Malenia`s Waterflow Dance (fromsoftware needs to address this)

[z4nid]

3 times in a row is a bit too excessive.

[Morton Koopa Jr.]

Messaggio originale di vamirez:

Messaggio originale di Morton Koopa Jr.:

Yeah. People should really use the answer function for genuine questions. It's silly use the function as some of "hehehe" hand-five sort of thing.

It's disappointing. As a person who has literally been stuck at Malenia for like 12 in-combat hours by now, I really do love discussing the boss fight (to a degree. Still slightly spoiler-averse).

I didn't understand OP correctly, but still my answers were right :p

Cliches are cliches because they are often true... (referring to "choosing ridiculous post that agress with me as the thread's answer")

True. I thought OP was frustrated and emotional. I didn't realize OP legitimately thought that the move was mechanically unfair so your responses were totally valid.

[SadPlatty©]

Messaggio originale di vamirez:

Messaggio originale di Morton Koopa Jr.:

Yeah. People should really use the answer function for genuine questions. It's silly use the function as some of "hehehe" hand-five sort of thing.

It's disappointing. As a person who has literally been stuck at Malenia for like 12 in-combat hours by now, I really do love discussing the boss fight (to a degree. Still slightly spoiler-averse).

I didn't understand OP correctly, but still my answers were right :p

Cliches are cliches because they are often true... (referring to "choosing ridiculous post that agress with me as the thread's answer")

Suppose so - but I still feel like "Bad RnG" wasn't a great cop-out for the thread to be over; having bad luck is bad luck, that isn't much of a discussion topic really like I guess most people thought when replying with their opinions.

[ᴠ̅̅ɪ̅̅ᴘ̅̅ᴇ̅̅ʀ]

Messaggio originale di furikake:

3 times in a row is a bit too excessive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wWnRCm7jxI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EXcXg_7teY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgBVF1vnfzM&t=78s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so1VC6zPMZs&t=41s

[z4nid]

Was it cathartic? Ofc it was. My intentions with this post were laid bare from the get go. Still, we exhausted our arguments and agreed to disagree, but at least I got my catharsis, there's someone out there who agrees that 3 times in a row is 3 times in a row. Bless your heart and peace out.

[ressenmacher]

Waterfowl Dance has a few counters:

You can stay far enough away from Malenia that you outspace the first two flurries and can dodge the last. I don't think "you can't stay within like twenty feet of the boss or you're screwed" is engaging design for a melee hack and slash game.

You can manipulate Malenia's targeting system through incredibly precise movement to get her to fly past you and then make two successful dodges for the followups. When the counter is so unintuitive that you need a guide video to even know that it exists, is so tight that the enemy just being on a slope as you see in all-Malenia challenge runs screws it up, and has a penalty of instant death, I don't think that's really fair to expect most players to discover or consistently use. Heck, I don't even think this is an intended way to dodge the attack; it reminds me a lot of just abusing the Dark Souls targeting AI by circle-strafe backstab spamming everything to death, only less forgiving this time around.

You can throw a freezing pot at her to trigger a status stun. Which is really cool; I think this is awesome because it adds a new response the player needs to be ready for and encourages engagement with the crafting system. But it's also not an obvious solution that the game has taught you to explore before, and it's limited to iirc two uses before it stops working due to rising frost res.


To summarize, for the average player the only way to consistently not get shredded is staying away, and I don't think that makes for a very interesting or engaging fight. Otherwise, the fight becomes RNG with whether you'll get waterfowl three times before you finish a phase. Heck, that one attack dominates the entire fight to this extreme degree is itself something I think should have been reconsidered.

[z4nid]

Prime

Messaggio originale di ressenmacher:

Waterfowl Dance has a few counters:

You can stay far enough away from Malenia that you outspace the first two flurries and can dodge the last. I don't think "you can't stay within like twenty feet of the boss or you're screwed" is engaging design for a melee hack and slash game.

You can manipulate Malenia's targeting system through incredibly precise movement to get her to fly past you and then make two successful dodges for the followups. When the counter is so unintuitive that you need a guide video to even know that it exists, is so tight that the enemy just being on a slope as you see in all-Malenia challenge runs screws it up, and has a penalty of instant death, I don't think that's really fair to expect most players to discover or consistently use. Heck, I don't even think this is an intended way to dodge the attack; it reminds me a lot of just abusing the Dark Souls targeting AI by circle-strafe backstab spamming everything to death, only less forgiving this time around.

You can throw a freezing pot at her to trigger a status stun. Which is really cool; I think this is awesome because it adds a new response the player needs to be ready for and encourages engagement with the crafting system. But it's also not an obvious solution that the game has taught you to explore before, and it's limited to iirc two uses before it stops working due to rising frost res.


To summarize, for the average player the only way to consistently not get shredded is staying away, and I don't think that makes for a very interesting or engaging fight. Otherwise, the fight becomes RNG with whether you'll get waterfowl three times before you finish a phase. Heck, that one attack dominates the entire fight to this extreme degree is itself something I think should have been reconsidered.

People have complained that I selected a cathartic response to my cathartic post, but this right here makes the argument that discussing the waterfowl dance has in fact the same effect as discussing Malenia's fight as a whole.

This whole fight revolves around waterfowl dance and wether you have the ability to dodge or counter it. So much so that everything she does in between is just a smoke screen. Anything she does between one waterfowl dance and the next one is meaningless which is to say that this whole boss was design around this one attack.

Everything she does in between is arguably baiting the player in for the kill on the ensuing dance. 90% of my deaths to Melania revolves around the waterfowl dance, and I assume for the majority of people as well. Changing anything relating to the dance is fundamentally changing the Malenia fight as a whole.

[Anthreris]

Besides the previously mentioned points against Waterfowl Dance, the thing that really bothers me is how from knows the move is ridiculous. If we compare the boss move to the Tarnished's version of the moveset one can really see how nerfed our is.

Could you imagine the real Waterfowl Dance animation in a pvp scenario? When you picture the movement potential and range of such an idea, it becomes quite apparent how absurd Waterfowl is and would be if the moveset wasn't nerfed in the players hands.

I personally think the discrepancy between the two is argument enough for a nerf to Malenia's version. It should be a superior version to the Weapon Art version but currently these two aren't even close. It is overtuned, and most players are only able to dodge it by abusing Malenia's tracking mechanics.

Also have you seen the clip that shows what the hitboxes of this move actually looks like? A nerf is called for. However I would argue Waterfowl and the cutscene transition bloom attack are the only things that cause Malenia to be a difficult fight. So I'd also ask for the rest of the fight to be made more interesting.

Sorry about the length of this post, however I hope it convey's my deep thoughts on the matter succinctly and well.

[ressenmacher]

Messaggio originale di furikake:

This whole fight revolves around waterfowl dance and wether you have the ability to dodge or counter it. So much so that everything she does in between is just a smoke screen. Anything she does between one waterfowl dance and the next one is meaningless which is to say that this whole boss was design around this one attack.

Everything she does in between is arguably baiting the player in for the kill on the ensuing dance. 90% of my deaths to Melania revolves around the waterfowl dance, and I assume for the majority of people as well. Changing anything relating to the dance is fundamentally changing the Malenia fight as a whole.

That it dominates the whole fight is sadly true. I wish they had made it important but not overbearing, something you always have to keep in mind but maybe not something that would instantly kill you if you made a minor screwup in not already acting to mitigate it before it even starts.

Beast Clergyman's pocket gravel is a great example of what I wish it was like; the fight revolves to a great extent around it because it can close any combo, but it doesn't force you to play in an entirely different/unintuitive way and isn't so horribly punishing.

I also think it detracts somewhat from her lore and immersion that this is her most powerful attack. The clone summoning and Scarlet Aeonia both involve her drawing on a higher power and have longer windups, which should logically make them more dangerous, and yet Malenia doing the twirly is orders of magnitude more threatening than channeling the power of an outer god of decay lmao. It feels bad story wise in addition to gameplay wise.

[z4nid]

Messaggio originale di ressenmacher:

Messaggio originale di furikake:

This whole fight revolves around waterfowl dance and wether you have the ability to dodge or counter it. So much so that everything she does in between is just a smoke screen. Anything she does between one waterfowl dance and the next one is meaningless which is to say that this whole boss was design around this one attack.

Everything she does in between is arguably baiting the player in for the kill on the ensuing dance. 90% of my deaths to Melania revolves around the waterfowl dance, and I assume for the majority of people as well. Changing anything relating to the dance is fundamentally changing the Malenia fight as a whole.

That it dominates the whole fight is sadly true. I wish they had made it important but not overbearing, something you always have to keep in mind but maybe not something that would instantly kill you if you made a minor screwup in not already acting to mitigate it before it even starts.

Beast Clergyman's pocket gravel is a great example of what I wish it was like; the fight revolves to a great extent around it because it can close any combo, but it doesn't force you to play in an entirely different/unintuitive way and isn't so horribly punishing.

I also think it detracts somewhat from her lore and immersion that this is her most powerful attack. The clone summoning and Scarlet Aeonia both involve her drawing on a higher power and have longer windups, which should logically make them more dangerous, and yet Malenia doing the twirly is orders of magnitude more threatening than channeling the power of an outer god of decay lmao. It feels bad story wise in addition to gameplay wise.

Yep, another great argument for fixing it

[Gundamn]

First time playing a souls game?

[Aldain]

Messaggio originale di Gundamn:

First time playing a souls game?

There is not a single other Souls game (or Bloodborne) that has an attack nearly as insane as Waterfowl.

[MundM]

Messaggio originale di vamirez:

You are a bit late to the party m8 ;)
And no - it's fine.

There's nothing fine about it. If you feel like all bosses seem doable, and some are even easy if you just explored a bit and found gear and level ups, and suddenly you meet a boss that steam rolls you and you can't find a way out, than it's not fine. If all bosses were like that, it would be fine. If there was a gimmick to make it easier, like at least some item or doing something in the level, that takes away her healing powers, that would be fine for me, but as it stands, she's just a "git gud" placement and a giant middle finger.
I've only seen 2 kinds of ways to defeat her without dumb luck and/ or days/ weeks of trying, that'll be summons/ mimic tear, or brute force with over powered weaponry you would have to look up. They even teached you with Maliketh, that there are multiple ways to get to him, they placed that item to parry him (I find that not much helpfull, but it just requires some practise and than it gets more helpful).

Anyway, I don't think Malenia is at the peak she could be. I'm not saying nerf her, I'm saying change her.

[Evoxrus XV]

The issue of her move became apparent to me after fighting her several times. The move essentially changed the fight from me seeing it as battling Malenia to me seeing it as battling Waterfowl Dance. Malenia was no longer the boss, her move was because of how oppressive it is. And that is... a failure. A special move by the boss should definitely do serious damage and be on our mind, but that move is used so often, so unpredictably, so quckly and is almost always a oneshot that the entire fight revolves around it. And that is bad.


I was not fighting Malenia. I was fighting Waterfowl Dance.

[Aldain]

Messaggio originale di Evoxrus XV:

I was not fighting Malenia. I was fighting Waterfowl Dance.

A little louder for the people in the back.

[Evoxrus XV]

Messaggio originale di Aldain:

Messaggio originale di Evoxrus XV:

I was not fighting Malenia. I was fighting Waterfowl Dance.

A little louder for the people in the back.

I WAS NOT FIGHTING MALENIA. I WAS FIGHTING WATERFOWL DANCE!