The issue with discourse regarding difficulty in souls nowadays

[pocbame]

People who have been playing souls for a while have developed an ego. They've beaten the souls series, sekiro, and bloodborne solo without summoning ("the true way" as the community dictates). Due to this, in their mind, they are very good at souls.
So when they come up a boss on another tier of difficulty (consort radahn) that brings them back to the state of spending hours on a single boss, thinking "man this is impossible, how can I win?", instead of dropping their ego and going "Godamn this boss is way harder than anything else I've played against. I've got to improve and get better to beat him", they go:
"I'm a souls veteran. I'm really good at souls. Yet I'm having trouble with this boss? The only conclusion is that the boss is unfair and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. If he was fair I'd beat him easily because I'm so good!"

Radahn is the next step up in souls difficulty. You can NOT panic roll vs him like 99% of other bosses; vs most other bosses in the souls series you can just spam roll and dodge a lot of hits. You can NOT just brute force your way through: getting hit by half of the boss' attacks but healing up with your 14 estus and winning anyway. You are forced to learn Radahn's moveset if you're fighting him legitimately and he is very, very punishing. He forces you to approach him in different ways, i.e different attacks require different positioning and different directional rolling.
He's not perfect, he has visual clarity issues for sure. Sometimes you can't see what's going on because of his lightrays covering your screen, and when you get into phase 2 for the first time, it's hard to figure out the correct way to dodge some of his attacks (namely meteors into shadow clone slamdunk). But mechanically speaking the fight is fair. Everything is dodgeable just by pressing the roll button in the correct way. If you're dying to him, it's your fault.

Tl;dr drop your ego, he is not bad design just because he's giving you trouble.

[Zoid13]

i think the difficulty is fine.
there is some glaring issues though with the camera being one of them that needs some work.

i started from scratch after finishing the dlc with a fresh character. the game definitely starts off far easier than the DLC which is to be expected considering that Mohg is the DLC entry condition.
however at around the half way point theres many many bosses that deal jsut as much damage in the base game as the dlc and are capable of 2 shorting you with 60 vigor just like the DLC. theres also loads of general enemies in the base game that i find to be way harder than anything in the DLC.
with 10+ scadu the DLC becomes far far easier than the base game in general. you just deal so much more damage and obliterate everything.

Originally posted by pocbame:

Radahn is the next step up in souls difficulty..

Radahn im is great in phase 1. phase 2 isn't terrible. everything is still avoidable the issue with phase 2 IMO is visibility. its a visual mess. too much flashing, Radahn moving too fast with that teleport spam attack its just a visual mess to see whats actually going on.

rest of the DLC bosses were great with a caveat of mounted bosses. i hate mounted bosses in every game. they are just annoying lol

what id like to see in their next title
- reworked camera (along with being able to zoom out further.. would be nice for larger bosses so you aren't just looking at a full screen knee for 5 mins lol)
- more attention to visibility / readability of whats actually happening lol

[pocbame]

Originally posted by vamirez:

Originally posted by BingusDingus:

A lot of people got by them simply because they abused the plethora of broken mechanics of the game. Looks like you're completely forgetting the Radahn greatshield cheese.

The "broken mechanics" are the normal, nonbroken mechanics of the game. Using a greatshield is not cheese. See - this bs is exactly one of the major problems here.

A cheese strategy is defined (defined via popular opinion, this is what the term has meant since its inception in the gaming community) as a low-skill strategy that helps you overcome a challenge with little to no effort.
If you equip a great shield you win the fight without any effort or even knowing what he does. It's almost impossible to lose while holding the greatshield and the fight becomes 100x easier.
By definition it's a cheese strategy.

[Sgt. Flaw]

All I know is the moment you start saying it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and start ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ you end up running into the fogawall dieing to the same move over and over ...

You stop paying attention to the bosses moves and start looking at how ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ it is instead. You need to keep a level head, even after 300 deaths, or you start ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up.

Or, you can cheese

[SubAtomic]

The only part of final boss' design that is arguably bad is the visual clutter. Can't see ♥♥♥♥ but the light beams have predetermined paths, and unless you're in the trenches, they won't spawn in different positions (e.g. closer to boss).

imo, these are probably the only real gripes someone could argue bad design as phase 1 is completely fine. *we will ignore the triple slash with instant windup and no tell, however.

Though i can see how the average player will get ♥♥♥♥ on by him, what with his constant swings in phase 2 with little to no real punishing.

[pocbame]

Originally posted by Zoid13:

i think the difficulty is fine.
there is some glaring issues though with the camera being one of them that needs some work.

i started from scratch after finishing the dlc with a fresh character. the game definitely starts off far easier than the DLC which is to be expected considering that Mohg is the DLC entry condition.
however at around the half way point theres many many bosses that deal jsut as much damage in the base game as the dlc and are capable of 2 shorting you with 60 vigor just like the DLC. theres also loads of general enemies in the base game that i find to be way harder than anything in the DLC.
with 10+ scadu the DLC becomes far far easier than the base game in general. you just deal so much more damage and obliterate everything.

Originally posted by pocbame:

Radahn is the next step up in souls difficulty..

Radahn im is great in phase 1. phase 2 isn't terrible. everything is still avoidable the issue with phase 2 IMO is visibility. its a visual mess. too much flashing, Radahn moving too fast with that teleport spam attack its just a visual mess to see whats actually going on.

rest of the DLC bosses were great with a caveat of mounted bosses. i hate mounted bosses in every game. they are just annoying lol

what id like to see in their next title
- reworked camera (along with being able to zoom out further.. would be nice for larger bosses so you aren't just looking at a full screen knee for 5 mins lol)
- more attention to visibility / readability of whats actually happening lol

The Radahn fight is fine mechanically but I do agree that visual clarity suffers. I think the lightray explosions shouldn't visually go past your characters ankles/knees. They can block your vision sometimes like you said. The teleportation spam attack definitely does make you go "how do you dodge this?" for the first 2-3 times you see it aswell.

[vamirez]

Originally posted by pocbame:

Originally posted by vamirez:

The "broken mechanics" are the normal, nonbroken mechanics of the game. Using a greatshield is not cheese. See - this bs is exactly one of the major problems here.

A cheese strategy is defined (defined via popular opinion, this is what the term has meant since its inception in the gaming community) as a low-skill strategy that helps you overcome a challenge with little to no effort.
If you equip a great shield you win the fight without any effort or even knowing what he does. It's almost impossible to lose while holding the greatshield and the fight becomes 100x easier.
By definition it's a cheese strategy.

Wrong. Civen above got it right.

Randomly declaring strong weapons or abilities, or shields, as cheese, because it is... a good strat and makes fights... easier... doesn't make any sense. This all comes from that elitist mindset that states that you must beat the enemies with a very narrow range of allowed items to really have the challenge and to really experience the fight and so on. Anything that goes beyond that is then cheese by default. Sorry, but that can't be it. Especially when individual people feel free to add anything they don't like or don't want to use to the big cheese catalogue. If someone beats Radahn with their greatshield build, that is smart. Well done. That's it.

[Mander]

I've to disagree with half of the OP.
I agree with the elitist and gatekeeping culture developed by the community.
But Radhan is not the "next step up in souls difficulty". It's a cheap arse endboss. Period.
I’ve beaten the DLC on NG+5, and I consider myself a bad souls player: I’m terrible at reposting, for example (among other things).
Radhan it’s hard, only because bosses in general in Elden Ring have access to a combat system FROMS is keeping us, the players, willingly away. We’re still forced to deal with a clunky, outdated way of combat by design, while Radhan (for example) takes all the advantages FROMS could provide to us too. And it’s a choice made I believe, to stay “true” to the spirit of the souls like. While bosses in the meantime, acquire all the improvements we are kept away from.
This is, imo, the true core problem with this DLC: it shows us what we aren’t given, but we could have.
It’s a shame, because a Souls with a modernized combat system (ala Nioh2) would be immensely more enjoyable and also would make money hand over fist.

[pocbame]

By definition it's cheese. You're just objectively wrong lol
If you wanna use cheese that's your choice. Play the game in the way that you deem it the most fun. Don't cope about it not being cheese though

[pocbame]

Originally posted by Mander:

I've to disagree with half of the OP.
I agree with the elitist and gatekeeping culture developed by the community.
But Radhan is not the "next step up in souls difficulty". It's a cheap arse endboss. Period.
I’ve beaten the DLC on NG+5, and I consider myself a bad souls player: I’m terrible at reposting, for example (among other things).
Radhan it’s hard, only because bosses in general in Elden Ring have access to a combat system FROMS is keeping us, the player, willingly away. We’re still forced to deal with a clunky, outdated way of combat by design, while Radhan (for example) takes all the advantages FROMS could provide to us too. And it’s a choice made I believe, to stay “true” to the spirit of the souls like. While bosses in the meantime, acquire all the improvements we are kept away from.
This is, imo, the true core problem with this DLC: it shows us what we aren’t given, but we could have.
It’s a shame, because a Souls with a modernized combat system (ala Nioh2) would be immensely more enjoyable and also would make money hand over fist.

It's cheap and bad design because the boss is more powerful than the player? ..Lol? That's kinda the point.

[Calandir]

Originally posted by SubAtomic:

The only part of final boss' design that is arguably bad is the visual clutter. Can't see ♥♥♥♥ but the light beams have predetermined paths, and unless you're in the trenches, they won't spawn in different positions (e.g. closer to boss).

imo, these are probably the only real gripes someone could argue bad design as phase 1 is completely fine. *we will ignore the triple slash with instant windup and no tell, however.

Though i can see how the average player will get ♥♥♥♥ on by him, what with his constant swings in phase 2 with little to no real punishing.

Visual clutter I agree, also there is item that basically negates whole Phase 2. And almost all holy dmg. It's all about exploring.

But yes the visual clutter and fps drops are very bad. They should tone it down in next game. And I do hope, next game is more about fencing and parry, instead of open-world demi-god.

Even if I love ER, I want something new.

[vamirez]

Originally posted by pocbame:

By definition it's cheese. You're just objectively wrong lol
If you wanna use cheese that's your choice. Play the game in the way that you deem it the most fun. Don't cope about it not being cheese though

This is the toxic elitism mindset on display again.

[BingusDingus]

Originally posted by vamirez:

Originally posted by BingusDingus:

A lot of people got by them simply because they abused the plethora of broken mechanics of the game. Looks like you're completely forgetting the Radahn greatshield cheese.

The "broken mechanics" are the normal, nonbroken mechanics of the game. Using a greatshield is not cheese. See - this bs is exactly one of the major problems here.

The fact that you can easily defeat a boss that's otherwise hard with no effort whatsoever is the definition of cheese.
You got to have your head in a gutter to think that's not the definition of broken.

Has literally nothing to do with elitism, when something is massively more powerful and complete subverts the intended difficulty of something, it is by definition overpowered.

[Calandir]

Originally posted by vamirez:

Originally posted by pocbame:

A cheese strategy is defined (defined via popular opinion, this is what the term has meant since its inception in the gaming community) as a low-skill strategy that helps you overcome a challenge with little to no effort.
If you equip a great shield you win the fight without any effort or even knowing what he does. It's almost impossible to lose while holding the greatshield and the fight becomes 100x easier.
By definition it's a cheese strategy.

Wrong. Civen above got it right.

Randomly declaring strong weapons or abilities, or shields, as cheese, because it is... a good strat and makes fights... easier... doesn't make any sense. This all comes from that elitist mindset that states that you must beat the enemies with a very narrow range of allowed items to really have the challenge and to really experience the fight and so on. Anything that goes beyond that is then cheese by default. Sorry, but that can't be it. Especially when individual people feel free to add anything they don't like or don't want to use to the big cheese catalogue. If someone beats Radahn with their greatshield build, that is smart. Well done. That's it.

Even Miyazaki said in Interview that he's using all tools to beat bosses. But I guess the Developer of this game is wrong and should ''git gud'' in opinion of the ''elite'' crowd lmao.

Unreal...

[ZTL-Altima]

BS. Dunno why the urge to dismiss veterans. Were not for the veterans to discover asian english translated Demons Souls version, history could not be the same. Remember Sony did not recognize the game as marketable. The veterans saved our asses.
--

No, you cannot spam roll past difficult bosses.

Everything is more defined and solid in previous modern Souls. The telegraphs, the AoEs, even lingering frame attacks (compare Gael cape attack to Mogh lingering lance attack, just to realize that lance still has activated frames you first will suffer some strange ghost hits).

That being said, yeah, something like the DLC final boss is harder than previous entries, whatever "hard" means in these games. What remains for the times to decide is how much that difficulty is the learning aspect of the boss. I suspect most of these DLC bosses are nothing too big once "downloaded". I did not get any clutch kill in the DLC, it was either die fast or kill with many healing remaining...

ER having to compensate for a sh*t mechanic like ashes is already too much hasle, and now there's more bull with fragments... These are the real main source of problems.

[pocbame]

Originally posted by vamirez:

Originally posted by pocbame:

By definition it's cheese. You're just objectively wrong lol
If you wanna use cheese that's your choice. Play the game in the way that you deem it the most fun. Don't cope about it not being cheese though

This is the toxic elitism mindset on display again.

Literally just stated a fact. Cheese the game if you want to, I won't judge you. But cheese is cheese