This DLC is not "to hard", its a chore

[Aradner]

I have over 2000 hours in souls and soulslike games, I do not struggle with bosses in the game, I might get angry with some, but none of them stopped me for longer than 30 minutes of attempts. But I am just not having fun, I enter the bossfight, see my damage, see the moveset and very fast understand what I need to. And I can't be bothered. I am currently in the middle of shadow keep, not fighting the boss ofcourse because that will lock me out of like half the content of that expansion in the form of quests (but that is a pile of crap for another discussion), and over the course of this expansion I had fun with literally 4 bosses:

Shadow Keep Hippo
2 Death knights
Bayle the Dread

Bayle in particular reignited that adrenaline rush in me that made us all fall in love with FromSoft games in the first place (yes I fought him solo, plus the useless summon guy). But that is it, everything else is either an easy joke, or an absolute chore, not to mention we need to balance the whole experience ourselves. These bosses that aren't jokes are just not fun to learn, there is barely any shred of that satisfaction these games used to spark, because FromSoft is in constant state of arms race with its own fanbase. I see what the hardcorest players see in it, but it well deserves the mixed reviews. I personally am getting very tired of this arms race, even the weapons we get started to suffer, since most boss weapons of the DLC vary between mid and total trash, and honestly I am starting to think that this might be my last FromSoft game I'll ever buy if this keeps up.

[Abysswalker]

The DLC has the best bosses in From history. Messmer is my fav boss out of all souls games now. He gave me this incredible feeling after beating him. Same with the final boss, here the feeling and the proccess of learning him was even better. You progressed more and more until you beat him. I dont get these type of threads. Mods should just delete them. They are annoying and full of lies. Beating Messmer wont lock you out of quests, it will just progress those you started already. What actually is a point of no return is burning the sealing tree.

This is what I am talking about, lies and uninformed people. Every day the same dumb threads.

I wish ER wasnt this super popular cause too many bad players hitting brick walls unable to accept they suck at the game. ER just like every other souls game by From Software is not for everyone and many people simply shouldnt play the game to begin with. This DLC has the difficulty I was hoping base game would have cause base game was way too easy.

[Haru]

Originally posted by Wakipai Pero #PLAYGG:

Originally posted by Vril VVizard:

100% agree, As a veteran of the series who grew up on 3 and then revisited 1 and 2 I love the series. But I can't finish this game for the life of me because it's just not 'dark souls' at all, same level up mechanics sure but half of the boss fights seem to boil down to "DODGE ALL 500 OF THESE ATTACKS AND THEN BE FORCED TO TRADE DAMAGE BECAUSE THE BOSS HAS HIGH MOBILITY FOR SOME REASON AND YOU CAN'T HIT HIM"

I don't mind delays, they're a great way to punish panic rolling and using rolling as traversal/distance making instead of the sprint mechanic. But it's so true that he just sucks as a 'filter' because he didn't have the mystique and fun of Iudex Gundyr or champion Gundyr. Everything he does is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that you have to slog through and I always eventually kill him, but the fight feels cheap on both sides because it's just such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ boss design that I always keep running into in a game series about bosses and struggle.

That's because the game isn't Dark Souls. It's Elden Ring. Most veterans are used to bosses doing 1 or 2 big swings, then you get a turn to poke them. This isn't that game anymore. You have hundreds of skills. Have you explored all of them and is using them cleverly to overcome the bosses advantages? If you're still using the Dark Souls "roll their attack and hit them back" mindset no wonder you're not having fun.

This in a nutshell. You have so many options at your disposal. That being said, a lot of Dark Souls bosses had mechanics that were not just tumble and roll either. Heck, one of the most easy ways to finish Dark Souls is just by blasting everything with magic from a safe distance. It's amazing how much rose tinted glasses colour the experience in retrospect. People rarely, if ever, factor in just how much tankier and slower the player was in Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 compared to Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3.

The player speeds up so much in Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne that it feels like 80% of the bosses that aren't gimmick bosses are moving in slow motion.

[Haru]

Originally posted by Jinx:

My favorite bosses are hippo, Bayle, putrid knight, finger mother and boarrider. Relanna and Mesmer died too fast to leave an impression. And last boss is awful. With non-greatshield build the fight is a chore, you wait a minute dodging his attacks to hit him one time. It's not fun, it's tedious. And with great shield boss is a joke.

Or you soak damage, parry him, abuse his grab mechanic, use ranged attacks while he's flailing around. A lot of his attacks actively miss if you let them.

What's this nonsense people keep going on about?

[Werfer]

this doesn't make any sense tbh base game er has the exact same philosophy and there its not a problem ig?

[Aradner]

Originally posted by Werfergrad:

this doesn't make any sense tbh base game er has the exact same philosophy and there its not a problem ig?

It is, you can scroll a bit back where we talk about Margit. In the DLC they escalated everything wrong with the base game

[fishstick]

Not enough unique cool humanoid bosses, encounters like the blackgaol knight or ancient dragon man could've being a boss like fume knight or artorias instead of just generic npcs with the same tarnished movesets

[Quandangle Jones & JimJams]

Originally posted by Aradner:

Originally posted by zab:

Mesmer is great
Putrescent knight is great
Lion dancer is great
also I wouldn't say they are overtuned

Haven't tried messmer yet for reasons stated above.
Putrescent Knight had a random chance to sync with his horse in such a way he was undodgable, and his floor fire visuals kept glitching out, so I find him one of the trashiest of the bunch
I would probably have liked Lion Dancer much more, but I encountered it with way to few upgrades and brute forced him, which made him a horrible chore, and I blame that stupid scadutree system for it more than the boss itself, although some of its attacks were very badly telegraphed and its hitboxes have very little to do with his actual model and graphics.

Bayle on the other hand had well telegraphed attacks, I could literally stand on the edges of his explosions, he had rythmical timing, he was ferocious but had enough downtime in his attacks to allow healing and casting or whatever else you needed, while being ferocious enough so that you really had to earn your damage.

See I don't think I'm the one with terrible taste here.

heres a spoiler for a boss that comes later

theres another optional lion dancer boss its found in the ruins area to the left of shadow keep, you might like him better after the upgrades

[Wakipai Pero #PLAYGG]

Originally posted by Vril VVizard:

Originally posted by Wakipai Pero #PLAYGG:

That's because the game isn't Dark Souls. It's Elden Ring. Most veterans are used to bosses doing 1 or 2 big swings, then you get a turn to poke them. This isn't that game anymore. You have hundreds of skills. Have you explored all of them and is using them cleverly to overcome the bosses advantages? If you're still using the Dark Souls "roll their attack and hit them back" mindset no wonder you're not having fun.

No i'm playing with lame ass 'jump attacks' and spamming lame ♥♥♥♥ that is objectively trash design. I've literally noticed me doing it in this game that I play in a tunnel vision way due to the subpar design.

As for the rest of your point it shouldn't be classified as souls-like or anything fromsoft made. It's just not good and as what was supposed to be the next entry into the series i've maintained that this is a mediocre game and an absolute piss poor excuse for a souls game that Miyazaki should be ashamed of. Also, you describe DS 1. Dark souls 2 and 3 have bosses that have multiple fast swings and varied movesets, having to learn a hard moveset isn't a problem for me. It's playing this soy slop 'nu-souls' meant for zoomers and paying full money for it and gaslighting myself into thinking it's not a dogwater game.

You're choosing to use the "lame" jump attacks. There's so many more things you can do. There's so many more options to explore other than just rolling enemy attacks then hitting them back. I was playing with that mind set at first. Then I decided to be more flexible and am having tons of fun.

Also that's the thing. You're still thinking that Elden Ring is Dark Souls 4, or that whatever Fromsoft makes should adhere to a certain style of gameplay, that they should never explore new mechanics, ideas, or expand their boundaries. Fromsoft has made it clear they don't want to keep making the same game. They don't want to limit themselves. As such, you should also stop limiting yourself. Stop thinking this is Dark Souls 4. Stop playing it like Dark Souls or what you think a "Fromsoft game" should be like.

Start playing Elden Ring and you might have fun.

[gungadin22000]

I watched some videos of the DLC bosses.

They look fine, challenging for sure but....

Am I really the only one becoming near-nauseated by the sheer number of giant flashing lights, blazing flames and huge screen obscuring AoEs that pretty much every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boss pisses all over the arena, making it impossible to see what's going on?

And that's the impression I get from watching a VIDEO of this DLC. I can't imagine having to see through all this crap for long enough to actually dodge the attacks coming from every direction.

I love Elden Ring, but some bosses in it had the same problem, most notably the Elden Beast ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ holy lightning everywhere, making some fights a visual nightmare to get through. This seems rampant in the DLC, and for that reason I probably won't get it, at least not unless heavily discounted.