Your arguments against the game being "too hard" are nonsense.

[TheRedBaron]

With max scadutree fragments, Greatshield talisman, Bull goat or verdigris armor, golden vow, and the damage negation physic tear, you still get 2 tapped by the last 4 main bosses in the game.

It's not exploration, it's not a lack of 'getting good'. It's simply overtuned bosses. The final boss, who I won't spoil for those who haven't played it, is atrociously too hard. I've beaten him 3 times now, twice myself and once in a friends game. It's a bad fight. (rushes you right out the gate 9/10 times, extremely little room for punish between his attacks. Comet at the end is designed in a way that makes it nearly impossible to learn for most people. seriously, it just hits and the first tick of damage is delayed from the animation hit for some reason... And he also has 40k hp.)

Only 30% of the player base had even beat Mohg before the dlc released, btw. The number of people who beat The final boss is for sure lower, I would guess less than 10% of players, probably less than that. It's fine to design a difficult game, and I love Elden ring, and all the souls games for that reason. But these fights took it too far. The entire point of the souls games is to present a challenge that players can OVERCOME. If 99% of players can't, you failed.

It doesn't take a genius to understand that.

[Haru]

Originally posted by Krazy Wallet:

Originally posted by Mnichu:

I personally tested 3 different builds while fighting radahn, parrying is great if you're willing to learn it (I wasn't), it's working well both in phase one and two. To be completely fair, his phase one is managable with everything I tested, it's just the matter learning patterns, but his phase 2 is whole different story, first of all he feels even more agressive than in phase one (in which he was already fed up from the second you step into the arena, mf really wants you dead) which leads to situations when you dodge 9 out of 10 of his 10 hit combo, you're left with 2/3 of your HP, you want to heal up and he immidiately starts another combo which makes you trade bottle with incoming damage - you're even or even lower than pre bottle, additionally often you cannot punish with anything else than light attack, charge, heavy or ash of war ends in trade or it's cancelled cuz he's faster. Second of all AOE, without holy dmg negation you're passively eating damage with each attack he does. Third of all AOE can literally give you epilepsy attack. Fourth of all phase 2 is clown fiesta in FPS drops.

The most reliable strat (if you're not willing to count of RNG or practice for no hit run) is respec -> go full tank -> get fingerprint -> spear/rapier -> poke him to death from behind the shield -> he dead. But that's imo bad design. Look at people standing in front of the gate - 90% of them are wearing heavy armors and shields, it shouldnt look like that.

Sure, everything is viable if you are willing to sit there trying for dozens of hours to do basically no hit run - but that's like idk 5% of people? I'll give benefit of the doubt and say 10-15% as soulsborne players are known to be masochists. Most of the players want to get rid of the boss reasonably fast - die enought time to feel accomplishment after winning, but not too many times to feel miserable and helpless.

For comparison I attempted Radahn for like 6 hours before I killed him - won with fingerprint and mogh spear strat, previously I was playing bleed dex build for full base game and DLC up until the final boss - I was just happy it was over, 0 satisfaction or feel of acomplishment, and I know I wont attempt him again if he wont be adjusted (not neccesarily nerfed, just adjusted in terms of punish windows, enough time to heal, a bit less agressiveness); on the other hand I fought messmer for like 2-3 hours and I truly enjoyed the fight, because he was possible to fully learn in both phases, always possible to punish and there was always enough time to heal if I messed up - same with Rellana - they are both challange, but good one (and I would argue that Messmer is comparable to Malenia in terms of difficulty).

Idk how valid this will be - but there is a dude on YT who modded the game somehow and created a fight between malenia and Consort Radahn - he ate her like a sandwich in 30 seconds; of course it's RNG and stuff but the fact that the hardest base game boss stands no chance against final boss of DLC says a little.

Sorry for long one.

If you're trading a pot for a hit, you've made a mistake. One thing I learned early in this DLC is that patience is key. If Radahn hit me on his last attack of a combo, I likely cannot greed heal. Instead, I have to evaluate what he is doing next. If he stands neutral, I likely can heal (rare), but he more often moves into another combo. It is actually safer to focus on dodging the next combo with lower health than trying to greed heal and tank another powerful hit. This is especially true in phase 2 where the pillars of light can stagger you into a true combo leaving you even lower than you started with 1 less pot.

If the last hit of his combo did not hit you, then you are usually free to heal. The notable exceptions are his quick recovery attacks such as his immediate cross slash. Self-control, measured actions, and patience rule the day with these bosses. I beat Radahn two-handing a colossal weapon (only got 2 staggers) and I could still find openings to get fully charged heavy attacks, rolling attacks, and regular light attacks. More than any other souls boss that I've experienced, this fight is a dance. Rush or miss your queue, and you'll get punished. For context, it took me 4-5 hours to beat Radahn. I did not use summons or spirit ashes. This fight is doable, his patterns can be learned, every attack is dodgeable or has a counter of some sort. He has easily risen to my favorite boss and I'm thrilled that I needed to learn new mechanics to deal with the boss.

When I say new mechanics, I don't mean changing my build or equipping a shield. I mean there are certain attacks that dodging too late will successfully avoid the first attack in a combo, but not leave you enough time to recover to avoid the second hit in that combo. Therefore, you need to dodge early to maximize recovery time rather than i-frames. I get that Radahn is challenging and it won't be to everyone's liking, but this is exactly what I hope for when Fromsoft comes out with a souls game.

In my attempts, I loved the moment when I'd be on low HP from messing up one of the big mechanics, then have to gauge whether or not I wanted to risk death by fluffing a parry, then cry internally if he started the gravity meteor attack.

At a point, I just realise that there's no point in healing if I'm going to die immediately after anyway.

In my final attempt, we were both down to the wire, and if I had fluffed a single parry, I was going to scream.

[TheRedBaron]

Originally posted by Haru:

Originally posted by Mnichu:

I personally tested 3 different builds while fighting radahn, parrying is great if you're willing to learn it (I wasn't), it's working well both in phase one and two. To be completely fair, his phase one is managable with everything I tested, it's just the matter learning patterns, but his phase 2 is whole different story, first of all he feels even more agressive than in phase one (in which he was already fed up from the second you step into the arena, mf really wants you dead) which leads to situations when you dodge 9 out of 10 of his 10 hit combo, you're left with 2/3 of your HP, you want to heal up and he immidiately starts another combo which makes you trade bottle with incoming damage - you're even or even lower than pre bottle, additionally often you cannot punish with anything else than light attack, charge, heavy or ash of war ends in trade or it's cancelled cuz he's faster. Second of all AOE, without holy dmg negation you're passively eating damage with each attack he does. Third of all AOE can literally give you epilepsy attack. Fourth of all phase 2 is clown fiesta in FPS drops.

The most reliable strat (if you're not willing to count of RNG or practice for no hit run) is respec -> go full tank -> get fingerprint -> spear/rapier -> poke him to death from behind the shield -> he dead. But that's imo bad design. Look at people standing in front of the gate - 90% of them are wearing heavy armors and shields, it shouldnt look like that.

Sure, everything is viable if you are willing to sit there trying for dozens of hours to do basically no hit run - but that's like idk 5% of people? I'll give benefit of the doubt and say 10-15% as soulsborne players are known to be masochists. Most of the players want to get rid of the boss reasonably fast - die enought time to feel accomplishment after winning, but not too many times to feel miserable and helpless.

For comparison I attempted Radahn for like 6 hours before I killed him - won with fingerprint and mogh spear strat, previously I was playing bleed dex build for full base game and DLC up until the final boss - I was just happy it was over, 0 satisfaction or feel of acomplishment, and I know I wont attempt him again if he wont be adjusted (not neccesarily nerfed, just adjusted in terms of punish windows, enough time to heal, a bit less agressiveness); on the other hand I fought messmer for like 2-3 hours and I truly enjoyed the fight, because he was possible to fully learn in both phases, always possible to punish and there was always enough time to heal if I messed up - same with Rellana - they are both challange, but good one (and I would argue that Messmer is comparable to Malenia in terms of difficulty).

Idk how valid this will be - but there is a dude on YT who modded the game somehow and created a fight between malenia and Consort Radahn - he ate her like a sandwich in 30 seconds; of course it's RNG and stuff but the fact that the hardest base game boss stands no chance against final boss of DLC says a little.

Sorry for long one.

Eh. I'd argue that he's the last boss we're ever going to get out of this game, so it makes sense that he stands above the hardest boss from the base game on a technical level. I genuinely don't think it matters how many people manage to kill a boss. LOTS OF GAMES have achievements with very low completion rates. They're there for people that want to surmount those contests and challenges. Paying for the game does not equate to being able to finish the game, or contend with specific challenges in the game.

I'd argue that you tortured yourself out of a sense of sunken cost fallacy, forcing yourself through an experience you found fundamentally un-fun on every level. I very nearly did the same thing, until I found something that worked for me that I found enjoyable. If you can't find that joy, you do not have to force yourself to persevere.

Still haven't finished Sekiro and beaten Isshin. Still haven't killed genocide route Sans.

Do they need nerfing? No.

They're just not challenges I am up for at this time, and I don't find butting my head against a brick wall to be a good use of my time.

You keep bringing up Isshin and now undertale as if they are comperable in any way. Sekiro isn't an rpg, it's an action game centered around pure skill, and the difficulty of sans is from his pure skill minigame you play during his fight.

elden ring is a souls game through and through. You are not suppose to overcome every challenge based purely on skill, most of the time its player power that gets you through, and that comes in the form of rpg elements the game has included. If it was intended that you not use those systems to beat the game they wouldn't have been included. And for 99% of the bosses in Elden Ring, this holds true. But the last fights of the DLC throw RPG systems out of the window, now they are merely an afterthought because you must use cookie cutter builds to win.

And before you respond again that you used a faith build, I guarantee you used all of the meta talismans, gear, and weapons/catalysts for it. There didn't used to be a "meta" in souls games. THAT'S THE ISSUE.

[amathy]

Only 30% of the player base had even beat Mohg before the dlc released, btw.

Steam achievements are a stupid way to judge average player progression.
If you launch the game for 3 seconds and never play again your achievements are counted, it completely skews the percentages from people who start the game but immediately get bored/don't like it/whatever.
The percentage of people that actually stick with the game and end up killing Mohg is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than the listed 34.5%.

[Vesta]

Anyways like the guy does 10 attacks followed by instant AoE attacks. It's just spamming that's all the boss does. Insane range he teleports he becomes invulnerable during some move he does. Not only he flash bangs you in phase 2 it crashes your fps.

[TheRedBaron]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

Originally posted by Mnichu:

For comparison I attempted Radahn for like 6 hours before I killed him - won with fingerprint and mogh spear strat

Sorry that you felt the need to do that. It's an option for sure, and if you lock-on constantly, it's probably the best option. But people used the same exact strat to down Malenia originally, insisting it to be the only viable one. They. Were. Wrong.

Besides the cheese methods that can beat Radahn in mere seconds like Impenetrable Thorns and Perfume bottles, or methods that rely on an overtuned DLC weapon like the Bloodfiend's Arm or Fire Knight's Greatsword or Barbed Staff-Spear, I've seen Radahn done by my friends using all manner of builds. One is quite insistent about sticking to the same weapons all game and beat both the Elden Beast and the Promised Consort using a pair of Reduvia daggers. Crazy son of a gun.

Personally? I beat him with an all-in Faith build. He smacked me around constantly but between Crab Meat and Dragonshield Talisman I had plenty of physical resistance, alongside Golden Braid and Lord's Divine Fortification granting me plenty of holy resistance. All I had to dodge was his magic attacks and those are kind of trivial to avoid even sprinting without lock-on enabled in a diagonal motion. His triple slashes couldn't kill me, not even close, despite the fact that I wasn't using a shield and had my Erdtree Seal in my left hand. I ran out of crimson flasks sometime during the second phase but even his giant Miquella's Nuke spell only did about 20% of my healthbar. So I just switched to cerulean flasks and literally spammed Heal throughout the remainder of the battle. Again, I was getting SMACKED AROUND and just kept healing through it until he RNG rolled an attack I could actually sidestep and punish. Between Black Fireballs and my Rivers of Blood (which isn't even optimal for this build) I downed him eventually.

Surely it's a tougher boss fight if I wanted to go in blessingless, maidenless, and using only my fists... but that's Elden Ring players intentionally challenging themselves. Can't complain if you get exactly what you ordered -- a challenge.

So you used hp-scaling spells and a bleed weapon.

You used a meta build, congratulations. You did exactly what you said wasn't required to beat the boss... to beat the boss....

Also, needing to un-lock on to effectively dodge a bosses skill is not good boss design, btw. Souls games have been teaching us to use lock on since Demon's souls. It means the hitboxes weren't coded correctly to handle the angles players would need to effectively dodge the attacks.

[TheRedBaron]

Originally posted by amathy:

Only 30% of the player base had even beat Mohg before the dlc released, btw.

Steam achievements are a stupid way to judge average player progression.
If you launch the game for 3 seconds and never play again your achievements are counted, it completely skews the percentages from people who start the game but immediately get bored/don't like it/whatever.
The percentage of people that actually stick with the game and end up killing Mohg is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than the listed 34.5%.

It's actually a perfect percentage, if a person opens the game and then quits right away and it tracks the achievements, that's a player that didn't play the game long enough to beat mohg, but that's also the least likely scenario here. Most players who quit early either quit on margit before stormveil, or the tree sentinel right at the beginning.

When people claim that the game needs to be super difficult to weed out players who aren't dedicated, it already accomplished that many times. Margit, Base game Radahn, Elden Beast, Malenia. There were many breaking points for players already.

The players who are going to play the DLC at all are players who got passed that. They "got good" already. The DLC doesn't make you a better player, it makes you a meta-player. It removes 95% of builds out there in favor of some form of stagger, bleed, or enemy hp-scaling spells that cheese the boss. Usually involving a shield.

the 34.5% number is actually incredibly useful here, because those players got good, and the number we see from final boss is another good indicator.

[Krazy Wallet]

Originally posted by TheRedBaron:

Originally posted by Haru:

Eh. I'd argue that he's the last boss we're ever going to get out of this game, so it makes sense that he stands above the hardest boss from the base game on a technical level. I genuinely don't think it matters how many people manage to kill a boss. LOTS OF GAMES have achievements with very low completion rates. They're there for people that want to surmount those contests and challenges. Paying for the game does not equate to being able to finish the game, or contend with specific challenges in the game.

I'd argue that you tortured yourself out of a sense of sunken cost fallacy, forcing yourself through an experience you found fundamentally un-fun on every level. I very nearly did the same thing, until I found something that worked for me that I found enjoyable. If you can't find that joy, you do not have to force yourself to persevere.

Still haven't finished Sekiro and beaten Isshin. Still haven't killed genocide route Sans.

Do they need nerfing? No.

They're just not challenges I am up for at this time, and I don't find butting my head against a brick wall to be a good use of my time.

You keep bringing up Isshin and now undertale as if they are comperable in any way. Sekiro isn't an rpg, it's an action game centered around pure skill, and the difficulty of sans is from his pure skill minigame you play during his fight.

elden ring is a souls game through and through. You are not suppose to overcome every challenge based purely on skill, most of the time its player power that gets you through, and that comes in the form of rpg elements the game has included. If it was intended that you not use those systems to beat the game they wouldn't have been included. And for 99% of the bosses in Elden Ring, this holds true. But the last fights of the DLC throw RPG systems out of the window, now they are merely an afterthought because you must use cookie cutter builds to win.

And before you respond again that you used a faith build, I guarantee you used all of the meta talismans, gear, and weapons/catalysts for it. There didn't used to be a "meta" in souls games. THAT'S THE ISSUE.

Where did you get the idea that we are not to overcome these challenges purely with skill? In the sense that we are not all expected to do SL/RL1 runs, yes. However, every souls games requires that you interact with the available system to overcome challenges. You can make the game easier by utilizing the more powerful options, but it's never required. DS3 had the winblades, DS1 had amazingly powerful magic and giant dad builds, DS2 had killer hexes, Elden Ring had ROB. But even with these systems, it's not storymode where failure is impossible. Also, every souls game has had a meta for both PVP and PVE.

I also used a faith build for the final boss, I played him the same way I approached all of the other bosses. I used my colossal weapon as a primary and sprinkled in spells to support when there was an opportunity. During phase transitions or huge casting spells, I rebuffed my character with Golden Order or Divine Protection. Also, I was a quality build. I had level 30 in arcane that was not being used at all in this interaction - I wanted to be able to try out the new weapons so I had levels sprinkled all around. That's an easy 20 extra levels I could have put into vigor for more health, or strength to increase damage.

This boss is extremely doable and you do not need to follow a formula. Practice, patience, and perseverance are required to see this through.

Edit for personal story :)
I also see his point about other games. Sometimes a game can be too challenging for us and more than we are willing to overcome at the moment. It's relevant that sometimes we can humble ourselves and say something is too much. It doesn't always need to be that way though. I played Hollow Knight and beat that game over a year ago, but left the DLC thinking it was too hard for me. And it was too hard for me at that time. I since returned, played the game front to back, and even beat Pantheon 5 after 8+ hours of grinding. I loved that challenge and was thrilled with my growth and progress. Just because it's too hard now doesn't mean it will always be too hard for you.

[TheRedBaron]

Originally posted by Krazy Wallet:

Originally posted by TheRedBaron:

You keep bringing up Isshin and now undertale as if they are comperable in any way. Sekiro isn't an rpg, it's an action game centered around pure skill, and the difficulty of sans is from his pure skill minigame you play during his fight.

elden ring is a souls game through and through. You are not suppose to overcome every challenge based purely on skill, most of the time its player power that gets you through, and that comes in the form of rpg elements the game has included. If it was intended that you not use those systems to beat the game they wouldn't have been included. And for 99% of the bosses in Elden Ring, this holds true. But the last fights of the DLC throw RPG systems out of the window, now they are merely an afterthought because you must use cookie cutter builds to win.

And before you respond again that you used a faith build, I guarantee you used all of the meta talismans, gear, and weapons/catalysts for it. There didn't used to be a "meta" in souls games. THAT'S THE ISSUE.

Where did you get the idea that we are not to overcome these challenges purely with skill? In the sense that we are not all expected to do SL/RL1 runs, yes. However, every souls games requires that you interact with the available system to overcome challenges. You can make the game easier by utilizing the more powerful options, but it's never required. DS3 had the winblades, DS1 had amazingly powerful magic and giant dad builds, DS2 had killer hexes, Elden Ring had ROB. But even with these systems, it's not storymode where failure is impossible. Also, every souls game has had a meta for both PVP and PVE.

I also used a faith build for the final boss, I played him the same way I approached all of the other bosses. I used my colossal weapon as a primary and sprinkled in spells to support when there was an opportunity. During phase transitions or huge casting spells, I rebuffed my character with Golden Order or Divine Protection. Also, I was a quality build. I had level 30 in arcane that was not being used at all in this interaction - I wanted to be able to try out the new weapons so I had levels sprinkled all around. That's an easy 20 extra levels I could have put into vigor for more health, or strength to increase damage.

This boss is extremely doable and you do not need to follow a formula. Practice, patience, and perseverance are required to see this through.

You makes these claims and even if you are telling the truth, it doesn't counter my intial argument that the boss is still too difficult.

it gatekeeps too many weapons, spells, and builds. And far too many players hate the fight itself.

The few of you who defend the boss and the DLC on here and other places on the internet are the minority, you understand that yeah?

Like the DLC gets an easy 9/10 for those of us complaining about the difficulty, and most of us have beaten the final boss on top of it. We are saying that boss itself was poorly designed and it's a let down from a company as incredible as from software. Orphon of Kos in bloodborne is probably the best equivelent. Incredibly annoying to fight and most players hate the fight, and it was designed to be as difficult as possible to push players, to the elimination of the enjoyment of those players.

If you find difficulty fun inherently, that's a personal thing. But most gamers do not. The fun from challenge in games is in OVERCOMING them. And a boss like the final boss in this DLC is gatekeeping that reward for the vast majority of players who are already good players.

it's not like there are a ton of elden ring noobs dying to the final boss over and over again, they never even bought the dlc.

[Krazy Wallet]

Originally posted by TheRedBaron:

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

Sorry that you felt the need to do that. It's an option for sure, and if you lock-on constantly, it's probably the best option. But people used the same exact strat to down Malenia originally, insisting it to be the only viable one. They. Were. Wrong.

Besides the cheese methods that can beat Radahn in mere seconds like Impenetrable Thorns and Perfume bottles, or methods that rely on an overtuned DLC weapon like the Bloodfiend's Arm or Fire Knight's Greatsword or Barbed Staff-Spear, I've seen Radahn done by my friends using all manner of builds. One is quite insistent about sticking to the same weapons all game and beat both the Elden Beast and the Promised Consort using a pair of Reduvia daggers. Crazy son of a gun.

Personally? I beat him with an all-in Faith build. He smacked me around constantly but between Crab Meat and Dragonshield Talisman I had plenty of physical resistance, alongside Golden Braid and Lord's Divine Fortification granting me plenty of holy resistance. All I had to dodge was his magic attacks and those are kind of trivial to avoid even sprinting without lock-on enabled in a diagonal motion. His triple slashes couldn't kill me, not even close, despite the fact that I wasn't using a shield and had my Erdtree Seal in my left hand. I ran out of crimson flasks sometime during the second phase but even his giant Miquella's Nuke spell only did about 20% of my healthbar. So I just switched to cerulean flasks and literally spammed Heal throughout the remainder of the battle. Again, I was getting SMACKED AROUND and just kept healing through it until he RNG rolled an attack I could actually sidestep and punish. Between Black Fireballs and my Rivers of Blood (which isn't even optimal for this build) I downed him eventually.

Surely it's a tougher boss fight if I wanted to go in blessingless, maidenless, and using only my fists... but that's Elden Ring players intentionally challenging themselves. Can't complain if you get exactly what you ordered -- a challenge.

So you used hp-scaling spells and a bleed weapon.

You used a meta build, congratulations. You did exactly what you said wasn't required to beat the boss... to beat the boss....

Also, needing to un-lock on to effectively dodge a bosses skill is not good boss design, btw. Souls games have been teaching us to use lock on since Demon's souls. It means the hitboxes weren't coded correctly to handle the angles players would need to effectively dodge the attacks.

Though I agree with the criticism that unlocking the camera shouldn't be part of the system, that's been around long before Elden Ring. DS1 was much easier in just about every fight keeping the camera un-locked given the limitations to roll in only 4 directions. DS3 had certain bosses easier when unlocked as well: Nameless King, Midir, certain sections of Pontiff. This strategy is far from new. With that being said, I kept camera lock for nearly the entire Radahn fight. Even his meteors can be avoided 100% of the time while remaining locked on.

[amathy]

Originally posted by TheRedBaron:

Originally posted by amathy:

Steam achievements are a stupid way to judge average player progression.
If you launch the game for 3 seconds and never play again your achievements are counted, it completely skews the percentages from people who start the game but immediately get bored/don't like it/whatever.
The percentage of people that actually stick with the game and end up killing Mohg is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than the listed 34.5%.

It's actually a perfect percentage, if a person opens the game and then quits right away and it tracks the achievements, that's a player that didn't play the game long enough to beat mohg, but that's also the least likely scenario here. Most players who quit early either quit on margit before stormveil, or the tree sentinel right at the beginning.

When people claim that the game needs to be super difficult to weed out players who aren't dedicated, it already accomplished that many times. Margit, Base game Radahn, Elden Beast, Malenia. There were many breaking points for players already.

The players who are going to play the DLC at all are players who got passed that. They "got good" already. The DLC doesn't make you a better player, it makes you a meta-player. It removes 95% of builds out there in favor of some form of stagger, bleed, or enemy hp-scaling spells that cheese the boss. Usually involving a shield.

the 34.5% number is actually incredibly useful here, because those players got good, and the number we see from final boss is another good indicator.

I have no idea what half your comment has to do with what I said.
Your post was saying that only 30% of players beat Mohg to make an argument about how few players make it to that point, but that is a horribly out of context statistic because that 30% is not 30% of the average player. Players who immediately quit are useless to gauge the progression of the average player who actually puts time into the game, and the former is skewing the percentages much lower than they actually are. There's a reason why on more dedicated achievement tracking sites like psnprofiles the percentages are all above 50-60%.
To make a logical argument about the difficulty of content for the average player, you need to take the percentage of players who actually get to that point, not the players who quit after playing for an hour and refund the game for whatever reason.

[Kyutaru]

Originally posted by TheRedBaron:

So you used hp-scaling spells and a bleed weapon.

You used a meta build, congratulations. You did exactly what you said wasn't required to beat the boss... to beat the boss....

No? You said you needed to do the bloodfiend arm strat, or the madness one shot, or the shield build in order to win. I said that wasn't true, and I didn't use any of those. Heck, I didn't even use any of the overpowered cheese strats I listed as well. I used basic RPG logic. HP-scaling attacks for a high HP target, and amped up damage resistances to counter his Physical and Holy attacks. Exactly what I would have done if this were a turn-based Final Fantasy game.

You're the one trying to hammer in a nail using a screwdriver. Don't start yapping to me just because I used effective tools for the boss in question. You're just moving goalposts tbh.

Plus? That was only my first kill. Since then, I've found while aiding other players in cooperation that I am better off just sticking to Waves of Gold and supporting from range, granting me more mobility to move around the battlefield and heal/buff the other players so they too don't get one shot. Elden Ring isn't a test of skill. It's a test of math.

You're the one who claimed that even "with max scadutree fragments, Greatshield talisman, Bull goat or verdigris armor, golden vow, and the damage negation physic tear, you still get 2 tapped by the last 4 main bosses in the game." Which is a whole lot of malarkey that isn't even close to being true.

[TheRedBaron]

Originally posted by amathy:

Originally posted by TheRedBaron:

It's actually a perfect percentage, if a person opens the game and then quits right away and it tracks the achievements, that's a player that didn't play the game long enough to beat mohg, but that's also the least likely scenario here. Most players who quit early either quit on margit before stormveil, or the tree sentinel right at the beginning.

When people claim that the game needs to be super difficult to weed out players who aren't dedicated, it already accomplished that many times. Margit, Base game Radahn, Elden Beast, Malenia. There were many breaking points for players already.

The players who are going to play the DLC at all are players who got passed that. They "got good" already. The DLC doesn't make you a better player, it makes you a meta-player. It removes 95% of builds out there in favor of some form of stagger, bleed, or enemy hp-scaling spells that cheese the boss. Usually involving a shield.

the 34.5% number is actually incredibly useful here, because those players got good, and the number we see from final boss is another good indicator.

I have no idea what half your comment has to do with what I said.
Your post was saying that only 30% of players beat Mohg to make an argument about how few players make it to that point, but that is a horribly out of context statistic because that 30% is not 30% of the average player. Players who immediately quit are useless to gauge the progression of the average player who actually puts time into the game, and the former is skewing the percentages much lower than they actually are. There's a reason why on more dedicated achievement tracking sites like psnprofiles the percentages are all above 50-60%.
To make a logical argument about the difficulty of content for the average player, you need to take the percentage of players who actually get to that point, not the players who quit after playing for an hour and refund the game for whatever reason.

I already debunked what you said, a player who quits early on or quits right at Mogh are the same for the purposes of the statistic, it literally does not matter when they quit or if they refunded. There is 0 logical reasoning behind why it would matter.

Also lol at psnprofiles. Elden ring is played on multiple consoles AND on PC. 60% of a small console playerbase is hardly relevant.

[TheRedBaron]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

Originally posted by TheRedBaron:

So you used hp-scaling spells and a bleed weapon.

You used a meta build, congratulations. You did exactly what you said wasn't required to beat the boss... to beat the boss....

No? You said you needed to do the bloodfiend arm strat, or the madness one shot, or the shield build in order to win. I said that wasn't true, and I didn't use any of those. Heck, I didn't even use any of the overpowered cheese strats I listed as well. I used basic RPG logic. HP-scaling attacks for a high HP target, and amped up damage resistances to counter his Physical and Holy attacks. Exactly what I would have done if this were a turn-based Final Fantasy game.

You're the one trying to hammer in a nail using a screwdriver. Don't start yapping to me just because I used effective tools for the boss in question. You're just moving goalposts tbh.

Plus? That was only my first kill. Since then, I've found while aiding other players in cooperation that I am better off just sticking to Waves of Gold and supporting from range, granting me more mobility to move around the battlefield and heal/buff the other players so they too don't get one shot. Elden Ring isn't a test of skill. It's a test of math.

You're the one who claimed that even "with max scadutree fragments, Greatshield talisman, Bull goat or verdigris armor, golden vow, and the damage negation physic tear, you still get 2 tapped by the last 4 main bosses in the game." Which is a whole lot of malarkey that isn't even close to being true.

it's 100% true, and never once did I "move the goalposts"

With the buff to the scadutree fragments, at 20 you get just enough defense to live 3 unblocked hits now, which is a welcome change

Of course in p2 of the final boss that no longer matters because of the extra holy damage applied to the hits.

The examples I gave were the extreme examples of the builds, true. But I never said they were the only pure examples that worked. the layered buff builds, bleed builds, or using hp-scaling spells are 95% of the time what players are using if they don't have a shield.

And the minority that beats the boss without that are hardly the standard the boss should be set too.

The game SHOULD NOT be balanced around the top 5%.

[Dam Stark]

All of it's is ultimately subjective. git gud or play another game. It's the literal final boss.

[Krazy Wallet]

Originally posted by TheRedBaron:

Originally posted by Krazy Wallet:

Where did you get the idea that we are not to overcome these challenges purely with skill? In the sense that we are not all expected to do SL/RL1 runs, yes. However, every souls games requires that you interact with the available system to overcome challenges. You can make the game easier by utilizing the more powerful options, but it's never required. DS3 had the winblades, DS1 had amazingly powerful magic and giant dad builds, DS2 had killer hexes, Elden Ring had ROB. But even with these systems, it's not storymode where failure is impossible. Also, every souls game has had a meta for both PVP and PVE.

I also used a faith build for the final boss, I played him the same way I approached all of the other bosses. I used my colossal weapon as a primary and sprinkled in spells to support when there was an opportunity. During phase transitions or huge casting spells, I rebuffed my character with Golden Order or Divine Protection. Also, I was a quality build. I had level 30 in arcane that was not being used at all in this interaction - I wanted to be able to try out the new weapons so I had levels sprinkled all around. That's an easy 20 extra levels I could have put into vigor for more health, or strength to increase damage.

This boss is extremely doable and you do not need to follow a formula. Practice, patience, and perseverance are required to see this through.

You makes these claims and even if you are telling the truth, it doesn't counter my intial argument that the boss is still too difficult.

it gatekeeps too many weapons, spells, and builds. And far too many players hate the fight itself.

The few of you who defend the boss and the DLC on here and other places on the internet are the minority, you understand that yeah?

Like the DLC gets an easy 9/10 for those of us complaining about the difficulty, and most of us have beaten the final boss on top of it. We are saying that boss itself was poorly designed and it's a let down from a company as incredible as from software. Orphon of Kos in bloodborne is probably the best equivelent. Incredibly annoying to fight and most players hate the fight, and it was designed to be as difficult as possible to push players, to the elimination of the enjoyment of those players.

If you find difficulty fun inherently, that's a personal thing. But most gamers do not. The fun from challenge in games is in OVERCOMING them. And a boss like the final boss in this DLC is gatekeeping that reward for the vast majority of players who are already good players.

it's not like there are a ton of elden ring noobs dying to the final boss over and over again, they never even bought the dlc.

Claiming the boss is too difficult is a very subjective standard. A more reasonable conversation is talking about the specific moves and abilities that a boss has and whether they are developed well. Otherwise, every person who cannot kill the boss would have a valid claim of "too hard". I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm not bothered if some people cannot kill a final boss in a game that is intended to be very challenging. I couldn't kill this boss for nearly 5 hours, I was in the same boat. But where some people quite (or complain on the forums), I continued practicing, trying new approaches, and finding ways to make my build work. When each attack can be dodged, assuming you aren't glitching through the floor to fall to your death, then the failure is on your end as a player. There's no shame in it, that's why we play these games. We are posed with a daunting challenge but we try, and try again until we overcome. That's always been the theme of these souls-like games. Goodness, the in Dark Souls 1 they even named it "Prepare to Die" Edition. In Dark Souls 2, the opening sequence told the player that they'd die "over and over" and eventually go hollow. This may be a different universe, but it's the same theory from the company.

You may not be able to use every single spell effectively against every single boss, but you can use every single weapon effectively against every single boss. certain spells are more contextual especially if they have long casting times. This isn't different from the base game. Try casting Rot Butterflies against the Godskin Apostle in Radahn's Divine Tower. You can get it off, but he is so fast that you'll have a heck of a time doing it effectively.

I've also heard people praise Orphan of Kos for the challenge. I can't speak to BB as I'm only on PC sadly and haven't played it.

As someone who has been in the souls genre for a very long time, I can't imagine approaching a Fromsoft DLC within the souls genre and expecting it to not kick my tail in. This has been their bread and butter for the last 10 years.