Is it just me or are the bosses just not fun?

[MorinehtarTheBlue]

I've mulling over this question as Messmer continues to impale me over and over again, and I've come to the conclusion that I don't think I've actually had a fun experience with the bosses in this DLC. I like the DLC overall, the world aesthetic is good, the level design is brilliant and I like what I've seen so far of the new lore.

The bosses though just feel... like work? I don't quite know how to put it into words, but they seem designed to be hard in the most irritating way possible. I have not yet faced a boss that wasn't a stamina blender, either slashing away with a weapon barely fast enough for the eye to follow or charging around the room with massive hitboxes sending my camera into hysterics.

The DLC appears to double down on the worst aspects of the late game boss design of the base game, lots of AoE attacks, grabs that do massive amounts of damage, overly chunky boss healthbars, barely any downtime between attacks etc etc. It leads to fights that feel less like a challenge and more like a chore, I don't *want* to best Messmer the way i did Radhan or Godfrey, I more just want to get past him to continue playing the parts of the DLC I actually enjoy.

It especially doesn't help that From apparently dug out the unreleased Sekiro DLC notes as the basis for this DLC, as every man sized boss now zips around the arena like lady butterfly and fights devolve into streams of flashing colours, random damage and FPS drops. I like Sekiro and really enjoyed playing it, but it worked because it was an action game with specific mechanics based around deflection and posture.

That game design here upends any pretence ER had of being an RPG, as you're basically screwed unless you play the game the way the boss designer intended... even though that's not the point of an RPG and wasn't an issue in the base game until very very late the day.

As you can probably tell from the comment I'm disappointed in the DLC, and hope From can learn from the reaction to SoE when designing future games. I am though genuinely interested in other people's experiences in SoE, do you agree with me about the bosses or did you find them challenging in genuinely interesting ways?

[Chris1]

How many DLC bosses use these cheap tactics:

Fly into the air and do a multi-hit AoE attack, usually in rapid succession to kill the player.
Fly across the arena instantly negating any distance you may have managed to put between you and the boss.
Have hyper armor for almost all of the fight.
Uninterruptable combos, stringing together multiple delayed/non-delayed swings that you have zero context of based on their movement.
Randomly oscillating between AoE and normal slashes, with little clues as to which is coming next.

All the bosses kind of mesh together as one because they all do the above. What makes a satisfying boss is that feeling of "I died because I got greedy". The DLC relies on you learning the boss through sheer trial and error. It's just lazy design, and for many people, it's not very fun. I have no problem with the toughest DLC From bosses of the past, including Gael, Kos, Fume Knight, and so on. They all make you feel "I died because I got greedy". Elden Ring bosses make you feel like "I died, because there is a new attack that was designed to instantly kill me, and now I have to figure out how to survive with trial and error".

I have recently started an RL1 run on the DLC and I might just give up, purely because it isn't fun. I had lot of fun going through the base game as an RL1 player, because each boss felt like a puzzle to figure out. In the DLC, it's just BS piled on top of BS. Take Jori for example - this guy absolutely spams the arena with crap while casting crazy multi-hit garbage at lightning speed. The only reason Jori isn't as hated as Radahn is because he has a pathetic hit bar and usually goes down fast. So many bosses share this terrible design in the DLC.

It's just not any fun. But I have to say, the DLC outside the bosses is pretty decent, except for the mostly empty and unsatisfying map.

[1100011]

Originally posted by blinkninja1:

Originally posted by Casul Gamer:

I agree. I'm not a fan of the DLC bosses and also some of the normal enemies who has insane amounts of poise, damage, and health. Also crazy AoEs and multihit combos

I've come to realize that different people have different tolerances for difficulty. Some of it comes down to skill level, but this isn't the only factor. One guy was saying he loved the DLC and talked about how he spent 2 hours on one boss and it was a great experience for him.

are u guys even getting the fragments like ur supposed too?

You have no idea how bored I got getting to bl8. Reason being, you're searching fragments because your character is still to weak. No matter how interesting the places are you encounter in the vast nothingness and during the the pointless ridgewalking trying to get to the next area with a minimal chance of fragment, you can't fight the interesting stuff exactly because you're still to weak. So you're just running, running, running to see if there is maybe one fragment somewhere.

Tried to alleviate the boredom by taking on some bosses... my damage to Hippo was indeed not ideal. Still, the fight was good so I got to enjoy it longer. And that is due to the better boss design.

[ErWolfonsio]

Originally posted by 1100011:

Originally posted by blinkninja1:

are u guys even getting the fragments like ur supposed too?

You have no idea how bored I got getting to bl8. Reason being, you're searching fragments because your character is still to weak. No matter how interesting the places are you encounter in the vast nothingness and during the the pointless ridgewalking trying to get to the next area with a minimal chance of fragment, you can't fight the interesting stuff exactly because you're still to weak. So you're just running, running, running to see if there is maybe one fragment somewhere.

Tried to alleviate the boredom by taking on some bosses... my damage to Hippo was indeed not ideal. Still, the fight was good so I got to enjoy it longer. And that is due to the better boss design.

I did enjoy the exploration a lot, and did get rewarded for it, reached the final boss whit +15 fragments to level up the rest that i wasnt going for to not being Op, so no, i didnt need to "Search for fragments because im weak"
Also, instead of "running, running, running" pay attention, there are more things that you wouldn't expect

[Shawty]

Tbh, the bosses are a little harder but after playing for a good bit, the only one I got annoyed with is the guy on the boar, keep forgetting his name...
But besides him I haven't come across a boss that I went f this

[Shoah Kahn]

ER bosses are far more copy-pasta that in past Souls games:
- slow wind-up into light-speed attack shtick -- CHECK
- OHKO (or thereabouts) AoE's that must be avoided -- CHECK
- non-stop, infinite stamina / FP spams -- CHECK
- player input reading (to the point where bosses won't attack unless the player does), often rendering any projectile based builds null and void -- CHECK
- fights more of a roll fest, than anything needing a particular strategy be applied -- CHECK...

Further, because the levelling system is as "arcade-y" as it's ever been -- as an example, you can max level without even doing anything but travelling to the Caelid "Impassable Bridge" SoG, and letting the enemies give you runes into infinity -- and the way the game funnels players into high HP, high DEF, health pots anonymous builds, makes the boss fights feel even more cookie cutter. Bookending that, with how common deaths are in the game, the meaningless nature of one's once prized death splotch has become (retrieving it, that is -- see: the above Caelid example), together with the wholesale lack of "atmosphere.meme", this formula kills the exclamation marks which bosses served as to the white knuckle survival trek between bonfires once was (...To say nada of the ridiculously "Modern" spacing / placement of SoG's).

IMO, without co-op (Seamless at that), the game would be a decided step back in the boss fight department from earlier FS games; if not the overall game in general. After all, bosses more or less peaked with DSIII and its DLC -- for it to dip to arguably the most uninspired boss roster in the 'Souls' series, is difficult to ignore.

[1100011]

Originally posted by Dr.Acula:

The problem in Elden Ring and especially in the DLC is the aspect of hyper armor in combination with long combos. You simply cannot interrupt them once they get started pounding on you.

I believe that's what the parries and perfect guards are for. Worked for me on the hyper knight in Castle Sol, and the boss fight. One parry stops the whole thing.

I don't have the perfect guard hardtear yet, don't even know where to find it, but it may even be a solution to the RPM: combo's give you multiple chances to perfect guard in quick succession.

[Key]

You just aren't used to them, they're mechanically way more complex than the base game ones, so it takes a hell of a lot more practice to start dancing with them properly. After trying hitless Rellana for a few hours I can guarantee she has plenty of openings when at the start her fight just seemed to be a constant flurry of barely telegraphed swings.

Sure, there are a couple of bosses on which they dropped the ball, but that's to be expected at this point, not every game can be DS3 or AC6.

Wish we got a couple more unique gimmick bosses like Souls games though, mechanics-wise most bosses feel very samey in ER.

[WereChicken]

I think for 90% of the bosses in the DLC the scadu tree levelling system actively hurts the experience. For the last boss it's just that it's an awful boss that was badly designed and just generally spoils the DLC and taints the ending with that screw up

[1100011]

Originally posted by WereChicken:

I think for 90& of the bosses in the DLC the scadu tree levelling system actively hurts the experience.

Exactly this. This is the one game that I believe really improves with limited spoiling (locations of fragments).
You get the real boss experience, and you don't get the tedium of the traversing and getting lost in boring areas before you can fight anything interesting.

[Juanill0]

Originally posted by MorinehtarTheBlue:

I've mulling over this question as Messmer continues to impale me over and over again, and I've come to the conclusion that I don't think I've actually had a fun experience with the bosses in this DLC. I like the DLC overall, the world aesthetic is good, the level design is brilliant and I like what I've seen so far of the new lore.

The bosses though just feel... like work? I don't quite know how to put it into words, but they seem designed to be hard in the most irritating way possible. I have not yet faced a boss that wasn't a stamina blender, either slashing away with a weapon barely fast enough for the eye to follow or charging around the room with massive hitboxes sending my camera into hysterics.

The DLC appears to double down on the worst aspects of the late game boss design of the base game, lots of AoE attacks, grabs that do massive amounts of damage, overly chunky boss healthbars, barely any downtime between attacks etc etc. It leads to fights that feel less like a challenge and more like a chore, I don't *want* to best Messmer the way i did Radhan or Godfrey, I more just want to get past him to continue playing the parts of the DLC I actually enjoy.

It especially doesn't help that From apparently dug out the unreleased Sekiro DLC notes as the basis for this DLC, as every man sized boss now zips around the arena like lady butterfly and fights devolve into streams of flashing colours, random damage and FPS drops. I like Sekiro and really enjoyed playing it, but it worked because it was an action game with specific mechanics based around deflection and posture.

That game design here upends any pretence ER had of being an RPG, as you're basically screwed unless you play the game the way the boss designer intended... even though that's not the point of an RPG and wasn't an issue in the base game until very very late the day.

As you can probably tell from the comment I'm disappointed in the DLC, and hope From can learn from the reaction to SoE when designing future games. I am though genuinely interested in other people's experiences in SoE, do you agree with me about the bosses or did you find them challenging in genuinely interesting ways?

I agree, Elden Ring bosses already felt inferior to BB and DS3 bosses, the DLC bosses are just completely overpowered and don't feel satisfying to play against.

The main problem is twofold:

1-These bosses are clearly meant to be fought by 2 people, a summons and you. This becomes incredibly obvious when even the most bassic attacks of the easiest DLC bosses have giant reach and cover 210º, hitting you even behind the boss.

This also messes completely with the balance, with bosses doing ridiculous damage and having ridiculous healthpools (and don't you dare summon someone or it gets even worse).

2-These bosses aren't fun and don't feel rewarding. They are so grossly agressive and overpowered that after beating the last DLC boss I felt nothing, in fact I didn't feel anything with none of the DLC bosses, they felt like boring roadblocks rather than engaging fights. This is due to how lacking they are in Rythm.

Let's take Slave Knight Gael, he is a difficult boss that tests all you have learned through DS3, but his combos are relatively short (between 3 and 6 attacks), with only one important delayed attack and very little AoE, as well as very telegraphed finishers with big gaps to hit back.

This is what makes a good boss, he has rythm. The entire fight is an epic back and forth, a dance of death where he desperately tries to kill you as you grit your teeth through his phases, dodging as you can and punishing him.

Now let's take ER DLC bosses... not a single one has rythm, why? Every single attack is a cheesy delayed attack, every 3 attacks 1 is a crazy AoE, every combo is 20 seconds long so you just sit there with your thumb up your ass waiting for him to finish so you can poke him once. Oh, and let's not forget even after they finish their combos, if you as much as touch the estus button half the time they will instantly turn around halfway through their animation and hit you with another 20 hit combo.

Instead of blessings, they should have given the character Bloodborne's mobility and rally mechanic in the DLC and then it would be perfect.

[[Operator] Domsch]

No, it isn´t just you

[Sek-Raktaa]

Fighting the DLC Bosses is very tedious and I don't like fighting them if I have to be honest.

An important part of every Boss fight is learning their move sets to effectively fight them. The DLC Bosses however deal to much damage with many of them having an over reliance on AOE attacks that really stretches out the process.

The Player dies much more quickly which in turn means that the player takes much longer to actually learn the Bosses move and "git gud" which makes the whole process very slow, tedious and just not very satisfying.

The Final Boss also likes to spam Particle Effects and Light shows that destroy my graphics card while also burning my retinas...

A constant, stable 60 FPS is currently not possible with the DLC's final Boss and I think that's a major problem.

I would definitely welcome some rebalancing and tweaking.

[Karamell]

Originally posted by WereChicken:

I think for 90% of the bosses in the DLC the scadu tree levelling system actively hurts the experience. For the last boss it's just that it's an awful boss that was badly designed and just generally spoils the DLC and taints the ending with that screw up

Literally this.

Makes me wonder what is the point of replaying the DLC ... the final boss really makes the whole experience kind of crumble on itself and the journey tarnished (no pun intended). Really feels like a fan fic and I will never stop hating the choices From Software made in everything regarding to the final boss, from character assassination, to horrific balance, to the most unfun experience dealing with phase 2, and the very anti-climatic ending with a dog water cinematic that didn't even add or conclude anything.

DLC is a 5 / 10 for me. Great world, very nice to look at, most of it has empty spots or too many reused enemies, and most bosses are just a chore. Only a very few are fun to engage with. But yeah the final boss botches the whole experience bringing it down for me so it's not motivating to redo the DLC after that bs.

[Dam Stark]

Not just you OP, but it IS a you thing.

[Explosive Zombie]

lol this whole discussion is just a cope session, git gud, bosses are great in the DLC