blackflame Friede, Abyss Watchers, Gael, Midir, Fume Knight, Sir Alonne, Artorias were my favorite bosses before Elden Ring came out. So far the only fight that gave me the same satisfaction is Margit.

I like bosses that can punish you if you are reckless but if you play cautious that can make it feel like some sort of dance.

I enjoy a good rythm in a bossfight, not the unending erratic flailing around with unholy amounts of damage.

I hate bosses that are fast, deal high damage, never stop attacking, heal themselves if they hit you, can hit you from across the room, can inflict Scarlet Rot and are called Malenia.

u know u can also dance with malenia lol what u need is practice dogde her waterflow
so i suggest stock up ur physic damage negate and fight here
with 50% physic negate and 45 vigor u wont die from the first flurry combo if u ♥♥♥ up and dogde the 2 last flurry is very easy

i'd really rather we not do this in here lol. i'm just trying to gather opinions, not have them challenged mate. what do you think makes a fight good, interesting, fun, etc?

[Freak4Leeks]

Originally posted by SOLOMON:

i'm not sure what "perfection" means though in regards to what a boss design requires.

perfection meaning the encounter is tuned in such a way that you have only 200ms to react to each attack? that you must utilize every status effect in the game to defeat it? that it has an enrage timer where if you don't do the maximum amount of DPS possible in the game that the boss will enrage and insta-kill you?

okay that last one is extreme but you get what i mean lol. describe what requirement you have for "perfection"

if you get hit once it's game over you will end up locked into a death if not 1 hit, a boss that is fast but fair of course super telegraphed but even so hard to dodge (for example the attack string requires you to dodge in certain directions each or even jump assuming this boss were to exist in ELDEN RING with those mechanics) and small windows of opportunity to attack but alot of them, i love that ELDEN RING is starting to mess with "delayed" attacks more, margit messed me up due to it and i love it.

basically i want it so, if you recorded everyone who beat this theoretical boss, it would look like they are the god tier players because being hit isn't an option... if that makes sense.

Once again this is a stupid hope for obvious reasons, but i think FROM can get close without absolutely locking the minority of the minority lol

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by RedEssence:

Personally one of my favorites from Elden Ring is crucible knight (specifically the one in stormhill evergaol)

When I first fought him I hated him, thought he was the worst fight in the game because he severely punishes panic rolling and panic chugging (probs some of the most punishing chug pokes imo)

But after being forced to git gud against him you can learn his dance and it feels so good

He has some of the best telegraphed attacks, he is not incredibly fast but also not slow, He has good openings and frequent openings if you know what to look for. Overall one of my favorite fights

nice! okay. frequent discernible openings, not too fast or slow, can feel progression of mastery over the boss- good stuff.

i'm interested in the first part, about how your opinion changed. what was it about the punished panic rolling and panic chugging that made you hate him? and what changed? did it feel unfair at first? and then you figured it out? or was it something else?