Is Malenia Badly Designed? (a rant)

[Flying Lemming Soup]

Finished Elden Ring for the first time not long ago. Unlike the previous FromSoft games I've played (DS1, DS3, Sekiro) I didn't feel inspired to immediately go again. I made an abortive attempt at a new character with a new build, but just lost interest and moved on to other stuff. I feel like some of my ambivalence is tied to my experience with Malenia, as one of the last bosses I took on. When I finished Sekiro, the battle with Isshin had taken many attempts but I was THRILLED at the end of it. Isshin has since become possibly my favorite boss ever, and I look forward to fighting him every time. Malenia... doesn't have that same feel for me.

Much has been said about Waterfowl Dance, but I think it IS a problem, and it can be summed up as: You shouldn't need a guide to have a chance of being able to survive one single attack out a boss's moveset. Any single attack in Sekiro, even from the toughest bosses, can be understood after seeing it once or twice; and learning how to counter each individual move is relatively intuitive, even if it takes a few attempts. Most of Malenia's moveset fits into this category; where after seeing it a couple times you have a solid chance of being able to dodge it. But even if you know exactly how Waterfowl Dance works and how to counter it (which, again, you'll probably need outside help on), you need to practice against it as if it was a boss in its own right. It makes her fight feel... lopsided. Do you think this is a fair assessment?

Her other problem is her ability to heal from hitting you; not damaging you, hitting you. This means that any build configured around trading or tanking is worthless. A solid shield build hard counters the damage from Waterfowl Dance, but by the time the attack is through, she's recovered most of her health. Pretty much the only build and playstyle that's effective against her is 'high damage, avoid being hit'. This is fine in Sekiro, where the game gives you one set of tools and expects you to get good with them; but Elden Ring is something like an RPG. You have a wide variety of builds to choose from; but Malenia demands that you either face her with one specific style (or else cheese), and if you don't play by her rules, you're out of luck. Do you think this is a fair assessment; and is it a problem even if it is? Do you think it's bad game design to have bosses that force you into a specific build in a game where multiple build options are available?

Overall, to me, Malenia feels a bit like a gimmick boss. She has exactly two mechanics that make her anything other than another 'challenging but fair' boss fight in the series. Without Waterfowl Dance and her healing, I suspect I would have beaten her solo within half a dozen attempts; and that... doesn't feel great.

[ZTL-Altima]

Malenia gets a pass for being super fun to fight against. Her super is nasty until you solve it, so you'll die a lot and if insists on not search for help, can lock you out for hours.

A super cool nasty optional boss is fine.

[Arthur Morrigan]

İlk olarak ZTL-Altima tarafından gönderildi:

Malenia gets a pass for being super fun to fight against. Her super is nasty until you solve it, so you'll die a lot and if insists on not search for help, can lock you out for hours.

Sure sounds like fun. I love spending hours fighting a boss that has two punishable attacks and a single attack so poorly designed it may take hours to figure out.

[Morton Koopa Jr.]

İlk olarak ♥♥♥♥ at game tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak ZTL-Altima tarafından gönderildi:

Malenia gets a pass for being super fun to fight against. Her super is nasty until you solve it, so you'll die a lot and if insists on not search for help, can lock you out for hours.

Sure sounds like fun. I love spending hours fighting a boss that has two punishable attacks and a single attack so poorly designed it may take hours to figure out.

Welcome to video games. Then again I'm sure there's a lot of qte friendly action games that might be more your speed.

[Arthur Morrigan]

İlk olarak Morton Koopa Jr. tarafından gönderildi:

Welcome to video games. Then again I'm sure there's a lot of qte friendly action games that might be more your speed.

"I gotta cape for this ♥♥♥♥ boss fight by accusing people of, uh, playing 'qte friendly action games'."

Sometimes things are just poorly designed.

[Kain]

İlk olarak Morton Koopa Jr. tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak ♥♥♥♥ at game tarafından gönderildi:

Sure sounds like fun. I love spending hours fighting a boss that has two punishable attacks and a single attack so poorly designed it may take hours to figure out.

Welcome to video games. Then again I'm sure there's a lot of qte friendly action games that might be more your speed.

Thats rich coming from a blood-build-user.
We can see your post history and that you summoned to beat her.

[Sonnenbank]

İlk olarak Hikaru tarafından gönderildi:

You literally needed cheat engine and 4 hours of grinding waterfowl while cheating with a guide telling you exactly what to do to learn the move lol.

All the other methods are cheese.

Well i am just slightly above average in skill so thats why :)

Now saying that the 5 other methods are cheese is your personal opinion ;)

how is using ashes of war or a shield cheese ?
How is overleveling and tanking it cheese ?
these are normal game mechanics.

So you say doing anything but naked man 0 hit by pure gamepad skill is cheese ?
Thats an opinion that you can have but i think you would be pretty lonley with that.

btw do i remember correctly that you said you are much better than the
guy who showed that NG7+ Radahn kill with Axes which was a pretty good performance ? Just out of curiosity do you have any videos of you ?
i mean in the past some guys who claimed to be good have turned out to be truly
insane ( like "snowy" who i think isnt active here anymore but damn was this guy incredible on the gamepad) and some guys who claimed to be good have turned out a joke or lets better say pretty unimpressive average.
Now if i remember correctly you said you wont show gameplay unless someone else shows first.
there are like 30 videos of me out there...i think i am not that bad ;) but obviously not that impressive either. So do you mind to show something

İlk olarak Fineous🔥 tarafından gönderildi:

Man.....im not even posting the chicken dance GIF here,

would be off-topic anyways....
you show how to eveade a waterfowl from 200m aways... which isnt even the problem with waterfowl...

the only difficulty with waterfowl is close range and your method would not work in close range.

[Flying Lemming Soup]

İlk olarak EF_Neo1st tarafından gönderildi:

Because of how you was doing and the strategy you was using.
A boss that forced you to learn more of the game and adapt.. well, the shield strategy works fine in the DLC I guess (you may stil get played around y bosses regardless of thaat but it works).

I feel compelled to point out that my strategy kept shifting for all of my attempts. I used sword and shield, greatswords, greathammers, fire damage, blood damage, bloodhound step, several other ashes of war, pots, perfumes... I was trying to adapt, I was just configured for a balance between durability and damage, rather than pure damage. As for the list of ways to cheese Waterfowl listed earlier...

İlk olarak Sonnenbank tarafından gönderildi:

1.) Bloodhound stepp.
Even when she does it full close range -> bloodhound stepp allows you to get away from the first flurry savely and deal with the rest of the attack in the several different ways.

2.) Frozen Pot to stagger her out of it

3.) 100% phys shield + either barricade shield or vow of indomitable to block 1st flurry

4.) trigger waterfowl from range with a spell so she has cooldown on close range waterfowl for the next 40-50 seconds.

5.) be overleveld and just panik roll tank it ... you will survive with ~ 20-30% health left.

1) I used Bloodhound Step for most of my attempts, and I still only survived about half the time after learning what exactly I was supposed to do with it (which I only learned from guides.)

2) I don't think I ever unlocked the Frozen Pot. Elden Ring is so vast that getting everything on your first playthrough without a guide is... not realistic for most players. And of the many, many, MANY consumable options available to you, how are you supposed to know that Frozen Pot can help you here?

3) Sure, I used that. She was back at nearly full health by the time waterfowl was over. That's not very much different from simply taking damage, since either way it reduces the margin for error you have.

4) I fought her dozens of times and never even realized that Waterfowl reliably triggers at range... or that it has a cooldown. I was a melee combatant, how are melee combatants supposed to figure that out?

5) I was a high-vigor, high-armor build already. I probably would have needed another 30-50 levels to get to that level of durability.

-

Ultimately, my winning strategy was cheese, calling in allies and using specific weapons to stunlock her.

I beat DS1, I beat DS3 and its DLCs. I beat Sekiro. I win more than half of my PvP duels. I am not a terrible player, and I CAN adapt and learn. I simply did not have fun with Malenia.

[Fentlover420]

yes, this game is not perfect like all fromstoft games

[Postman Pat]

İlk olarak Persona Au Gratin tarafından gönderildi:

I think in that regard... I dunno, I agree with the notion that most people won't be able to learn just by engaging the game in the way most do, but you can put me in the example of someone who learned it albeit 300 hours in when I decided to test a theory about how it works. I hadn't looked up a guide, and the method I always saw used was NOT how I dodged the move. I didn't even dodge the move by running away from the first two sequences of the dance.

>didn't look up a guide
>"the method I always saw used was NOT how I dodged the move."

They're not sending their best.

Malenia is garbage, just like Blazing Bull and Demon of Hatred are awful in Sekiro. I'd go so far as to say Isshin is also garbage in Sekiro. 4 phase boss fight? You gotta be fking kidding me. After finishing Sword Saint I had such a bad taste in my mouth I never looked back at the game, which is DEEPLY flawed but fanboys are never willing to admit. Great game, mind you, but like many great games (Skyrim, Starcraft, Ninja Gaiden - take your pick) it isn't without flaws or above critique.

Malenia is a Sekiro boss in the wrong game, like Demon of Hatred is a Blood Borne boss in the wrong game.

[Flying Lemming Soup]

İlk olarak Postman Pat tarafından gönderildi:

I'd go so far as to say Isshin is also garbage in Sekiro. 4 phase boss fight? You gotta be fking kidding me. After finishing Sword Saint I had such a bad taste in my mouth I never looked back at the game, which is DEEPLY flawed but fanboys are never willing to admit.

Huh, so this is what it's like to look at my own post from the outside. Out of curiosity, is it just the sheer length of the fight that you're opposed to? Or is there other stuff that you feel is unfair?

[mono_sloth]

Tell me, if soup flies, does that mean it splashes everywhere instead of sitting in a bowl?

[Flying Lemming Soup]

İlk olarak Frogfuciousカエルの賢者 tarafından gönderildi:

Tell me, if soup flies, does that mean it splashes everywhere instead of sitting in a bowl?

I wouldn't know. Someone ate all the Flying Lemmings before I could turn them into soup to test the theory.

[Sonnenbank]

İlk olarak Flying Lemming Soup tarafından gönderildi:

1) I used Bloodhound Step for most of my attempts, and I still only survived about half the time after learning what exactly I was supposed to do with it (which I only learned from guides.)

I dont know which guides you watched and i myself have never watched a guide on Bloodhound stepp. I just tried it and it works for me every time.
If you only survive 50% with that you simply have a very very slow reaction time and start to run away waaay too late. BHS gives you crazy long window to start the escape. Or do you get hit on 2nd and 3rd flurry ?
in only bloodhoundstepp the first , roll the 2nd and c turn the 3rd. flurry
works 99,9% of the time .

İlk olarak Flying Lemming Soup tarafından gönderildi:

2) I don't think I ever unlocked the Frozen Pot. Elden Ring is so vast that getting everything on your first playthrough without a guide is... not realistic for most players. And of the many, many, MANY consumable options available to you, how are you supposed to know that Frozen Pot can help you here?

Experience tells you that Bleed and Frost explosions can stagger opponents out of animations.
you could learn this by using frost or bleed weapons and than simply experiment

İlk olarak Flying Lemming Soup tarafından gönderildi:

3) Sure, I used that. She was back at nearly full health by the time waterfowl was over. That's not very much different from simply taking damage, since either way it reduces the margin for error you have.

Again you are not supposed to block the whole thing... only teh first flurry

İlk olarak Flying Lemming Soup tarafından gönderildi:

4) I fought her dozens of times and never even realized that Waterfowl reliably triggers at range... or that it has a cooldown. I was a melee combatant, how are melee combatants supposed to figure that out?

i figured that out using throwing knifes for keeping up posture break.
that was actually pretty easy to figure out.
about 70% of the time when i threw knife trying to keep up posture break she did waterfowl
thats actually someting i 100% figured out on myself and never did read anywhere before

İlk olarak Flying Lemming Soup tarafından gönderildi:

5) I was a high-vigor, high-armor build already. I probably would have needed another 30-50 levels to get to that level of durability.

You can do this at around level 175 which yes is ~ 40 levels above content.
Still with Moghwyn XP farm that is not that hard to get.

İlk olarak Flying Lemming Soup tarafından gönderildi:

Ultimately, my winning strategy was cheese, calling in allies and using specific weapons to stunlock her.

I beat DS1, I beat DS3 and its DLCs. I beat Sekiro. I win more than half of my PvP duels. I am not a terrible player, and I CAN adapt and learn. I simply did not have fun with Malenia.

Well i did beat DS1 , did 0-hit DS3 main bosses, did beat Sekiro , dont play PvP
and Malenia was the most fun boss i ever fought in any FS game.
SO what ?

[Byakko]

100% agree with OP, especially the part about variety of builds.

[Merkava]

This is a debate as old as time itself and it's never going to be resolved because, at the end of the day, the two sides are arguing from a fundamentally different view point. From software games chanced with the release of Elden Ring and the need to keep the game hard for its audience that grew accustomed to the general difficulty of the game. Bosses most of the time have multiple delayed attacks, variance in combos, the ability to cancel out openings, anime inspired attacks, animation reading, etc etc. In turn the game has turn into a simple memorization loop. If you do not overpower the boss via "cheesing" or raw statistics then you are expected to now spend time memorizing each bosses attack patterns until you eventually get it down to muscle memory and win.

It is, at a fundamental level, very different from how things worked Pre-Sekiro (Sekiro was fast as well but there was a good reason parrying was so forgiving in that game and also doubled as damage due to stance breaking), you didn't have to learn anything and you'd just react naturally to what you saw. 99% of attacks where intuitive and you could avoid after seeing them once. You honestly rarely had to try bosses more than a few times back then. Now attacks like Waterflow dance completely throw that out of the window and force the player into simple trial and error until they figure it out while being expected to, at times, take dozens of attempts to clear later bosses. Given how much more they doubled down on the DLC this is going to be the way going forward. You'll just love the visual diarreah that is the final boss of the DLC (you can't even tell what half the stuff happening on screen is) with often hyper specific ways of dodging attacks. Oh forgot that when the boss lifts his left toe he is going to do an extra attack? You get hit, should have remembered that. Didn't avoid certain attacks at the last second in a very specific direction? Yup, just accept the damage. This is a bit of an exaggeration but it's something that does happen quite a bit in this game.

When people say that waterflow dance is "simple" to learn then they are just fundamentally thinking very differently than you are. Whether you agree or not there is an undeniable fact that Elden Ring changed souls forever (can make the argument that it was Sekiro but the point still stands) and it's never going back, because these games NEED to be "hard" in the eyes of its fans now. It is how the proverbial cookie crumbles. So just get to memorizing or just cheese it and move on with your life, for a lot of people the whole point is the difficulty and nothing's changing that.