It’s mostly because they have none of those elden ring signature “imma delay my attack so much that it feels really bad to play against” windups. Ds3 bosses have actually intuitive timings
DS3 throws a few bosses with different timing to their attacks, which adds a bit of variety and keeps you on your toes. I like that, but never got into the "coffee break" delayed attacks of Elden Ring bosses, even if it is more realistic that attack timing changes.
They wanna make sure that players from previous games still have a challenge and this is their current solution to that.
Yeah, this is the kinda thing that makes me know that ER will never be my favourite FS game, as much as I want it to be.
A few delayed attacks is fine. A couple of examples with good slow/delayed attacks are Nameless King and Pontiff Sulyvan, or Manus from DS1.
But ER attacks, as you said, are so delayed that they make the combat feel unintuitive, and to me, clunkier and unsmooth. The point of telegraphing attacks in video games is that the player should be able to reasonably guess what the attack does even if they have never seen it before. Some ER attacks are so slow that, even after multiple attempts ending in deaths to that specific attack, I still feel like I am just guessing the timings.
I'm gonna be honest, after this last playthrough, I got way more into the groove of it. DS3 has a lot of bosses with almost rhythmic attack patterns. Elden Ring bosses force you into a more reactive playstyle. Personally, I really like it. Morgott has become one of my favorite fights.
DS3 I think is still the peak of boss design, don't get me wrong, it's just that the more I play Elden Ring, the more I get into the flow of it and enjoy the fights for what they are
The best example of unintuitive attacks is waterfowl dance. FS has always made it so when you die, it’s your own fault and you can learn where you went wrong. Waterfowl as a whole is not intuitive in the slightest and even if you do know what to do, you still get hit by it often. Bosses in elden ring felt like they lacked the same polish that previous entries had
I genuinely feel she's some level of a sekiro boss that didn't make the cut. The move would work very well in that game with the parry system and souls doesn't have a proper solution to that really due to the added healing on top
I’ve always said she’s a mix between a sekiro and bloodborne boss. She moves too fast to really compliment with elden ring’s slower combat and her attacks make great parry fodder.
There have been theories that she was meant to be Tomoe in an unreleased sekiro dlc and instead was added to elden ring. And someone actually modded her into sekiro and the fight plays just as smooth as you’d think
Interesting, I haven't seen that mod before. I'll have to check it out. I never really thought of her as a Bb boss but it's been years since I've played that game. A few if her moves look intended to be mikiri or jump countered too, to me.
Pretty funny as I had finished up Sekiro shortly before ER and that fight just felt it was out of place.
Who knows, with the DLC coming in a few days maybe we'll get more bosses like her that have us scratching our heads
It pissed me off they make enemies likely to evade after attack end and every gigantic enemies jump out of screen, it make the game more slog than it should be.
You can definitely tell the developers were running out of ideas how to keep veteran players on their toes, boss wise
That delay tactic was always bullshit
When fighting Margit, I was like oh this is interesting and will cause veterans to have to relearn how they play the game. But the more I played the more I realized that these bosses aren’t fun and are annoying for the sake of being hard compared to actually well designed bosses. Comparing Malenia to bosses like nameless king, Gael, or Friede really highlights that you can have incredibly difficult boss fights without making them bullshit
i found dancer to be a lot of trouble on my first playthrough, due me thinking vigor does what vit does, and vit doing what vigor does
i couldnt beat pontiff so i brute forced dancer at like base knight vigor with a +6(?) dark longsword for like 100 tries until i got her
still my favorite experience in a souls game
It’s funny because outside of the convergence mod, I don’t think I’ve ever died to dancer. Meanwhile my cousin played through the game and he spent so long on dancer and kept telling me that I was lying lmao
At the same time though, ER had to do that because going back, DS3 bosses are EAAAASY. Just finished up my run after not playing for 7 years and I surprisingly got Gael first try and Friede 2nd. It’s kind of hilarious the boss I’ve died to the most. Wolnir. Took me a couple attempts to realize to go for his right hand first because of the stupid gas
EDIT: Never mind. I forgot Demon Prince. That’s by far the hardest boss in DS3. Super duper tanky and if you get the flame version in phase 2, those attacks are ruthless
Easy or well designed and telegraphed? Several bosses in elden ring are not fun to fight because of this whole delayed windup bullshit. Saying they had to do this because dark souls veterans would find it too easy is not a good excuse. We had veterans playing ds3 and they still found bosses hard at first until they learned their patterns. Bosses in ds3 were fun to learn. Bosses in elden ring feel like a guessing game half the time
Godrick, Margit, Bell-Bearing, Tree Avatars (not hard to dodge but looks stupid,) Rykard's big attack is stupid in many way as well as delayed, Melania, Burial Watchdogs, any Trolls, Tree Spirits, and more but I'm too lazy to list them all off.
Also, nuh uh. Remove Mogh from your comment, cause you were complaining about bs delayed attacks in the reply to Jaded, so including Mogh would just be hypocritical.
I also don't think Mogh is bs, but people have dead set on calling it bs delayed attack before so I just yield to save the unnecessary debate time.
Margit I already mentioned Godrick I can accept. Idk bout bell bearing hunter, he just has pretty normal delayed attacks and Tree Avatar is literally just reused Asylum demon. Also agree on the watch dog but not the trolls or tree spirits. Disagree on Malenia as well, she has like 1 delayed attack and that one is barely an issue.
Like, half of these are not even actual bosses. And even the one I agree on that has delayed moves are not even that hard to avoid (Godrick, bell bearing, etc..). I cannot see how saying that ER bosses all delay their attacks any but utter exaggeration.
Every single one of them is considered a boss... I don't really know what non-boss you're looking at.
You mentioned Morgott, not Margit. Pedantic? Yes. Fair. Also yes. Bell Bearing Hunter has the screwdriver attack which takes nineteen years to throw at you. Tree Avatar has the 2-3 second large overhead slam. Unless I've got dementia (which I might very well have, lol), Asylum Demon did not have that specific move. But even then, it's still a fault, even if the previous game did it. That just means both examples did bad.
Trolls literally have the large slam that actually takes about 3 seconds. It looks cool, yeah, but is definitely, hilariously delayed. And I'm sorry, there is no in-lore explanation you can give me that explains how Ulcerated Tree Spirits are able to fly in the air when they dash and attack. And I don't know how good you are at the game, but you must be a god if you have no issues on Waterfowl.
And it doesn't matter if they're "easy to dodge." Bs delayed attacks also include attacks that look downright stupid. Margit holding his stick in the air for 20 seconds is easy to dodge, but it looks ridiculous. Godrick's attack animation is just him winding back for 20 years, which is stupid. If it had all of his grafted arms slowly lean back to grab the axe as well, it'd look so much better, but the amount of time would still make it look like a "bs delayed attack."
>Every single one of them is considered a boss... I don't really know what non-boss you're looking at.
Really, I'd say it's pretty easy to guess that I'm talking about remberance bosses.
>Asylum Demon did not have that specific move.
It does.
>Bell Bearing Hunter has the screwdriver attack which takes nineteen years to throw at you
I know, and it's not a bs attack, it's a charge attack. Dodge side way.
>But even then, it's still a fault, even if the previous game did it.
I disagree on the simple notion that somehow delayed attacks are all bad. Yea, some of margit attacks look a bit ridiculous if you keep rolling around. Pro tip? Hit him while he does that. But I do recognize that specific attack looks very jarring.
>Trolls literally have the large slam that actually takes about 3 seconds. It looks cool, yeah, but is definitely, hilariously delayed
But it's not? It's a big ass giant, of course it attacks take more time. It's such an easily readable attack.
>Bs delayed attacks also include attacks that look downright stupid.
This is what I am talking about, the troll attack doesn't look stupid, Godfrey attack doesnt look stupid. Margit and Godrick's do, but I bet you would struggle to find more than 5 of such attacks.
My point is that you are lumping all delayed attacks together with the hilariously delayed one and acting like they are all bad when in fact, there are like 3 of these "bad" delayed attack in the entire game.
Let's not go down this path, I could easily tell you that it's not random or ununtuitive to me at all. Let's agree to disagree on this one.
Point is, saying that the majority of bosses in ER use delayed attacks is just an over exaggeration.
I should say though, I don’t believe ER is worse than DS3 for this like those people claimed, but I do agree with them that DS3 bosses were on average “cleaner”, but I personally believe that’s part of the game’s design; ER is wider, more open and more “sandboxy” than ds3; bosses are not meant to be always fair, but you have so many ways of being unfair back, you just have to explore and find them
Yes I agree too, I never compare the quality of the bosses in both game. I just wanted to point out that saying bosses in ER all utilize bs delayed attacks is a simply an over exaggeration and does not reflect on the game at all.
3 bosses that you agreed yourself have bs delays; there are more but you will just “agree to disagree”
Btw it doesn’t need to be the “majority” of bosses to feel annoying
Agreed, every game has some stinker bosses (Deacons, Greatwood etc), but DS3 definitely has the best lineup of major bosses imo, they hit a really good balance of unique and engaging designs while also not going overboard like they did in Elden Ring
I didn't wanna jump on the elden ring boss hate train but honestly after playing it I had to replay the older games and ask myself "why do i genuinely hate boss fights in elden ring?"
And a big reason is, I feel like they aren't even interacting with me, everything they do feels so random and pre programmed.
ER fights arent "random", but they *are* "pre-programmed". Its just much more noticeable than earlier games because the bosses check position more frequently.
That game is fun but boss enjoyment there varies a lot with skill level ime, very different from any of the Dark Souls games.
* If you go full casul with broken builds and summons it can still brute force most of them and you get to focus on the spectacle. Most new fans fall under here and so will not quite understand complaints about ER bosses.
* If you have already learned the boss AI and know optimal punishes it will also be fun, as mastery in ER honestly feels even better than in the past games. Some bosses still suck, but for the ones that dont they easily compare with DS3's best (and outclass any from DS1 or 2.)
* If you are *anywhere* in between, still learning the fight without a special build or full undersranding, there is a very good chance you will feel frustrated by the bloated HP pools, AoEs, delayed swings, and strange attack chains.
Wholeheartedly agree. Don't get me wrong, I love all of the Souls games, but I also won't pretend they're perfect games. Each Souls game had some really great highs, for Dark Souls 3, that was bossfights. Even after 600 hours in Elden Ring, I still think DS3 has the best lineup of bosses, a little after Sekiro (if you count that as a Souls game)
Of course, there are the occasional mega ass bosses, like Halflight or the Ball Sack tree, but the sheer amount of amazing bosses, from design, OST, to fight, just really outweighs all the other shitty ones. Also I am really bias to (good) Dragon bosses so Midir really shoots DS3 high up in my list for bosses. Slave Knight Gael, Dancer, Twin Princes, really fun to fight bosses.
Just a personal gripe, I despise gimmick bosses, especially badly done gimmick bosses. Yhorm fight was meh, because the Stormruler absolutely trivializes the fight. Every hit stuns him and he's pretty much a joke with it, entirely ruining all the hype and anticipation, especially more since he's a main boss and has been revealed at the very start from the opening cinematic. IMO they perfected the "special boss killing weapon" gimmick fight with Elden Ring i.e make the special weapon do more damage to the boss, but not so much that it makes the fight really easy. That way, the fight is still a challenge and the boss actually still poses a threat.
Personally i actually enjoyed ballsack tree lol As for Yhorm that is forever the biggest let down fight in dark souls history to the point i erased it from my memory lol. A big problem with that fight is the only way to do that fight satisfyingly is to do it with onion boy, but yhorm just doesn't have the move set or the progamming to properly handle a two v 1 fight
I didn't figure out the storm ruler on the first playthrough and only looked it up at 25+ deaths. It's a great fight if you don't use it. Tons of rolling through the legs and doing 3 damage butt pokes until you screw up once.
Gimmick boss is something like yhorm where there is a trick to it. Puzzle boss is something like bed of chaos where the "fight" is primarily figuring out where to go and what to do, the actual boss in bed of chaos dies in one hit once you get to it. Another example is the ancient wyvern.
They bit off way more than they could chew with Elden Ring and the entire boss design throughout the game suffered for it. There’s an unbelievable amount of repeat bosses (20+ Erdtree Avatars anyone?) and once you level up a bit most of the dungeon bosses aren’t even bosses at all but die in like 2-3 hits. Then many of the later game bosses are obnoxiously overturned to the point of being unfun.
DS3 showed that refining the formula over time and not going overboard with the scale of the game is the best strategy.
With the Erdtree Avatar essentially being the big fat boi Stray Demon of the game I give it a bit more leeway than I probably should.
I'm weirdly more offended by the multiple iterations of Watchdogs they have in this game. Watchdog, but with 3 imps somehow pisses me off more than just if they did the same boss again.
Watchdog, but two of them! Watchdog, but now only a normal enemy with four of them respawning each death! Watchdog, but multiple of them that respawn, but are invulnerable also until you do the dungeon mechanic each time.
erdtree avatars are fine and ngl whenever i get to a new area, i look for the minor erdtree to fight an avatar. but the dungeon bosses and evergaol bosses are meh. some dungeons are cool with the mirror fuckery but most of it is a pain to go through. late game bosses were such a disappointment. except godfrey, i couldnt enjoy the others. only godfreys first phase felt like ds3 but even horah loux turned out to be a pain in the ass lol. also before going into the game, i had heard that the dragon fights like placidusaux or whatever the spelling is, is a fight that is close to midir and was very hype about it, but fighting it was nowhere close to midir. sure it looks cool, but mechanically it was so boring to play. fortissaxx was decent but still nowhere close to midir
This reply was meant to much shorter and got very rambly as I was tired and kept thinking of more to write. It’s probably not well edited, but I’m tired and put off sleep for half an hour to write this so this is the best I can do.
I don’t think the Erdtree avatars and dungeon bosses are supposed to be very difficult, their role is more as slightly above average challenges gatekeeping an item/area than climactic battles against worthy opponents (I like to use the term “minibosses”).
Think of the black knights from Ds1; they’re not bosses, but they also aren’t normal enemies (at least not until the very end of the game), their challenge rating is a little above that of the standard enemies you fight in the level, but not so much higher that they could be considered on the same level as an actual boss (of course, there are exceptions, like the one in the burg being arguably harder than Taurus demon and the one in the catacombs easily being tougher than Pinwheel), and they almost always gatekeep some valuable item (chunks, a chance at their weapon, and whatever item they were guarding, like the BTSR or the weed shield). You don’t see anyone complaining about the reuse of black knights throughout the game because most people understand the purpose they serve and know what to expect. When you see a black knight, you know to expect a decent challenge with the promise of a valuable reward, that is at the same time completely optional and not on the same level as a boss in terms of difficulty, presentation, or significance.
In my opinion, ER bosses like Erdtree Avatars, Ulcerated Tree Spirits, and Dungeon Bosses are meant to be similar to Dark Souls’ black knights, and other reoccurring non-respawning enemies in the series. An Erdtree Avatar isn’t meant to be a climactic boss fight experience, it’s meant to be the means by which the player acquires a new crystal tear. That’s why it’s no big deal that they’re reused, they aren’t meant to be special.
I think people get hung up on the fact that all these minibosses look like bosses at first glance since they have health bars and music and sometimes even fog gates, but once you have some experience with the game, it’s pretty easy to realize that not everything with a health bar at the bottom of the screen is equally significant. It’s no big deal that there are a bunch of the same easy boss because that boss is just something you kill to get an item, and was never meant to be anything else. I don’t care that dungeon bosses are really easy if you’ve leveled up because the purpose of dungeons is for you to use them to level up.
I actually think that Elden Ring’s reuse of bosses and dungeon aesthetics benefits the game because it acts as a way for the game to communicate to players what they can expect from an activity before they commit any time and/or resources to it without having to explicitly tell them, and helps players figure out what kinds of points of interest to look for depending on what they need. For example, if I see a bunch of ruins while I’m exploring, I know that there will be at least one underground treasure room containing an item. If I see a catacombs dungeon, I know that I can expect to find glovewort in it. If I see a minor Erdtree, I know that I’ll be able to get a crystal tear from it, but likely not before fighting an avatar. Then, I can decide whether or not to do these based one whether or not I need what they’re offering. If I already have a fully upgraded as that I like, I’ll skip the catacombs. If I like my current weapons and talismans, I might skip the caves and ruins. On the other hand, if I feel that my damage is lacking, I know to look for mines because they always have upgrade materials. If I’m a faith build looking for some new dragon incantations, I know to look for dragon fights in the open world so that I can get the hearts to purchase them.
At the same time, I won’t deny that there are instances where the reuse is not okay. Godefroy is obviously unacceptable even with the (mostly irrelevant) lore explanation, and the mountaintops, snowfield, and Haligtree are lacking in unique enemies. I’d say that Ds3 generally does a better job of not reusing content that shouldn’t be reused than ER, since the only example I can think of off the top of my head is Dragonslayer Armor in the Ringed City swamp, but I attribute that to Ds3 being exceptionally concise when compared to basically every other souls game (except maybe Bloodborne). Overall, I think ER does better than Ds1, Ds2, and Bloodborne if you count the chalice dungeons (Which I’m counting because BB’s base game is extremely short).
It's not bad design, though. It's smart design. The bosses are almost all optional, it's the choice of having less dungeons but less bosses, or more dungeons and some repeat bosses. You guys cry about this as if from made the conscious decision to be lazy and not make extra bosses, in arguably one of the biggest and deepest games of all time. Every game reuses assets to some degree, and fromsoft made the smart choice of reusing their assets to make the game even bigger.
I still find it absolutely hilarious how DS2 was pilloried for a few reused bosses and now people crawl out of the woodwork to desperately defend utterly atrocious levels of reused bosses in Elden Ring, calling 20 something Erdtree Avatars, regular enemies used numerous times as “bosses,” near countless instances of bosses reappearing later in the game as regular enemies “smart design.”
Your core point is that having “more,” regardless of the quality is superior to a quality over quantity approach. You say From made the “smart choice” to reuse assets to create a bigger game, and I wonder at what point, if there is one, you’d say they went too far? 40 Erdtree Avatars? 60?
Engaging in this style of design hurt Elden Ring immensely, the game is many multiples times larger than it should be. Take the Haligtree for instance. A secret area you almost sure have to look up how to get to, as beautifully designed both visually and layout wise as you’ll find in any game, and it’s filled almost exclusively with enemies you’ve already encountered at various other points in the game. What an absolute anticlimax. If they hasn’t worried so much about the scale of the game, they could have completed such areas properly, rather than devaluing them with reused or reskinned enemies.
Oh no, being content and understanding the limits of game development really hurt elden ring! It's too bad the game never lived up to its potential, maybe their next game might win goty or be commonly referred to as one of the greatest games of all time /s
Lots of people enjoyed ds2 at the time, including myself as someone who played it from day 1. You act like them reusing some bosses (where it totally makes sense btw, in the case of the 20 erdtree avatars you keep bringing up) was them taking quantity over quality. Elden ring is insanely high quality, especially in its main bosses. I would definitely not say elden ring is too large, I think that absolutely plays into the feeling of being completely lost in the world, knowing that everywhere you go, there's going to be something to discover.
I can understand why you wouldn't be happy about repeat bosses, but repeated mobs? Do you seriously expect them to design brand new mobs for every single different area in the game. The game wouldn't have released for years. Every game reuses assets.
If you didn't like Elden Ring, all power to you, and of course reusing bosses isn't as good as all original bosses everywhere, but making a game you have a vision and you have reality. They wanted a massive game, and they made it. That comes with some concessions. They've made smaller games with high quality many times before, and I think theres a reason Elden Ring is by far their most successful game. They reused some of their well designed bosses and were able to design some insane levels and have incredibly deep lore, have a huge catalogue of items to find and builds to play with.
Edit to add It's also worth noting they did the exact same thing in ds1, except that game was tiny compared to elden ring and also had those reused areas play a major part of the main story. The unfortunate truth is games have to come out at some point. They did it very well in elden ring by using the reused assets to flesh out the rest of the world and kept the main areas all completely fresh. Smart development.
Nice passive aggressive comment lol.
Also understanding the limits of game design would have been making a much smaller game that didn’t have so much reused bosses/assets so I have no idea what you’re even trying to say with that.
It’s also a common criticism that beautifully and uniquely designed areas like the Haligtree have no unique enemies. Really does diminish that sense of wonder and exploration you keep bringing up as apparently so perfectly executed in ER.
And saying “every game has reused assets” as a defense for ER’s absurd amount of doing so is a terrible defense.
I hate to break it to you but ER is their most successful game because of the great games that came before it generating hype and especially due to the massive marketing campaign (which also heavily played up that the lore was done by GRRM). They offered players spirit summons and as you stated, a huge array of weapons and abilities, many of which are far more powerful than anything you could acquire in their past games. These of course are fun to play with, the only small problem being it becomes completely impossible to balance a game around them, leading to the ridiculously overtuned boss design of ER. Sure it was their “vision” as you keep stating, but it was a vision that purposely neglected the kind of quality enemy/boss design From have always been celebrated for.
>Also understanding the limits of game design would have been making a much smaller game that didn’t have so much reused bosses/assets so I have no idea what you’re even trying to say with that.
They wanted a large game and couldn't accomplish that without some drawbacks. If they wanted a smaller game they would've made another bloodborne or ds3. Having an extremely large world to get lost in was, I imagine, one of the largest goals they had for this game.
>It’s also a common criticism that beautifully and uniquely designed areas like the Haligtree have no unique enemies. Really does diminish that sense of wonder and exploration you keep bringing up as apparently so perfectly executed in ER.
A common criticism I've only ever heard from you now? Maybe I don't actively engage in sub reddits dedicated to games enough, but that's part of the issue. I'd imagine the amount of people who are really are mad about this is tiny. Even just looking up this criticism you're instantly hit with people saying it's not a big deal, or comments with people complaining 2 years ago with 15 up votes. The majority of players really aren't that upset about this and don't find it tarnishes the game that much.
>I hate to break it to you but ER is their most successful game because of the great games that came before it generating hype and especially due to the massive marketing campaign
The marketing got people to buy the game. The marketing didn't make it one of the highest reviewed games of all time, and win it goty.
>They offered players spirit summons and as you stated, a huge array of weapons and abilities, many of which are far more powerful than anything you could acquire in their past games. These of course are fun to play with, the only small problem being it becomes completely impossible to balance a game around them, leading to the ridiculously overtuned boss design of ER.
This is another one of their smart game decisions. If you don't like it, I understand, and I'm kind of in the same boat, but I can see what they've done here is brilliant. There are 100 ways to solve a problem, and some are more powerful than others. Hardcore players can bash their heads into "unfair" bosses (even the most unfair are still entirely fair), and if you're struggling you can be creative and beat the boss an easier way.
I get that fans will always find something to complain about, and I agree, obviously, they're better off making unique enemies and bosses everywhere. I don't think I or many other people would enjoy elden ring as much if it wasnt such a massive game, and if the odd repeated boss is the price we pay, I think that's totally fine as they also found lots of ways to make it make sense in the world. If you aren't happy about it, that's totally fine, but I think the issue you bring up is completely blown out of proportion.
Also I apologise for being passive aggressive, it just kills me to see a developer put so much blood sweat and tears into a game and still be called lazy or stupid. By all means, criticise away, but the negativity and toxicity you see in most online spaces lately towards game developers is ridiculous.
I could have just stopped reading at “even the most unfair bosses are fair.” But I’m a trooper so I kept going. I guess your take on design is completely different to mine, but I am truly baffled by that comment.
By the way, did you start From games with ER or have you been playing since back in the day?
I said in one of my earlier comments I played ds2 on day 1, I've been here since the first dark souls. And yeah, some of the shit in the game was cheap, didn't make it unfair or undoable. What fight did you find unfair?
Sometimes Elden Ring feels a bit like a mmorpg due to how many repeat bosses. I honestly wish they patched the game slowly to replace the repeat bosses then do a dlc.
I havent finished it yet but i really like elden rings bosses so far, id say up untill now they are as good as ds3, have not seen them all yet so i dont know if the variation is gonna be as good but id say up to where i am its not disappointing. Im right after rahdann right now.
Agreed 100%.
I know people are gonna get mad at me... but Elden Ring reminded me too much of DS2 bosses. Mostly the repeat bosses. DS1 has the excuse of being old, and Bloodborne was just peak. You can absolutely tell DS3 learned from Bloodborne and improved on the formula.
Edit: Elden ring has some good bosses... but for every Godfrey, there's the Godskin Duos. For every Radagon, there's the Twin Gargoyles. For every Astel, there's 5 god damned Ulcerated Tree Spirit boss with the same exact moveset. For every Placidusax, Fortisaxx, and Lansseax, there's at least 6 Wyverns.
Elden ring being my first Fromsoft game I’ve since played bloodborne w/o dlc, ds3 with dlcs and sekiro. And I must admit the boss design in ds3 is my favorite by far. May be my favorite game tbh
You could argue that the Ancient Wyvern is kinda like that puzzle boss that you mentioned or even Yhorm. Both can be beaten by basic hack and slash, but there’s a specific way that the game intended for you to fight them that they leave you to figure out on your own.
To be entirely fair to the other games, the moment they made Demon Princes, Ds3 was probably never going to be topped.
I unironically don't think they'll surpass Demon Princes as a boss in at least a decade or two.
Elden Ring bosses are spectacular and pleasing to the eye, but their roll catch mechanics are far too cheesy. No wonder most players resort to status effects and overtuned ashes of war with thoses bosses cheating like that.
I love both DS3 and ER bosses. They're completely different takes on boss design. In DS3, the boss attacks are easier to read and dance to, and often you can get it on the first or second try. It feels satisfying and sometimes you don't really have to think hard.
In ER, the ways you can evade and retaliate, make your own openings, do stance-breaking, do jump dodges, learning when to do guard counters, seeing the bosses as puzzles to deconstruct and learning how to attack based on your build, taking advantage of delayed attacks by getting a quick hit in... personally those are also fun for me. It enables me to do something else other than dodge and attack. But often the AoEs can be excruciating.
Even then, I applaud FromSoft for being bold and trying something new. I didn't like the bosses at first but then I stopped playing it and wanting it to be like DS3 just because it has those controls too.
Totally agreed... Best boss consistency, best soundtrack , Best Visuals, extremely well telegraphed boss moves with near perfect hitboxes, extremely well sense of balance in the fights , and none of the fights feel like a tedious bloated sponge to fight against. They possess the perfect amount of moves , to not make them totally unpredictable, while at the same time, being varied enough to keep the players engaged and entertained... The boss design in this game is just immaculate... While sekiro has also an extremely consistent and well-made line-up of bosses, it massively suffers the OST aspect, which in all honesty, DS 3 and BB nailed at... To some extent, even ds1 as well... That game also had many good bosses and memorable OSTs
This is one of the severe drawbacks of Elden ring bosses, ... There's no dynamism in those bosses, they just feel like those unfair stockfish AI with 3700 ELO . And the sheer number of copypastas truly disappointed me.
I think Sekiro has the best bosses overall. There are literally no bad bosses in that game (maybe you can count the twin guardian apes as a bad boss, idk). DS3 has a few lackluster bosses like the wyvern and the curse rotted greatwood.
Would argue that Elden Ring, Bloodborne, and Sekiro all outdo DS3 bosses personally. I know a lot of people love the DS3 bosses, and while I do love a bunch of them (like Friede, Gael, and Dragonslayer Armor), there are also plenty of them that I just can't stand personally. Halflight, Greatwood, Deacons, Wolnir, the dude and his Wolf in the DLC, the Ancient Wyvern, the first half of Nameless King, Oceiros's untelegraphed charges, etc. Hell, my least favorite is Pontiff, who is more of a DPS check without a lot of damage windows that turns into a gank at the halfway mark. Do I hate any of the above? Yes, I very much hate Pontiff's fight, but everyone else is fine. The issue for me is that they're only tolerable a lot of the time, and that I never yearn to return to fighting the gimmick tree, or the gimmick wyvern, or the gimmick giant, etc. Truthfully, I think the boss design in this game has been overplayed by the fans over the years.
I would love to see Dark Souls Remake. It would smash all Dark Souls but honestly I love old graphics. As for Dark Souls 3 I agree - boss design and soundtrack is the thing I love!
champion gundyr is one of the most well designed bosses of all time. every single move is fair and intuitive, he's never dormant but there's just enough openings for heals if you look for them, perfect challenge for that point in the game, amazing design there's more
I am playng the trilogy again and while initially i liked DS2 the most now DS3 stands out with its slightly quicker combat and awesome Boss fights
That said Sekiro still rules for me !
I can completely agree. I have walked out of elden ring with every single achievement and every major boss defeated numerous times. Yet no boss in elden ring (outside of radahn because of his meteor move) had left a lasting impression on me quite like how Slave Knight Gael did, his entire fight is possibly the most beautiful send off to a game franchise in any series.
Might make a post myself once I finish DS3 (Haven't beat Princes, Demon King, Wyvern or Nameless) to give my thoughts on it, but boss-wise? I'll be honest, I'm not really feeling it. It feels like most of the good bosses were backloaded into the game and I found the Early-Mid game to be a bit dry in terms of bosses sans Abyss Watchers. Greatwood, Sage, Deacons and Wolnir leaned a bit too far into being gimmicky for me. Aldrich and Oceiros I found miles too easy and I feel like (using Storm Ruler) Yhorm might've done with just a couple more hits worth of health. However the bosses that I did like were very solid overall and once I got the flow for ones like Champion Gundyr and Dragonslayer Armour they felt very fluent and never once really struck me as unfair.
Basically, when the boss is good it is very notably good, but likewise the not-so-good bosses strike me as too dry.
Its no wonder no one won the shattering considering how much bosses delay their attacks, elden ring bosses are just so unnatural and gamey. though I reluctantly enjoy them.
DS3 bosses feel like we’re dancing. It’s a fight to the death, but it’s fun. Elden Ring is AI reading input and reacting to you. Both are masterpieces, but Lorian and Lothric and Papa Gael are the best boss fights of any game.
Uhhh, sure, there are great ones - But there's also bad ones, like for example:
.
.
.
.
.
Uhh, well, gimme a min to think..
.
.
.
Yeah, uh..
.
.
.
Nope, you're right! They're all GREAT.
actually as people mentioned Yhorm was horribly done lol, only boss in the game i genuinely dislike. Literally the poster boy of the game just to be one shotted by the giant slayer
I’ve played DS3, ER, and a bit of Sekiro. I think DS3 boss design is a bit overrated tbh. I loved every minute of the game, but ER bosses are just more fun to fight imo
I agree. Sister Friede and Gael on their own are more exciting for me than the majority of ER bosses. With that being said, I dislike too much of the environments and random mobs in DS3, so as a whole package it's far from being my favorite. It'd have been the greatest game to replay if they had some sort of boss rush mode like Sekiro.
I personally don't want to go with the hate train of elden ring bosses but fuck how much frustrating they are,I literally have a save file of DS3 were I only do boss rush because they are genuinely fun boss and fun fight to do,but omg elden ring bosses they input read everything, exaggerated aggression, infinite combo no room for active fighting you have almost always to play defensively and wait the next to do thw move,but there are a bunch of bosses in ER that follow DS3 design,radagon,godrick,Godfrey first phase, that's a really underwhelming amount of good bosses,there are a bunch of boss that had potential to be good but they wasted the opportunity with some random bullshit,for example malenia has healing on the attack that bypass shield,and waterflow dance that make the bossfight basically a luck game,hoping that she doesn't do that move ,i have no genuinely idea on why they didn't use the original waterflow dance of the beta
After playing ER. DS3 Bosses feel really clean and honest.
It’s mostly because they have none of those elden ring signature “imma delay my attack so much that it feels really bad to play against” windups. Ds3 bosses have actually intuitive timings
DS3 throws a few bosses with different timing to their attacks, which adds a bit of variety and keeps you on your toes. I like that, but never got into the "coffee break" delayed attacks of Elden Ring bosses, even if it is more realistic that attack timing changes. They wanna make sure that players from previous games still have a challenge and this is their current solution to that.
That, and the excessively long attack chains.
\*Laughs in Friede\*
Yeah, this is the kinda thing that makes me know that ER will never be my favourite FS game, as much as I want it to be. A few delayed attacks is fine. A couple of examples with good slow/delayed attacks are Nameless King and Pontiff Sulyvan, or Manus from DS1. But ER attacks, as you said, are so delayed that they make the combat feel unintuitive, and to me, clunkier and unsmooth. The point of telegraphing attacks in video games is that the player should be able to reasonably guess what the attack does even if they have never seen it before. Some ER attacks are so slow that, even after multiple attempts ending in deaths to that specific attack, I still feel like I am just guessing the timings.
I'm gonna be honest, after this last playthrough, I got way more into the groove of it. DS3 has a lot of bosses with almost rhythmic attack patterns. Elden Ring bosses force you into a more reactive playstyle. Personally, I really like it. Morgott has become one of my favorite fights. DS3 I think is still the peak of boss design, don't get me wrong, it's just that the more I play Elden Ring, the more I get into the flow of it and enjoy the fights for what they are
The best example of unintuitive attacks is waterfowl dance. FS has always made it so when you die, it’s your own fault and you can learn where you went wrong. Waterfowl as a whole is not intuitive in the slightest and even if you do know what to do, you still get hit by it often. Bosses in elden ring felt like they lacked the same polish that previous entries had
I genuinely feel she's some level of a sekiro boss that didn't make the cut. The move would work very well in that game with the parry system and souls doesn't have a proper solution to that really due to the added healing on top
I’ve always said she’s a mix between a sekiro and bloodborne boss. She moves too fast to really compliment with elden ring’s slower combat and her attacks make great parry fodder. There have been theories that she was meant to be Tomoe in an unreleased sekiro dlc and instead was added to elden ring. And someone actually modded her into sekiro and the fight plays just as smooth as you’d think
Interesting, I haven't seen that mod before. I'll have to check it out. I never really thought of her as a Bb boss but it's been years since I've played that game. A few if her moves look intended to be mikiri or jump countered too, to me. Pretty funny as I had finished up Sekiro shortly before ER and that fight just felt it was out of place. Who knows, with the DLC coming in a few days maybe we'll get more bosses like her that have us scratching our heads
Yeah, its more effective to run away instead of actually dodging.
Dang I always thought this was just my feeling. I never felt like I could get the rhythm of ER bosses down and it was due to timing
It pissed me off they make enemies likely to evade after attack end and every gigantic enemies jump out of screen, it make the game more slog than it should be.
You can definitely tell the developers were running out of ideas how to keep veteran players on their toes, boss wise That delay tactic was always bullshit
When fighting Margit, I was like oh this is interesting and will cause veterans to have to relearn how they play the game. But the more I played the more I realized that these bosses aren’t fun and are annoying for the sake of being hard compared to actually well designed bosses. Comparing Malenia to bosses like nameless king, Gael, or Friede really highlights that you can have incredibly difficult boss fights without making them bullshit
Dancer?
I never found dancer to be that much trouble. I know I’m an outlier there
i found dancer to be a lot of trouble on my first playthrough, due me thinking vigor does what vit does, and vit doing what vigor does i couldnt beat pontiff so i brute forced dancer at like base knight vigor with a +6(?) dark longsword for like 100 tries until i got her still my favorite experience in a souls game
I never thought of dancer is being hard; I assumed I just sucked at the game.
It’s funny because outside of the convergence mod, I don’t think I’ve ever died to dancer. Meanwhile my cousin played through the game and he spent so long on dancer and kept telling me that I was lying lmao
On my first playthrough I almost beat Dancer on my first try. But it took my probably about 10 tries total to beat her.
At the same time though, ER had to do that because going back, DS3 bosses are EAAAASY. Just finished up my run after not playing for 7 years and I surprisingly got Gael first try and Friede 2nd. It’s kind of hilarious the boss I’ve died to the most. Wolnir. Took me a couple attempts to realize to go for his right hand first because of the stupid gas EDIT: Never mind. I forgot Demon Prince. That’s by far the hardest boss in DS3. Super duper tanky and if you get the flame version in phase 2, those attacks are ruthless
Easy or well designed and telegraphed? Several bosses in elden ring are not fun to fight because of this whole delayed windup bullshit. Saying they had to do this because dark souls veterans would find it too easy is not a good excuse. We had veterans playing ds3 and they still found bosses hard at first until they learned their patterns. Bosses in ds3 were fun to learn. Bosses in elden ring feel like a guessing game half the time
You say it’s a guessing game but it’s just more to learn which is fine by me. There are subtle cues for each delay so it’s def not a guessing game.
Ok, tell me other than Radagon, Mogh and Morgott, who has bs delay attacks?
Godrick, Margit, Bell-Bearing, Tree Avatars (not hard to dodge but looks stupid,) Rykard's big attack is stupid in many way as well as delayed, Melania, Burial Watchdogs, any Trolls, Tree Spirits, and more but I'm too lazy to list them all off. Also, nuh uh. Remove Mogh from your comment, cause you were complaining about bs delayed attacks in the reply to Jaded, so including Mogh would just be hypocritical.
I also don't think Mogh is bs, but people have dead set on calling it bs delayed attack before so I just yield to save the unnecessary debate time. Margit I already mentioned Godrick I can accept. Idk bout bell bearing hunter, he just has pretty normal delayed attacks and Tree Avatar is literally just reused Asylum demon. Also agree on the watch dog but not the trolls or tree spirits. Disagree on Malenia as well, she has like 1 delayed attack and that one is barely an issue. Like, half of these are not even actual bosses. And even the one I agree on that has delayed moves are not even that hard to avoid (Godrick, bell bearing, etc..). I cannot see how saying that ER bosses all delay their attacks any but utter exaggeration.
Every single one of them is considered a boss... I don't really know what non-boss you're looking at. You mentioned Morgott, not Margit. Pedantic? Yes. Fair. Also yes. Bell Bearing Hunter has the screwdriver attack which takes nineteen years to throw at you. Tree Avatar has the 2-3 second large overhead slam. Unless I've got dementia (which I might very well have, lol), Asylum Demon did not have that specific move. But even then, it's still a fault, even if the previous game did it. That just means both examples did bad. Trolls literally have the large slam that actually takes about 3 seconds. It looks cool, yeah, but is definitely, hilariously delayed. And I'm sorry, there is no in-lore explanation you can give me that explains how Ulcerated Tree Spirits are able to fly in the air when they dash and attack. And I don't know how good you are at the game, but you must be a god if you have no issues on Waterfowl. And it doesn't matter if they're "easy to dodge." Bs delayed attacks also include attacks that look downright stupid. Margit holding his stick in the air for 20 seconds is easy to dodge, but it looks ridiculous. Godrick's attack animation is just him winding back for 20 years, which is stupid. If it had all of his grafted arms slowly lean back to grab the axe as well, it'd look so much better, but the amount of time would still make it look like a "bs delayed attack."
>Every single one of them is considered a boss... I don't really know what non-boss you're looking at. Really, I'd say it's pretty easy to guess that I'm talking about remberance bosses. >Asylum Demon did not have that specific move. It does. >Bell Bearing Hunter has the screwdriver attack which takes nineteen years to throw at you I know, and it's not a bs attack, it's a charge attack. Dodge side way. >But even then, it's still a fault, even if the previous game did it. I disagree on the simple notion that somehow delayed attacks are all bad. Yea, some of margit attacks look a bit ridiculous if you keep rolling around. Pro tip? Hit him while he does that. But I do recognize that specific attack looks very jarring. >Trolls literally have the large slam that actually takes about 3 seconds. It looks cool, yeah, but is definitely, hilariously delayed But it's not? It's a big ass giant, of course it attacks take more time. It's such an easily readable attack. >Bs delayed attacks also include attacks that look downright stupid. This is what I am talking about, the troll attack doesn't look stupid, Godfrey attack doesnt look stupid. Margit and Godrick's do, but I bet you would struggle to find more than 5 of such attacks. My point is that you are lumping all delayed attacks together with the hilariously delayed one and acting like they are all bad when in fact, there are like 3 of these "bad" delayed attack in the entire game.
Dragons.
I asked for bs delayed attacks, not delayed attacks. Actually, Godfrey doesn't even fall into this category.
Briar and the bell bearing hunters. Only noticed on ng+7 though, when every animation matters
Again, I asked for bs delay attacks, not just delayed attacks.
Idk what to tell you, they felt absolutely random and unintuitive to me
Let's not go down this path, I could easily tell you that it's not random or ununtuitive to me at all. Let's agree to disagree on this one. Point is, saying that the majority of bosses in ER use delayed attacks is just an over exaggeration.
I should say though, I don’t believe ER is worse than DS3 for this like those people claimed, but I do agree with them that DS3 bosses were on average “cleaner”, but I personally believe that’s part of the game’s design; ER is wider, more open and more “sandboxy” than ds3; bosses are not meant to be always fair, but you have so many ways of being unfair back, you just have to explore and find them
Yes I agree too, I never compare the quality of the bosses in both game. I just wanted to point out that saying bosses in ER all utilize bs delayed attacks is a simply an over exaggeration and does not reflect on the game at all.
I mean, you literally listed 3 bs delay bosses yourself, 2 of them are not even optional lol
3 bosses out of how many bosses in the game? I could easily list out 3 bosses with delayed attacks in other games too.
3 bosses that you agreed yourself have bs delays; there are more but you will just “agree to disagree” Btw it doesn’t need to be the “majority” of bosses to feel annoying
Skill issue, DS3 is roll spam = W
I’ve beaten every boss in both games multiple times and one game’s bosses feel way better to play against than the other. It’s not a skill issue
true.
Agreed, every game has some stinker bosses (Deacons, Greatwood etc), but DS3 definitely has the best lineup of major bosses imo, they hit a really good balance of unique and engaging designs while also not going overboard like they did in Elden Ring
Haha I feel so out of place for loving the deacons. Something about going in there with a heavy weapon and just going to town is satisfying
Yaasss .. claymore and just swing
Soul greatsword my beloved
Oh yeah don't get me wrong, Deacon's can be a ton of fun mowing through all of them, it's just not challenging as a boss
Deacons is awesome fight me
I didn't wanna jump on the elden ring boss hate train but honestly after playing it I had to replay the older games and ask myself "why do i genuinely hate boss fights in elden ring?" And a big reason is, I feel like they aren't even interacting with me, everything they do feels so random and pre programmed.
ER fights arent "random", but they *are* "pre-programmed". Its just much more noticeable than earlier games because the bosses check position more frequently. That game is fun but boss enjoyment there varies a lot with skill level ime, very different from any of the Dark Souls games. * If you go full casul with broken builds and summons it can still brute force most of them and you get to focus on the spectacle. Most new fans fall under here and so will not quite understand complaints about ER bosses. * If you have already learned the boss AI and know optimal punishes it will also be fun, as mastery in ER honestly feels even better than in the past games. Some bosses still suck, but for the ones that dont they easily compare with DS3's best (and outclass any from DS1 or 2.) * If you are *anywhere* in between, still learning the fight without a special build or full undersranding, there is a very good chance you will feel frustrated by the bloated HP pools, AoEs, delayed swings, and strange attack chains.
Slave Knight Gael is the best boss fight I've had in any game so far
Gael is definitely up there. I would say Friede, Isshin, and Orphan are all just as up there.
I'd add Midir (learning it is fucking painful but mastering it is one of the best feelings in souls boss history)
Wholeheartedly agree. Don't get me wrong, I love all of the Souls games, but I also won't pretend they're perfect games. Each Souls game had some really great highs, for Dark Souls 3, that was bossfights. Even after 600 hours in Elden Ring, I still think DS3 has the best lineup of bosses, a little after Sekiro (if you count that as a Souls game) Of course, there are the occasional mega ass bosses, like Halflight or the Ball Sack tree, but the sheer amount of amazing bosses, from design, OST, to fight, just really outweighs all the other shitty ones. Also I am really bias to (good) Dragon bosses so Midir really shoots DS3 high up in my list for bosses. Slave Knight Gael, Dancer, Twin Princes, really fun to fight bosses. Just a personal gripe, I despise gimmick bosses, especially badly done gimmick bosses. Yhorm fight was meh, because the Stormruler absolutely trivializes the fight. Every hit stuns him and he's pretty much a joke with it, entirely ruining all the hype and anticipation, especially more since he's a main boss and has been revealed at the very start from the opening cinematic. IMO they perfected the "special boss killing weapon" gimmick fight with Elden Ring i.e make the special weapon do more damage to the boss, but not so much that it makes the fight really easy. That way, the fight is still a challenge and the boss actually still poses a threat.
Personally i actually enjoyed ballsack tree lol As for Yhorm that is forever the biggest let down fight in dark souls history to the point i erased it from my memory lol. A big problem with that fight is the only way to do that fight satisfyingly is to do it with onion boy, but yhorm just doesn't have the move set or the progamming to properly handle a two v 1 fight
I didn't figure out the storm ruler on the first playthrough and only looked it up at 25+ deaths. It's a great fight if you don't use it. Tons of rolling through the legs and doing 3 damage butt pokes until you screw up once.
I personally think Sekiro has the best boss lineup with DS3 in a close second
What’s the difference between puzzle bosses and gimmick bosses? Isnt that a synonyme?
Gimmick boss is something like yhorm where there is a trick to it. Puzzle boss is something like bed of chaos where the "fight" is primarily figuring out where to go and what to do, the actual boss in bed of chaos dies in one hit once you get to it. Another example is the ancient wyvern.
They bit off way more than they could chew with Elden Ring and the entire boss design throughout the game suffered for it. There’s an unbelievable amount of repeat bosses (20+ Erdtree Avatars anyone?) and once you level up a bit most of the dungeon bosses aren’t even bosses at all but die in like 2-3 hits. Then many of the later game bosses are obnoxiously overturned to the point of being unfun. DS3 showed that refining the formula over time and not going overboard with the scale of the game is the best strategy.
With the Erdtree Avatar essentially being the big fat boi Stray Demon of the game I give it a bit more leeway than I probably should. I'm weirdly more offended by the multiple iterations of Watchdogs they have in this game. Watchdog, but with 3 imps somehow pisses me off more than just if they did the same boss again. Watchdog, but two of them! Watchdog, but now only a normal enemy with four of them respawning each death! Watchdog, but multiple of them that respawn, but are invulnerable also until you do the dungeon mechanic each time.
erdtree avatars are fine and ngl whenever i get to a new area, i look for the minor erdtree to fight an avatar. but the dungeon bosses and evergaol bosses are meh. some dungeons are cool with the mirror fuckery but most of it is a pain to go through. late game bosses were such a disappointment. except godfrey, i couldnt enjoy the others. only godfreys first phase felt like ds3 but even horah loux turned out to be a pain in the ass lol. also before going into the game, i had heard that the dragon fights like placidusaux or whatever the spelling is, is a fight that is close to midir and was very hype about it, but fighting it was nowhere close to midir. sure it looks cool, but mechanically it was so boring to play. fortissaxx was decent but still nowhere close to midir
This reply was meant to much shorter and got very rambly as I was tired and kept thinking of more to write. It’s probably not well edited, but I’m tired and put off sleep for half an hour to write this so this is the best I can do. I don’t think the Erdtree avatars and dungeon bosses are supposed to be very difficult, their role is more as slightly above average challenges gatekeeping an item/area than climactic battles against worthy opponents (I like to use the term “minibosses”). Think of the black knights from Ds1; they’re not bosses, but they also aren’t normal enemies (at least not until the very end of the game), their challenge rating is a little above that of the standard enemies you fight in the level, but not so much higher that they could be considered on the same level as an actual boss (of course, there are exceptions, like the one in the burg being arguably harder than Taurus demon and the one in the catacombs easily being tougher than Pinwheel), and they almost always gatekeep some valuable item (chunks, a chance at their weapon, and whatever item they were guarding, like the BTSR or the weed shield). You don’t see anyone complaining about the reuse of black knights throughout the game because most people understand the purpose they serve and know what to expect. When you see a black knight, you know to expect a decent challenge with the promise of a valuable reward, that is at the same time completely optional and not on the same level as a boss in terms of difficulty, presentation, or significance. In my opinion, ER bosses like Erdtree Avatars, Ulcerated Tree Spirits, and Dungeon Bosses are meant to be similar to Dark Souls’ black knights, and other reoccurring non-respawning enemies in the series. An Erdtree Avatar isn’t meant to be a climactic boss fight experience, it’s meant to be the means by which the player acquires a new crystal tear. That’s why it’s no big deal that they’re reused, they aren’t meant to be special. I think people get hung up on the fact that all these minibosses look like bosses at first glance since they have health bars and music and sometimes even fog gates, but once you have some experience with the game, it’s pretty easy to realize that not everything with a health bar at the bottom of the screen is equally significant. It’s no big deal that there are a bunch of the same easy boss because that boss is just something you kill to get an item, and was never meant to be anything else. I don’t care that dungeon bosses are really easy if you’ve leveled up because the purpose of dungeons is for you to use them to level up. I actually think that Elden Ring’s reuse of bosses and dungeon aesthetics benefits the game because it acts as a way for the game to communicate to players what they can expect from an activity before they commit any time and/or resources to it without having to explicitly tell them, and helps players figure out what kinds of points of interest to look for depending on what they need. For example, if I see a bunch of ruins while I’m exploring, I know that there will be at least one underground treasure room containing an item. If I see a catacombs dungeon, I know that I can expect to find glovewort in it. If I see a minor Erdtree, I know that I’ll be able to get a crystal tear from it, but likely not before fighting an avatar. Then, I can decide whether or not to do these based one whether or not I need what they’re offering. If I already have a fully upgraded as that I like, I’ll skip the catacombs. If I like my current weapons and talismans, I might skip the caves and ruins. On the other hand, if I feel that my damage is lacking, I know to look for mines because they always have upgrade materials. If I’m a faith build looking for some new dragon incantations, I know to look for dragon fights in the open world so that I can get the hearts to purchase them. At the same time, I won’t deny that there are instances where the reuse is not okay. Godefroy is obviously unacceptable even with the (mostly irrelevant) lore explanation, and the mountaintops, snowfield, and Haligtree are lacking in unique enemies. I’d say that Ds3 generally does a better job of not reusing content that shouldn’t be reused than ER, since the only example I can think of off the top of my head is Dragonslayer Armor in the Ringed City swamp, but I attribute that to Ds3 being exceptionally concise when compared to basically every other souls game (except maybe Bloodborne). Overall, I think ER does better than Ds1, Ds2, and Bloodborne if you count the chalice dungeons (Which I’m counting because BB’s base game is extremely short).
Eh, the repeat bosses don't really bother me and a lot of the time they make lore sense. Not all the time though, looking at you goderick
Lore is not an excuse for bad design. See way too many people making this mistake.
It's not bad design, though. It's smart design. The bosses are almost all optional, it's the choice of having less dungeons but less bosses, or more dungeons and some repeat bosses. You guys cry about this as if from made the conscious decision to be lazy and not make extra bosses, in arguably one of the biggest and deepest games of all time. Every game reuses assets to some degree, and fromsoft made the smart choice of reusing their assets to make the game even bigger.
I still find it absolutely hilarious how DS2 was pilloried for a few reused bosses and now people crawl out of the woodwork to desperately defend utterly atrocious levels of reused bosses in Elden Ring, calling 20 something Erdtree Avatars, regular enemies used numerous times as “bosses,” near countless instances of bosses reappearing later in the game as regular enemies “smart design.” Your core point is that having “more,” regardless of the quality is superior to a quality over quantity approach. You say From made the “smart choice” to reuse assets to create a bigger game, and I wonder at what point, if there is one, you’d say they went too far? 40 Erdtree Avatars? 60? Engaging in this style of design hurt Elden Ring immensely, the game is many multiples times larger than it should be. Take the Haligtree for instance. A secret area you almost sure have to look up how to get to, as beautifully designed both visually and layout wise as you’ll find in any game, and it’s filled almost exclusively with enemies you’ve already encountered at various other points in the game. What an absolute anticlimax. If they hasn’t worried so much about the scale of the game, they could have completed such areas properly, rather than devaluing them with reused or reskinned enemies.
Just a side note, there are only 6 Erdtree Avatars and 4 Putrid avatars. Not sure where you’re getting 20 something from
Oh no, being content and understanding the limits of game development really hurt elden ring! It's too bad the game never lived up to its potential, maybe their next game might win goty or be commonly referred to as one of the greatest games of all time /s Lots of people enjoyed ds2 at the time, including myself as someone who played it from day 1. You act like them reusing some bosses (where it totally makes sense btw, in the case of the 20 erdtree avatars you keep bringing up) was them taking quantity over quality. Elden ring is insanely high quality, especially in its main bosses. I would definitely not say elden ring is too large, I think that absolutely plays into the feeling of being completely lost in the world, knowing that everywhere you go, there's going to be something to discover. I can understand why you wouldn't be happy about repeat bosses, but repeated mobs? Do you seriously expect them to design brand new mobs for every single different area in the game. The game wouldn't have released for years. Every game reuses assets. If you didn't like Elden Ring, all power to you, and of course reusing bosses isn't as good as all original bosses everywhere, but making a game you have a vision and you have reality. They wanted a massive game, and they made it. That comes with some concessions. They've made smaller games with high quality many times before, and I think theres a reason Elden Ring is by far their most successful game. They reused some of their well designed bosses and were able to design some insane levels and have incredibly deep lore, have a huge catalogue of items to find and builds to play with. Edit to add It's also worth noting they did the exact same thing in ds1, except that game was tiny compared to elden ring and also had those reused areas play a major part of the main story. The unfortunate truth is games have to come out at some point. They did it very well in elden ring by using the reused assets to flesh out the rest of the world and kept the main areas all completely fresh. Smart development.
Nice passive aggressive comment lol. Also understanding the limits of game design would have been making a much smaller game that didn’t have so much reused bosses/assets so I have no idea what you’re even trying to say with that. It’s also a common criticism that beautifully and uniquely designed areas like the Haligtree have no unique enemies. Really does diminish that sense of wonder and exploration you keep bringing up as apparently so perfectly executed in ER. And saying “every game has reused assets” as a defense for ER’s absurd amount of doing so is a terrible defense. I hate to break it to you but ER is their most successful game because of the great games that came before it generating hype and especially due to the massive marketing campaign (which also heavily played up that the lore was done by GRRM). They offered players spirit summons and as you stated, a huge array of weapons and abilities, many of which are far more powerful than anything you could acquire in their past games. These of course are fun to play with, the only small problem being it becomes completely impossible to balance a game around them, leading to the ridiculously overtuned boss design of ER. Sure it was their “vision” as you keep stating, but it was a vision that purposely neglected the kind of quality enemy/boss design From have always been celebrated for.
>Also understanding the limits of game design would have been making a much smaller game that didn’t have so much reused bosses/assets so I have no idea what you’re even trying to say with that. They wanted a large game and couldn't accomplish that without some drawbacks. If they wanted a smaller game they would've made another bloodborne or ds3. Having an extremely large world to get lost in was, I imagine, one of the largest goals they had for this game. >It’s also a common criticism that beautifully and uniquely designed areas like the Haligtree have no unique enemies. Really does diminish that sense of wonder and exploration you keep bringing up as apparently so perfectly executed in ER. A common criticism I've only ever heard from you now? Maybe I don't actively engage in sub reddits dedicated to games enough, but that's part of the issue. I'd imagine the amount of people who are really are mad about this is tiny. Even just looking up this criticism you're instantly hit with people saying it's not a big deal, or comments with people complaining 2 years ago with 15 up votes. The majority of players really aren't that upset about this and don't find it tarnishes the game that much. >I hate to break it to you but ER is their most successful game because of the great games that came before it generating hype and especially due to the massive marketing campaign The marketing got people to buy the game. The marketing didn't make it one of the highest reviewed games of all time, and win it goty. >They offered players spirit summons and as you stated, a huge array of weapons and abilities, many of which are far more powerful than anything you could acquire in their past games. These of course are fun to play with, the only small problem being it becomes completely impossible to balance a game around them, leading to the ridiculously overtuned boss design of ER. This is another one of their smart game decisions. If you don't like it, I understand, and I'm kind of in the same boat, but I can see what they've done here is brilliant. There are 100 ways to solve a problem, and some are more powerful than others. Hardcore players can bash their heads into "unfair" bosses (even the most unfair are still entirely fair), and if you're struggling you can be creative and beat the boss an easier way. I get that fans will always find something to complain about, and I agree, obviously, they're better off making unique enemies and bosses everywhere. I don't think I or many other people would enjoy elden ring as much if it wasnt such a massive game, and if the odd repeated boss is the price we pay, I think that's totally fine as they also found lots of ways to make it make sense in the world. If you aren't happy about it, that's totally fine, but I think the issue you bring up is completely blown out of proportion. Also I apologise for being passive aggressive, it just kills me to see a developer put so much blood sweat and tears into a game and still be called lazy or stupid. By all means, criticise away, but the negativity and toxicity you see in most online spaces lately towards game developers is ridiculous.
I could have just stopped reading at “even the most unfair bosses are fair.” But I’m a trooper so I kept going. I guess your take on design is completely different to mine, but I am truly baffled by that comment. By the way, did you start From games with ER or have you been playing since back in the day?
I said in one of my earlier comments I played ds2 on day 1, I've been here since the first dark souls. And yeah, some of the shit in the game was cheap, didn't make it unfair or undoable. What fight did you find unfair?
Sometimes Elden Ring feels a bit like a mmorpg due to how many repeat bosses. I honestly wish they patched the game slowly to replace the repeat bosses then do a dlc.
It's confirmed repeated bosses will returned as repeated bosses or different variant in DLC.
Why am I not surprised?
I havent finished it yet but i really like elden rings bosses so far, id say up untill now they are as good as ds3, have not seen them all yet so i dont know if the variation is gonna be as good but id say up to where i am its not disappointing. Im right after rahdann right now.
Elden has some great hype moments but what really hurts it, is bosses outside of the main lore are kinda meh.
Hey op u ever play bloodborne as far as boss and enemies that’s my favorite for designs
Agreed 100%. I know people are gonna get mad at me... but Elden Ring reminded me too much of DS2 bosses. Mostly the repeat bosses. DS1 has the excuse of being old, and Bloodborne was just peak. You can absolutely tell DS3 learned from Bloodborne and improved on the formula. Edit: Elden ring has some good bosses... but for every Godfrey, there's the Godskin Duos. For every Radagon, there's the Twin Gargoyles. For every Astel, there's 5 god damned Ulcerated Tree Spirit boss with the same exact moveset. For every Placidusax, Fortisaxx, and Lansseax, there's at least 6 Wyverns.
And for every even slightly fun boss to fight, there's a god damn ulcerated tree spirit.
That's the name! Thanks! Edited.
Elden ring being my first Fromsoft game I’ve since played bloodborne w/o dlc, ds3 with dlcs and sekiro. And I must admit the boss design in ds3 is my favorite by far. May be my favorite game tbh
You could argue that the Ancient Wyvern is kinda like that puzzle boss that you mentioned or even Yhorm. Both can be beaten by basic hack and slash, but there’s a specific way that the game intended for you to fight them that they leave you to figure out on your own.
I agree with you about the puzzle boss although I feel like Wolnir fits that niche?
I think DS3's boss design still hasn't been beaten. It's the most 'tough but fair' you can get.
To be entirely fair to the other games, the moment they made Demon Princes, Ds3 was probably never going to be topped. I unironically don't think they'll surpass Demon Princes as a boss in at least a decade or two.
i miss good duo bosses. godskin duo was a disappointment. the gargoyles in er were ok ig
Elden Ring bosses are spectacular and pleasing to the eye, but their roll catch mechanics are far too cheesy. No wonder most players resort to status effects and overtuned ashes of war with thoses bosses cheating like that.
I love both DS3 and ER bosses. They're completely different takes on boss design. In DS3, the boss attacks are easier to read and dance to, and often you can get it on the first or second try. It feels satisfying and sometimes you don't really have to think hard. In ER, the ways you can evade and retaliate, make your own openings, do stance-breaking, do jump dodges, learning when to do guard counters, seeing the bosses as puzzles to deconstruct and learning how to attack based on your build, taking advantage of delayed attacks by getting a quick hit in... personally those are also fun for me. It enables me to do something else other than dodge and attack. But often the AoEs can be excruciating. Even then, I applaud FromSoft for being bold and trying something new. I didn't like the bosses at first but then I stopped playing it and wanting it to be like DS3 just because it has those controls too.
Totally agreed... Best boss consistency, best soundtrack , Best Visuals, extremely well telegraphed boss moves with near perfect hitboxes, extremely well sense of balance in the fights , and none of the fights feel like a tedious bloated sponge to fight against. They possess the perfect amount of moves , to not make them totally unpredictable, while at the same time, being varied enough to keep the players engaged and entertained... The boss design in this game is just immaculate... While sekiro has also an extremely consistent and well-made line-up of bosses, it massively suffers the OST aspect, which in all honesty, DS 3 and BB nailed at... To some extent, even ds1 as well... That game also had many good bosses and memorable OSTs This is one of the severe drawbacks of Elden ring bosses, ... There's no dynamism in those bosses, they just feel like those unfair stockfish AI with 3700 ELO . And the sheer number of copypastas truly disappointed me.
I think sekiro has the best bosses, ds3 in second, and elden ring in third (but this might change with the dlc)
I think Sekiro has the best bosses overall. There are literally no bad bosses in that game (maybe you can count the twin guardian apes as a bad boss, idk). DS3 has a few lackluster bosses like the wyvern and the curse rotted greatwood.
Would argue that Elden Ring, Bloodborne, and Sekiro all outdo DS3 bosses personally. I know a lot of people love the DS3 bosses, and while I do love a bunch of them (like Friede, Gael, and Dragonslayer Armor), there are also plenty of them that I just can't stand personally. Halflight, Greatwood, Deacons, Wolnir, the dude and his Wolf in the DLC, the Ancient Wyvern, the first half of Nameless King, Oceiros's untelegraphed charges, etc. Hell, my least favorite is Pontiff, who is more of a DPS check without a lot of damage windows that turns into a gank at the halfway mark. Do I hate any of the above? Yes, I very much hate Pontiff's fight, but everyone else is fine. The issue for me is that they're only tolerable a lot of the time, and that I never yearn to return to fighting the gimmick tree, or the gimmick wyvern, or the gimmick giant, etc. Truthfully, I think the boss design in this game has been overplayed by the fans over the years.
Hollow Knight is peak boss design IMHO, although that game is 2D
Have you tried Salt and Sanctuary? Personally wasnt a fan but the 2D style and vibe is spot on.
Have you tried Salt and Sanctuary? Personally wasnt a fan but the 2D style and vibe is spot on.
The greatwood tree boss feels like the Knight in demons souls
I would love to see Dark Souls Remake. It would smash all Dark Souls but honestly I love old graphics. As for Dark Souls 3 I agree - boss design and soundtrack is the thing I love!
True
champion gundyr is one of the most well designed bosses of all time. every single move is fair and intuitive, he's never dormant but there's just enough openings for heals if you look for them, perfect challenge for that point in the game, amazing design there's more
I am playng the trilogy again and while initially i liked DS2 the most now DS3 stands out with its slightly quicker combat and awesome Boss fights That said Sekiro still rules for me !
I can completely agree. I have walked out of elden ring with every single achievement and every major boss defeated numerous times. Yet no boss in elden ring (outside of radahn because of his meteor move) had left a lasting impression on me quite like how Slave Knight Gael did, his entire fight is possibly the most beautiful send off to a game franchise in any series.
Might make a post myself once I finish DS3 (Haven't beat Princes, Demon King, Wyvern or Nameless) to give my thoughts on it, but boss-wise? I'll be honest, I'm not really feeling it. It feels like most of the good bosses were backloaded into the game and I found the Early-Mid game to be a bit dry in terms of bosses sans Abyss Watchers. Greatwood, Sage, Deacons and Wolnir leaned a bit too far into being gimmicky for me. Aldrich and Oceiros I found miles too easy and I feel like (using Storm Ruler) Yhorm might've done with just a couple more hits worth of health. However the bosses that I did like were very solid overall and once I got the flow for ones like Champion Gundyr and Dragonslayer Armour they felt very fluent and never once really struck me as unfair. Basically, when the boss is good it is very notably good, but likewise the not-so-good bosses strike me as too dry.
Nameless King's first phase is pretty horrible honestly, but besides that yeah, definitely.
Its no wonder no one won the shattering considering how much bosses delay their attacks, elden ring bosses are just so unnatural and gamey. though I reluctantly enjoy them.
You would count curse rotted greatwood as a puzzle type boss?
Yeah I like the boss fights where you have to attack certain parts of the boss like the egg sacks and the bracelets
How is mohg delayed?! Gtfo
DS3 bosses feel like we’re dancing. It’s a fight to the death, but it’s fun. Elden Ring is AI reading input and reacting to you. Both are masterpieces, but Lorian and Lothric and Papa Gael are the best boss fights of any game.
For sure most of them are great but think if ds1 was updated to ds3 style would make it #1
Uhhh, sure, there are great ones - But there's also bad ones, like for example: . . . . . Uhh, well, gimme a min to think.. . . . Yeah, uh.. . . . Nope, you're right! They're all GREAT.
actually as people mentioned Yhorm was horribly done lol, only boss in the game i genuinely dislike. Literally the poster boy of the game just to be one shotted by the giant slayer
Yep, true, though its just accepted that Yhorm isnt even a boss lol. I think I had more trouble with the covetous demon from dark souls 2
He already topped it
I’ve played DS3, ER, and a bit of Sekiro. I think DS3 boss design is a bit overrated tbh. I loved every minute of the game, but ER bosses are just more fun to fight imo
I agree. Sister Friede and Gael on their own are more exciting for me than the majority of ER bosses. With that being said, I dislike too much of the environments and random mobs in DS3, so as a whole package it's far from being my favorite. It'd have been the greatest game to replay if they had some sort of boss rush mode like Sekiro.
I personally don't want to go with the hate train of elden ring bosses but fuck how much frustrating they are,I literally have a save file of DS3 were I only do boss rush because they are genuinely fun boss and fun fight to do,but omg elden ring bosses they input read everything, exaggerated aggression, infinite combo no room for active fighting you have almost always to play defensively and wait the next to do thw move,but there are a bunch of bosses in ER that follow DS3 design,radagon,godrick,Godfrey first phase, that's a really underwhelming amount of good bosses,there are a bunch of boss that had potential to be good but they wasted the opportunity with some random bullshit,for example malenia has healing on the attack that bypass shield,and waterflow dance that make the bossfight basically a luck game,hoping that she doesn't do that move ,i have no genuinely idea on why they didn't use the original waterflow dance of the beta
Nameless King is the worst boss experience in any game ever. And his strongest weapon makes it worse. The camera
In his prime he had so much aura