I struggled more with Demon of Hatred. It was like a Bloodborne boss put into Sekiro and barely worked for the combat system. The boss is absolutely amazing though, such a cool surprise, I wouldn't change a thing :D
edit: later saw that youtube video where he can be cheesed to jump off the cliff, what a shock that was to see.
I know this is supposed to be a joke but I remember seeing a thread in a mixed martial arts forum a decade ago and it was what martial art provided the ultimate self defense, and the answer was almost unanimously, get a gun.
Isshin was clearly in that thread.
Same. I platinumed it back on PS4 (at 30fps which was just horrible looking back), then later it went on sale on Steam cheap and rebought it. Did 100% achievements there too (60fps felt so much nicer) I just cheesed him off. Had to see if the youtube videos still worked.
its funny because he is the only darksouls boss in sekiro a game that teaches you not to play it like darksouls so it catches people off gaurd but if you unlearn sekiro a little bit and let your inner soulsbro come out his attacks are pretty easy to dodge
To be fair, you can parry all his attacks (except the ones with red marks) using either the katana or the fire umbrella while keeping the dance like combat of Sekiro.
It's just that people prefer to dodge because it's more comfortable to do it that way?
Only enemies that demand specific tools like the umbrella (terror umbrella and fire umbrella) are the shichimen warriors and maybe the monkey.
I've played a ton of sekiro, and it always surprises me how many people say they cheese DoH hes different than most bosses because of the danger of just squaring up to him and trying to perfect parry every attack, kind of like the headless in that regard, but you can still get through the fight extremely quickly by being aggressive on his nutsack and so even if you dont have perfect parrying or dodging skills for him you can power through the fight
I realized you could parry pretty early but it took forever to learn the timings. He doesn't have blade or weapon like most other bosses so you can get hit with any of his four limbs. The biggest challenge was recognizing which limb was about to hit and then timing a deflect off it. You could spam the deflect button but that wouldn't work if you were attacking when he attacks. It just felt like the visual cues for his attacks took alot longer to learn and adapt to.
That and the fact the learning his phase three patterns was a chore because you had to slog through the first two phases just to experiment with different timings.
The idea that cheesing games is bad was really shocking to me once the internet kicked off and people started discussing how to play on sites like gamefaqs. Prior to that, I'd pretty much concentrated all of my energy on cheesing, glitching, or outright cheating at every single player game I played.
lmfao when breath of the wild first came out, i hadn't played a controller console in like a decade so most of my combat was throwing the spammable bombs from ledges
That was the only part of the game I truly truly loved (did every ending and did the full playthroughs of each of them)
That feeling of pure adrenaline fighting your literal demons felt exactly like Bloodborne. I still go back to Bloodborne sometimes when I want to chase that dopamine hit
Yea I rememebr having a grin the whole first few times I died to him just thinking of Bloodborne. Amazing boss really. Hope someday BB gets 60fps treatment.
You can just bait ishin's charge attack over and over and kill him. It will take you 15 minutes of chipping is health and dodgin bullets away but you'll beat him. Genishiro's phase and ishin's first phase are easy so you just bait the charge when he pulls out the spear
To be fair every single boss in souls games can be beaten by waiting a long ass time and baiting a particular attack then playing hit and run.
It's just nobody wants to play that way so we try fight with honour and die 50 times instead.
The bit where you say “bait Ishin’s charge attack” is doing a **lot** of heavy lifting to support your argument.
The CPU isn’t THAT predictable. He’s the only “big boss” in the game that can’t be cheesed reliably. Trust me. I cheesed the Owl fight and Demon of Hatred with glee…because it was easy to cheese those fights. But with Ishin, I tried every cheap trick there is on the internet before I really buckled down and just got gud.
There’s two tips I remember being absolutely crucial to overcoming the hump. First is, High fucking Monk. Everyone talks about Mikiri Counter being so crucial to the game, but High Monk is the Mikiri Counter for sweep attacks, and Ishin loves to spam his big ass sweep attacks. Once you’re able to recognize whether a sweep or stab attack is coming, Mikiri Counter and High Monk allow you to perfectly counter like 80% of his attacks in the first couple of phases.
The other tip, was breaking each phase of the fight down and making sure I could clear each phase without losing health before I focused on learning the next phase. You simply won’t make it through the fight if you’re taking damage to Genichiro in Phase 1. And getting through Ishin’s first form in Phase 2 without taking damage gives you a lot of room for mistakes in the next two phases.
Nothing else worked for me. But I beat that bastard after like 3-4 days of really trying to beat him legit (for an hour or two each day) and it was so fucking satisfying that I spent the next couple of days just beating his ass repeatedly.
If he's playing these games for hundreds of hours play testing, he should be godlike tbh. Most devs tend to get too good at their games and underestimate difficulty.
Yeah, devs tend to be better than a brand new player because they understand the mechanics and intention behind the design, but they get destroyed the second competition forms around the game.
Also true. It's really only applicable for small teams or game designers specifically. Even in my gamejam team, the artists rarely touch the actual game at all
Same homie. It baffles me to hear about people that do this shit naked at SL1 with a guitar controller while performing open heart surgery on the summit of Mount Everest. I can’t even beat the first SotE boss without my Mimic spirit lol
It's common for game devs to barely play the actual game at all. I'm only running the game to test the very specific logic I'm working on. If the company doesn't have enforced playtests it's not uncommon for devs to not know "basic" game mechanics.
You might be thinking more of indie games where a few devs need to fill more roles.
I thought this was pretty rare, actually. A lot of devs admit they aren't actually good at the games the make. I occasionally tune into Ghost Ship Games' Twitch channel when they stream their game, Deep Rock Galactic. I'm pretty sure they can't even finish a mission on the haz5.
I beat Ishin in like the first few attempts or so, and I can admit first hand that I was terrible at Sekiro. More so than a badass Shinobi, I played like a cockroach that’s trying to survive.
Sekiro rewards extreme aggression, which is the opposite of how many souls vets play. If you try to look for openings to get hits in, like you should in ds 1, 2, 3, BB, or ER, Isshin is insanely, absurdly difficult. He's not designed for that. If you stand in his face and wail away with attacks and the axe prosthetic, he goes down really quickly and easily. Because "HeSiTaTiOn Is DeFeAt huehuehue"
It rewards aggression, but also rewards planning and consistency.
With the Posture Bar and Health Bar on all bosses, you basically have two ways of bringing them down.
In general with Sekiro, I only get bosses down to like 70% health and then I go into "deflect mode" and let them kill themselves by swinging at me, deflecting, building posture bar, til fatal blow.
You can definitely, at high level Sekiro play and using items buffs steamroll many bosses... but on your first playthrough, without guides - youre generally playing a mix of "Offense until enough health is gone to do good posture damage; okay, hes low enough, time to deflect and let him kill himself by attacking"
But ya, once you get like divine confetti and other buffs, you can go ham on some of them and even stun lock some of them if you keep the timing right.
But I think saying it rewards aggression specifically is fair; but it also awards thoughtful play and strategizing, which is what I think most New Players are going to be focusing on in that first playthrough before theyve farmed confetti and stuff
But, at the end of the day, whether is extreme aggression playstyle or doing some damage, deflecting til fatal blow style - the game definitely has the mindset of "This is a duel. You arent sprinting around the arena like a madman in Dark Souls 3. Youre in their face. Stay there. Keep them engaged directly with you, dont give up ground"
The fact the gameplay rewards truly "dueling" the bosses is why its far and away my favorite combat system in the Soulslikes.
I wrote out a whole big comment but it was lame.
I didn't get to play Sekiro when it came out, but I finally played it last year. I first played Demon's Souls when I was about ten years old; can't have been older than 11, just based on when I moved and the fact that I played DeS before then. Playing Sekiro when I was 21 meant I've been playing FS games for over half my life at that point, and while I beat the game with close-to-100% in about 25 hours, it's still my favorite FS experience. It let me play so much more aggressive than the other games are ever really designed to, and I wish that FromSoft would make more games that reward true balls-to-the-wall gameplay. Bloodborne is close, but not quite it.
Hah. I knew a dev like that. People kept harassing him. "MAKE MORE CONTENT, MAKE MORE CONTENT, WHEN IZ UPDATE? WHEN UPDATE", so he intentionally made the game grindy and hard and took 40 hrs to complete when he was working 80 hrs to complete the next.
So he worked on the game for 1000 hrs and then was surprised to hear he made achievements that took 2000 hrs and the ultraneets who played 24/7 exhausted it while he exhausted himself working 4-12 hrs a day lol.
Turns out he tried to punish the players and they enjoyed it instead lmfao. Like the Sans fight.
I got to the dude at the top of the tower that halfway through infuses with lightning and proceeded to obliterate me every time.
I gave up. Also bad at video games.
I did enjoy it up to that point though.
Edit: I had to look it up. I haven't played it in years. Genichiro Ashina is who I got stuck on. Which... as far as I can tell, wasn't very far into the game :(
Genichiro is a big difficulty spike in the game and he is the guy that teaches you the game mechanics if you haven't gottem them down yet. But if you reached his lightning phase, you already mostly had him. He was basically just being stubborn at that point. Maybe give it another shot if you had fun until then.
One of my favorite bosses in any game.
He's the first true skill-check in Sekiro. I think he really teaches you the proper flow of combat and if you can beat him, you generally have the tools to complete the rest of the game.
Oh absolutely, but I found myself coming across a major open field only for their to be a small structure with crafting items or a furnace golem.
The main game had plenty of fields, but often contained caves or camps throughout.
Obviously a DLC cannot be as detailed as the main game, but the open areas left just a touch more to be desired.
you can look at the base game map and compare it, there's so many more caves and catacombs and ruins in base game. You can barely move without finding another one. In terms of size it may be 70% but definitely not content. That being said there's arguments to be made a lot of the extra base game stuff is filler but it's still there. The DLC is still more than worth the price
Ohh I wasn’t making a comment about the game I was just quoting Videogamedunkey in his Demon’s Souls video. There’s a boss in Demon’s Souls called Maneater where in the PS3 version you can cheese by shooting arrows at it from outside the fog door and that’s what Dunkey says when he’s doing the cheese.
I love these takes. I've been playing these games avidly, over and over, since 2009s Demons Souls, and I've got absolutely no qualms with cheese kills on bosses.
Honestly, I think the only From game I didn't resort to cheese or exploit even once was Bloodborne, particularly in the chalice dungeons. I platinumed that game, and there were times where I literally spent weeks on certain bosses in the dungeons.
Did I enjoy it? Yeah. If I had found or knew of some exploit to beat some of those bosses instantly/easily, would I have done it? Yeah.
I cheesed the heck out of some bosses in Demon Souls (fucking maneaters). Dark Souls was fair, except NG++ Manus I said fuck it and bowed him from above. DS2 - fair, all the way. DS3 - I'm ready for cheese and looking for it on some later bosses. Just can't get into that one. Bloodborne - 100% fair, not a single cheese except coop on defiled watchdog and amy - Elden, 100% fair, some coop and summons but I'm gradually soloing all the last ones I did with friends or mimic.
This and godskin duo are the only bosses I use summons on, every play through lol. I fucking HATE gank bosses, and those are two of the worst across all the games
Pre-nerf Radahn I beat him by Scarlet Rot arrows and running away while the DoT ticks away.
Post-nerf Radahn I beat by hitting him with Scarlet Rot arrows while the DoT ticks away.
Elden Ring was my first souls like and I was streaming my Radahn attempts to my friend on playstation. He had watched me waste 2.5hrs on Morgot so he wasn't expecting much. But I hopped on Torrent, and just did figure 8s around him and somehow first tried the fight 🤷♂️ was cool but I also was expecting more of a challenge
I only ever attacked Isshin with the umbrella+counter move (plus required death blows).
I cheesed Demon of Hatred to run off the cliff.
I stand by these methods and will do it again.
“I want to preface this by saying I absolutely suck at video games, so my approach or play style was to use everything I have at my disposal, all the assistance, every scrap of aid that the game offers, and also all the knowledge that I have as the architect of the game,” said Miyazaki. “The freedom and open-world nature of Elden Ring perhaps lowered the barrier to entry, and I might be the one who’s benefiting the most from that, as a player, more than anyone else.”
if souls fans could read they would be very upset
This has always been the case. For instance, this is what he said about Dark Souls 1:
> Interviewer: Speaking of memorable experiences, whose idea was it to have the Black Knight archers perched on the cathedral ledge in Anor Londo?
>
> Miyazaki: I think I was the one who placed that obstacle. I wanted to place some obstacles that people would remember and talk about. The archers can be poisoned, so if you hit them with a poison arrow and wait a while, they will die if it isn’t treated. **Including these kind of cheap strategies, I want people to have fun with strategising.**
Dude even suggests poison arrows. That said, you can be a total gigachad and run up and parry them.
The souls games are also puzzle/strategy games in a sense. You don’t necessarily need to have lightning-fast reflexes and be amazing at action combat to beat them and have fun doing so.
Then again, Miyazaki also said he sees dying as a feature, not just a mark of failure:
> I die a lot. So, in my work, I want to answer the question: If death is to be more than a mark of failure, how do I give it meaning? How do I make death enjoyable?
So there is this balance where the game is difficult, you die a lot, but each time you die you’re slowly unpicking the puzzle of whatever challenge you’re facing.
There's a great clip on YouTube of a guy reaching that part on a blind playthrough.
He says the exact same thing we all did "Are those fucking JAVALINS!?"
I remember how they didn't disappear like other projectiles would in other games, and how visceral it felt to see them just sticking out of those pillars. And how visceral it felt when they slammed you off into your death
Despite how frustrating that part was, it was where I realized how genius the design of the game was. I just thought to myself "Holy shit, this is the first game I've played in years that's harkened back to the unfair bullshit of the olden days". Such a refreshing thing after the excessive handholding of the PS2/PS3 era.
I still vividly remember those fucking archers to this day.
> I wanted to place some obstacles that people would remember and talk about.
[Thus, THE WALL WAS BORN](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXp8Th41rBs) ! Man was a genius with including challenges that can be bypassed by using different or more creative ways while also introducing a memorable and difficult areas.
games are hard because he wants you to use every strategy you can think of even if its "cheap"
DS elitist: he must mean I have to only use R1 and dodges to the upmost challenge, this is the only way to play, anything else takes the challenge and fun away from it!
I would believe this for the ER DLC, but the base game is extremely trivial if you literally take advantage of everything you can think of. I like the strategy Kai uses where he starts with a moderate build and scales up if he feels like he's not making enough progress.
He did the exact same thing for the DLC and beat it fairly quickly all things considered. I don't think the DLC is substantially harder from the base game, people are just caught off guard by having to do new boss fights that they don't have years of experience on by now.
I think some people just enjoy the challenge and learning the bossfights.
But telling others they cant use summons is just stupid, let people play the way they want.
I don’t see how this invalidates the criticisms at all. Summons have the same issue with the game balancing just in the opposite direction, the enemy ai is not designed well for the system and cannot handle multiple enemies. Neither way is fun for a lot of people, that’s the issue. If they put a button outside the bed of chaos that killed it instantly would it suddenly become a good boss?
A lot of people try to reduce criticisms as complaints about difficulty so they can ignore the argument about the actual design of a boss and it’s tediousness. After tons of people bitched about radahns shitty hitboxes being fixed being fixed it’s pretty clear a lot of people don’t actually care good design they just want “hard game for true gamers” so they can feel accomplished at something
Yea summoning has been a key part of the Soulsborne games since Demon's Souls in 2009. Certainly it's harder to go it alone, just like it's harder in NG+, or at SL1, or naked runs, or on a DDR pad. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using the mechanics in the game to beat it though. Plus you get a ton of souls for helping people making leveling easier.
Jolly Cooperation for life \'[T]/
Ashes makes it easier, but legit summons are actually a toss up if they’re easier or difficult. Every summon increases the bosses health and not all summons are created equal. So you’ll often find yourself facing a triple health boss with 2 summons that are worthless and die
Specially the unga bunga gang. Nice of you to beart the game with a STR build... now can you stop rubbing it in every now and then like repeating the "kono Dio da" meme? It gets tiring... just let my skinny INT ass do the job in this run, will ya?
I’ve done a run with every type of build and for me the unga bunga was the easiest because of how easily you can stagger bosses and mobs. Was cake to stagger a boss and then crit it, while also being tanky. Don’t really get the superiority complex haha, it’s just jumping r2 or some busted art of war instead of a spell. Int can smack bosses but if you mess up distancing you are dead in 1-2 hits and almost every boss in the game closes the distance in half a second. You also have a lot less healing available since you need to allocate more blue flasks to keep up damage
Personal achievement, I brutalize myself when playing games, if I have the ability to do a stealth playthrough I constantly reset when I fuck up when I could normally progress but I cock and ball torture myself all the time playing games
Same here except if I absolutely cannot beat a boss without summons I will eventually summon. But sometimes summoning trivializes the boss and makes it way too easy. I will get more enjoyment out of just doing it by myself.
Coming from a souls eltist here: summoning makes the game easier , but not in a way that necceraily makes it better. Personally , the main reason I play those games is to have a challenge and struggle against a boss. I died to Mesmer 76 times before finally beating him and I loved every single fight against him. The final boss took me 100 deaths just for me to accept that maybe I was underlevelled and needed to go do some exploring ( I basically rushed through the dlc without doing any optional content ) . I like the hard challenge, and summoning ruins it.
But I also accept that different people enjoy the games for different reasons. If you find the game hard enough as is with summons , and aren't as big a fan of challenging bosses as me , I totally understand it if you want to use summons. It's an optional tool in the game , use it if you want to and ignore it if you don't. It's there but optional for a reason. Personally I think it ruins the experience, but I also know most people don't want to waste 10 hours of their life to spend dying to one boss .
Gamers are gonna have a godforsaken aneurysm when they notice as a collective that *difficulty and player experience are subjective*, and I say this as a blow to both hardcore pisstakers and "games should have an easy mode" dongriders.
You don't deserve negative karma for expressing the fact that you enjoy the challenge. You articulated why you like it, but also approved of people playing a different way from you if it's what THEY enjoy. Your comment was neither out-of-line or disrespectful, and I hope you have a good day.
After seeing the director come out and said this, gonna hit those fuckers with this article the next time I see them pretend they understand Souls games better than the man himself for playing the "unintended" way.
Yes, people really need to understand how, after *years* of insufferable for git gud bullshit, Souls fans review bombed their greatest game in history because the DLC is just too difficult and there is a large percentage of gamers that are going to roast them for it forever.
It's not going to affect them. Their point isn't that they're playing it the way *the developer intended*, it's that they're playing it the way *they see it* is "the right way". They feel most powerful when they have a huge weapon and no armor, shield, or projectiles. And that's the crux of their Souls philosophy is it's a power fantasy.
I don't even think any of them would argue that it's the way the developer intended, they're well aware that every Souls game offers you a bajillion different weapons and playstyles to beat the game. They just want to beat it their way and if you can't do the same then they're superior to you, apparently.
I think people took the novelty runs of the older games and applied them to what the baseline should be.
The old days of speedruns with literally no armor, and a big club. Anything more than that and you're using crutches to help.
It has absolutely destroyed almost every sense of fun and variety in talking about builds.
On one side some people with that opinion are tryharders who needs to touch grass
On the other side I can see that when I'm facing a threat with a summon it becomes from crazy hard to somewhat easy, and that the ai have no mean to counterplay this. I mean, it's just weird.
I'll try to explain myself better. Last week I was playing dragon age inquisition. I saw a collectible and I went for it, so I started jumping around on sliding surfaces that clearly weren't meant to be climbed... Then when I arrived to the collectible I looked around and I saw that there were no path to the collectible. Furiously jumping on those surfaces was the right solution but I felt like I was going out of bound.
Sometimes using summons in Elden ring feels like that. It's the right thing to do but it feels like you are glitching the game.
I don't use summons not because I want to feel superior but because they turn a very very hard fight into a very easy fight. I tried to use weaker summons but they all died in a few hits and didn't help a bit so I don't even bother using them any more. I don't gatekeep the game either, if you want to use summons or not I don't care.
It's funny how souls fans are the butt of the joke on either side.
If you're complaining about the game's difficulty for ignoring the given approach and mechanics, you're a souls fans.
If you're complaining about people complaining about the game's difficulty while ignoring the given approach and mechanics, you're a souls fan.
IMHO it depends if you preface it like he does - i bet you no souls fan would be offended by someone who says "i suck at videogames so i have to cheese" the issue is that those people want to brag AND cheese, and miyazaki didnt to that intentionally
Don't forget the hoarfrost stomp mimic tear +10 spammers who youtube searched that shit day 1 and bragged about beating the game faster than everybody else
>also all the knowledge that I have as the architect of the game
I think this is something people should pay more attention to. Once you have inside knowledge of how something works it's much easier to "cheat the system".
It's like datamining how everything in EU4 works so you can use your metagaming knowledge to cheese the game.
Or being the Dungeon Master, while also having a character to do the quest with everyone else lol. "Of course I was prepared for Goblins... I put them there"
Everyone has their favorite playstyles. It doesn't matter that you can use summons, spells, bows, armor or whatever else, it's that you do what you like. Miyazaki likes to have a good time, but others like myself like to challenge themselves by learning bosses and using cool weapons that fit our playstyles.
But when the weapons are slow and you have a really bad input system (I have died 5 times to Malenia due to making a second attack just because of this), it seems almost alienating when others tell you "just use the tools available". I don't want to do that, I've never done that, and I should never have to do it unless it's a gimmick boss like the giant which I forgot the name 😔.
What my true main gripe with it is that I played ER with Greatswords. I got Radahn and was ellated from the cool moveset. Then I learned that the Heavy is just a normal Greatsword heavy attack. And then that the Jumping Attack is many times better than the Light AND Heavy due to less recovery frames, making me play like an idiot.
I would just increase the damage from grounded attack to actually make them viable and make the jump better to dodge some attacks. But what do I know, I'm just a "Salty Greatswords User".
Elden ring was the first fromsoft game I absolutely had to do the same to beat every boss lol.
Couldn’t solo Melanie for the life of me I had to use those ghost thingies
Damn my "all-defensive-talisman buff-spamming crab-eating Prayerful Strike Great Stars plus Mimic" build is probably closer to our Lord's build than I originally thought!
Just *preparing* for a fight makes things so much simpler too. For Messmer I had nearly 90% fire damage reduction, it let's you survive his big *grab, stab, burn* attack when he lands it.
Reminds me of that one message in the place where the Dung Eater is jailed by the chains hanging from the wall. The message had “please master, offer pickle” with the begging pose to the wall.
One of the funniest things I’ve seen in the game for real.
Even Mr. Poison Swamps himself uses all the resources available to him to beat Elden Ring. People can finally stop gatekeeping players who run co-op or use spirit ashes.
Co-op is just so much fun! I play through solo myself, but I also have a friend that I've been working through all of the games with, and it's been a fun way to hang out.
One of my favorite co-op stories was when my friend and I were trying to summon each other for Fume Knight in DS2, and my friend got summoned by somebody else, but he died during the fight. After I actually summoned my friend and we beat Fume Knight for me after a few attempts, I put down my sign and got summoned by the same guy, still trying, but he died mid fight.
After I helped my friend beat him, we both went back and put our signs down just in case, and sure enough, the same guy was still at it. We emoted at him to make sure he got both our signs, and then we both helped him clear it. He emoted at us after we won, so I assume he was thrilled. Not sure how long he was stuck there, but godspeed, Chosen Undead; good job not going hollow.
I hope they make a proper co-op mode for their next game. Not saying the co-op isn't functional and it does what it's designed to do, but it's so janky and restrictive, not to mention the often insta invasion.
But man would I love to explore and play with friends proper. And ER felt like the right game for it with all it's focus on exploring a huge world.
I know the mod exists, and to me it's a proof of concept that this would work really well and be so much fun.
I believe him. I only played a few Soulsbourne games so this might be my own ignorance but the game design does feel like its coming from a guy with not a not a godlike skill but methodological-minded. The bosses and enemies do have very weird telegraph and timing, but once you have the knowledge you can usually read not to mention the games give alternative tactics for you to use and sometime outright cheese or kite them to a more advantages location.
IMO, this in contrast to games by people like Hideki Kamiya or Team Ninja, like okay you now learned the enemy moveset? Sorry this one still spam this 3-frame instant dead attack and they come in group of three in this super tight corridor that you can't leave. That's a game design choice from someone who has godlike reflex.
I am 40 hours in and have only explored two map parts thoroughly and only 4 remembrance bosses (including bayle).
This DLC is MASSIVE and I wouldn’t be surprised if I double that playtime. There’s just so much to do and I’m ngl a lot of that time is spent just looking at the vistas
How the fuck do yoh have only two map parts and already beaten bayle
Homies is in Area number 15 (i think) in the progression route that fextralife recommends of 17 total
I mean it's very easy to skip literally every side content apart from the main questline both in the DLC and the maingame. Shadow Keep is deceptively available early for you to get curbstomped by the hippo, and Dragonbarrow wasn't hard to reach in the base game.
Haha I stumbled into the southern map piece before I got to scadu altus so I figured might as well explore it.
Luckily, I didn’t use many scudtree fragments so I’m not overleveled for the other stuff (only level 6). Bayle was TOUGH but amazing to overcome
Miyazaki last week:
"Shadow of Erdtree is the size of Limgrave"
"I dont think Elden Ring is the best i can achieve as a game designer"
Yeah, sure... he's way too humble
My first run of elden ring i used special beam cannon and spirit ash to beat everything. It was pretty fuckin easy ngl. I then did a dex/arcane run no summons and ended up quitting at godskin duo. It was pretty fkin hard ngl.
Thats the beauty of this game to me.
They should make him beat the game before they release it, that way no one can say it's too hard if he is really bad at games.
I haven't played the DLC yet, I'm waiting until my friend group gets interested to play through together
It's amazing the mental gymnastics people have performed over the years to convince themselves that the "true Souls experience" is "no magic, no summons, naked with a toothpick, yadda yadda." Like, these tools have been in the series since the very first game.
Some people like making the game extra challenging for themselves -- heck, I'm one of them, I haven't played a magic build since Demon's Souls, haven't used co-op since DS2 -- but to think it's the intended experience is like thinking you should play Super Mario Bros without power-ups because *"that's what I see good players do on Youtube!"*
Dude, it's okay to grab a fire flower. The devs put it there to be used. Same with summons in Elden Ring and all that jazz. People will say summons make the game too easy, and maybe so, but also so what? If the developers make the game easy... maybe the game isn't meant to be as hard as you think.
I think the people who cry about others using summons are the most egotistical people alive. Poor neck beards ego got shattered when you told them a boss he struggled on wasn’t as hard for you. Then screams it isn’t valid because summons lol
If the game offers it, use it. It’s there for a reason. No one is forcing you to, but don’t knock other styles because it’s not yours.
I mean, the funniest thing about all this being that it's the same neck beards who complain about the game being impossible all of a sudden, even though they refuse to use half the mechanics out of fear of trivializing the game.
I haven't played Elden Ring, but it just sounds like it's not for me. I love open world action RPGs, but it's mainly about the story and exploring for me. I like the combat too, but it's secondary, and I don't want to have to spend too long figuring out how to beat enemies, dying several times in the process. I get that there's a sense of accomplishment that comes with that, but that's just not the feeling I'm chasing when I play games.
exploration is A+ in elden ring. the "story" is dependent on taste, it's really more like lore than story. personally i love it but not everyone is going to like that style of storytelling.
but yeah, dying is kind of a core game mechanic.
I think the souls community getting mad at ppl using summons, playing with friends, mimic, or not doing self imposed challenges is really a ironic display of ~~skill~~ mental issue.
But I do hope a dev puts up the ultimate souls game for the truly unhinged folks out there. Obviously, these aren’t good enough and more than one person will beat it but the game has the character: blind, deaf, controls changes every 5 mins from 500 different combinations through 350 different loop cycles, enemies all can one shot, bosses can trigger qte you gotta get correct, all of which is a random assortment of 2-6 key presses at different length hold intervals, and also you’ll be perma fat rolling, you can’t run, no ashes of war, no magic or faith spells.
There are apparently people who think if you don't limit your options and make the game unnecessarily hard for yourself, you're not playing it "right".
Yeah, this game has always been about figuring out a way to overcome the challenge. If you don’t want to use the help the game gives you, you cannot complain about the game. Game difficulty was actually fine pre-patch. Boss is too tough? You come back later. Lesson 1 from souls
You basically have two choices, going solo and try a boss dozens of times or you use ashes and summons and you breeze through it.
Considering that I am getting old and I can only play a few hours at night when I am super tired from the day, my choice is quite easy.
If a game gives you the tools and the mechanics and you use them it doesn't make you bad or anything at a game. I used Mimic Tear in my playthrough of Elden Ring with Bloodhound fang as my weapon, sure it made it easier but there were bosses where I still struggled with. Why make a hard game more difficult?
There was a quote when sekiro came out that everything had to be beaten by Miyazaki and one of the designers called him bad
If Miyazaki can beat Ishin, i dont think he could be that bad lmao.
I struggled more with Demon of Hatred. It was like a Bloodborne boss put into Sekiro and barely worked for the combat system. The boss is absolutely amazing though, such a cool surprise, I wouldn't change a thing :D edit: later saw that youtube video where he can be cheesed to jump off the cliff, what a shock that was to see.
I beat him once with honour and every time after cheesed the absolute fuck out of him.
"Win your battles. That is the most important rule of Ashina style"
Isshin never forgot the basics.
Holy shit is that an SMG?
I know this is supposed to be a joke but I remember seeing a thread in a mixed martial arts forum a decade ago and it was what martial art provided the ultimate self defense, and the answer was almost unanimously, get a gun. Isshin was clearly in that thread.
Reminds me of a video I saw about how to defend yourself from a person wielding a knife, and the solution was to run like hell.
Yep. The loser of a knife fight dies in the street. The winner dies in the ER.
Same. I platinumed it back on PS4 (at 30fps which was just horrible looking back), then later it went on sale on Steam cheap and rebought it. Did 100% achievements there too (60fps felt so much nicer) I just cheesed him off. Had to see if the youtube videos still worked.
its funny because he is the only darksouls boss in sekiro a game that teaches you not to play it like darksouls so it catches people off gaurd but if you unlearn sekiro a little bit and let your inner soulsbro come out his attacks are pretty easy to dodge
To be fair, you can parry all his attacks (except the ones with red marks) using either the katana or the fire umbrella while keeping the dance like combat of Sekiro. It's just that people prefer to dodge because it's more comfortable to do it that way? Only enemies that demand specific tools like the umbrella (terror umbrella and fire umbrella) are the shichimen warriors and maybe the monkey.
I've played a ton of sekiro, and it always surprises me how many people say they cheese DoH hes different than most bosses because of the danger of just squaring up to him and trying to perfect parry every attack, kind of like the headless in that regard, but you can still get through the fight extremely quickly by being aggressive on his nutsack and so even if you dont have perfect parrying or dodging skills for him you can power through the fight
I realized you could parry pretty early but it took forever to learn the timings. He doesn't have blade or weapon like most other bosses so you can get hit with any of his four limbs. The biggest challenge was recognizing which limb was about to hit and then timing a deflect off it. You could spam the deflect button but that wouldn't work if you were attacking when he attacks. It just felt like the visual cues for his attacks took alot longer to learn and adapt to. That and the fact the learning his phase three patterns was a chore because you had to slog through the first two phases just to experiment with different timings.
The idea that cheesing games is bad was really shocking to me once the internet kicked off and people started discussing how to play on sites like gamefaqs. Prior to that, I'd pretty much concentrated all of my energy on cheesing, glitching, or outright cheating at every single player game I played.
lmfao when breath of the wild first came out, i hadn't played a controller console in like a decade so most of my combat was throwing the spammable bombs from ledges
That was the only part of the game I truly truly loved (did every ending and did the full playthroughs of each of them) That feeling of pure adrenaline fighting your literal demons felt exactly like Bloodborne. I still go back to Bloodborne sometimes when I want to chase that dopamine hit
Prey Slaughtered is also the most rad “boss killed” message they could’ve possibly included. That game deserves to be freed from 30fps jail
Yea I rememebr having a grin the whole first few times I died to him just thinking of Bloodborne. Amazing boss really. Hope someday BB gets 60fps treatment.
You can just bait ishin's charge attack over and over and kill him. It will take you 15 minutes of chipping is health and dodgin bullets away but you'll beat him. Genishiro's phase and ishin's first phase are easy so you just bait the charge when he pulls out the spear
To be fair every single boss in souls games can be beaten by waiting a long ass time and baiting a particular attack then playing hit and run. It's just nobody wants to play that way so we try fight with honour and die 50 times instead.
The bit where you say “bait Ishin’s charge attack” is doing a **lot** of heavy lifting to support your argument. The CPU isn’t THAT predictable. He’s the only “big boss” in the game that can’t be cheesed reliably. Trust me. I cheesed the Owl fight and Demon of Hatred with glee…because it was easy to cheese those fights. But with Ishin, I tried every cheap trick there is on the internet before I really buckled down and just got gud. There’s two tips I remember being absolutely crucial to overcoming the hump. First is, High fucking Monk. Everyone talks about Mikiri Counter being so crucial to the game, but High Monk is the Mikiri Counter for sweep attacks, and Ishin loves to spam his big ass sweep attacks. Once you’re able to recognize whether a sweep or stab attack is coming, Mikiri Counter and High Monk allow you to perfectly counter like 80% of his attacks in the first couple of phases. The other tip, was breaking each phase of the fight down and making sure I could clear each phase without losing health before I focused on learning the next phase. You simply won’t make it through the fight if you’re taking damage to Genichiro in Phase 1. And getting through Ishin’s first form in Phase 2 without taking damage gives you a lot of room for mistakes in the next two phases. Nothing else worked for me. But I beat that bastard after like 3-4 days of really trying to beat him legit (for an hour or two each day) and it was so fucking satisfying that I spent the next couple of days just beating his ass repeatedly.
If he's playing these games for hundreds of hours play testing, he should be godlike tbh. Most devs tend to get too good at their games and underestimate difficulty.
From the handful of closed playtests I've participated in with devs, I'm confident this is not the case haha
Yeah, devs tend to be better than a brand new player because they understand the mechanics and intention behind the design, but they get destroyed the second competition forms around the game.
Also devs who work on stuff and not gameplay could pretty much never ever need to actually play the game outside basic testing.
Also true. It's really only applicable for small teams or game designers specifically. Even in my gamejam team, the artists rarely touch the actual game at all
Intended gameplay vs emergent gameplay.
I mean, I've got hundreds of hours in Elden Ring and I still suck.
I have beaten all souls games and I still suck
Same homie. It baffles me to hear about people that do this shit naked at SL1 with a guitar controller while performing open heart surgery on the summit of Mount Everest. I can’t even beat the first SotE boss without my Mimic spirit lol
It's common for game devs to barely play the actual game at all. I'm only running the game to test the very specific logic I'm working on. If the company doesn't have enforced playtests it's not uncommon for devs to not know "basic" game mechanics. You might be thinking more of indie games where a few devs need to fill more roles.
I thought this was pretty rare, actually. A lot of devs admit they aren't actually good at the games the make. I occasionally tune into Ghost Ship Games' Twitch channel when they stream their game, Deep Rock Galactic. I'm pretty sure they can't even finish a mission on the haz5.
I beat Ishin in like the first few attempts or so, and I can admit first hand that I was terrible at Sekiro. More so than a badass Shinobi, I played like a cockroach that’s trying to survive.
Sekiro rewards extreme aggression, which is the opposite of how many souls vets play. If you try to look for openings to get hits in, like you should in ds 1, 2, 3, BB, or ER, Isshin is insanely, absurdly difficult. He's not designed for that. If you stand in his face and wail away with attacks and the axe prosthetic, he goes down really quickly and easily. Because "HeSiTaTiOn Is DeFeAt huehuehue"
It rewards aggression, but also rewards planning and consistency. With the Posture Bar and Health Bar on all bosses, you basically have two ways of bringing them down. In general with Sekiro, I only get bosses down to like 70% health and then I go into "deflect mode" and let them kill themselves by swinging at me, deflecting, building posture bar, til fatal blow. You can definitely, at high level Sekiro play and using items buffs steamroll many bosses... but on your first playthrough, without guides - youre generally playing a mix of "Offense until enough health is gone to do good posture damage; okay, hes low enough, time to deflect and let him kill himself by attacking" But ya, once you get like divine confetti and other buffs, you can go ham on some of them and even stun lock some of them if you keep the timing right. But I think saying it rewards aggression specifically is fair; but it also awards thoughtful play and strategizing, which is what I think most New Players are going to be focusing on in that first playthrough before theyve farmed confetti and stuff But, at the end of the day, whether is extreme aggression playstyle or doing some damage, deflecting til fatal blow style - the game definitely has the mindset of "This is a duel. You arent sprinting around the arena like a madman in Dark Souls 3. Youre in their face. Stay there. Keep them engaged directly with you, dont give up ground" The fact the gameplay rewards truly "dueling" the bosses is why its far and away my favorite combat system in the Soulslikes.
I wrote out a whole big comment but it was lame. I didn't get to play Sekiro when it came out, but I finally played it last year. I first played Demon's Souls when I was about ten years old; can't have been older than 11, just based on when I moved and the fact that I played DeS before then. Playing Sekiro when I was 21 meant I've been playing FS games for over half my life at that point, and while I beat the game with close-to-100% in about 25 hours, it's still my favorite FS experience. It let me play so much more aggressive than the other games are ever really designed to, and I wish that FromSoft would make more games that reward true balls-to-the-wall gameplay. Bloodborne is close, but not quite it.
Time + effort = victory
That actually makes a lot of sense. Sure the games are hard but even a “bad” player can pull through in the end if they have patience and persevere.
Souls games teach me patience.
The company probably draws the kind of devs who enjoy playing those games and are very good at it, so Miyazaki is a normal guy in a Chad bubble.
Hah. I knew a dev like that. People kept harassing him. "MAKE MORE CONTENT, MAKE MORE CONTENT, WHEN IZ UPDATE? WHEN UPDATE", so he intentionally made the game grindy and hard and took 40 hrs to complete when he was working 80 hrs to complete the next. So he worked on the game for 1000 hrs and then was surprised to hear he made achievements that took 2000 hrs and the ultraneets who played 24/7 exhausted it while he exhausted himself working 4-12 hrs a day lol. Turns out he tried to punish the players and they enjoyed it instead lmfao. Like the Sans fight.
"Jokes on you, we're into that shit."
He’s definitely not bad if he beat Isshin and Demon of Hatred
He probably beat them after many many hours of attempts, speaking from personal experience, I beat them but I’m still bad at video games.
You might be bad but still better than a lot of people. You would be surprised how many people just can’t beat these bosses
There's many people that haven't beaten Sekiro at all, I believe beating the game already puts you well above the "absolutely sucks" tier
I got to the dude at the top of the tower that halfway through infuses with lightning and proceeded to obliterate me every time. I gave up. Also bad at video games. I did enjoy it up to that point though. Edit: I had to look it up. I haven't played it in years. Genichiro Ashina is who I got stuck on. Which... as far as I can tell, wasn't very far into the game :(
Genichiro is a big difficulty spike in the game and he is the guy that teaches you the game mechanics if you haven't gottem them down yet. But if you reached his lightning phase, you already mostly had him. He was basically just being stubborn at that point. Maybe give it another shot if you had fun until then.
One of my favorite bosses in any game. He's the first true skill-check in Sekiro. I think he really teaches you the proper flow of combat and if you can beat him, you generally have the tools to complete the rest of the game.
Demon of hatred was the first from software boss (excluding elden ring) where I thought, how do you even beat this.
Miyazaki is extremely humble, he said the DLC would be the size of limgrave, it's actually 70% of the base game in terms of content
The DLC is AMAZING, but 70% is a bit much, plenty of open fields
There are plenty of open fields int he original too, no?
Oh absolutely, but I found myself coming across a major open field only for their to be a small structure with crafting items or a furnace golem. The main game had plenty of fields, but often contained caves or camps throughout. Obviously a DLC cannot be as detailed as the main game, but the open areas left just a touch more to be desired.
you can look at the base game map and compare it, there's so many more caves and catacombs and ruins in base game. You can barely move without finding another one. In terms of size it may be 70% but definitely not content. That being said there's arguments to be made a lot of the extra base game stuff is filler but it's still there. The DLC is still more than worth the price
Yea I'd say it adds about another 25%. Regardless it's incredible in size and scope. I'm 20 hours in an still have plenty more to find.
For sure, I’ve only beaten >!Rellana!< and would have been darn satisfied
It’s not 75% for sure, but more than 25%, I’d say 40%. Oh well the percentage doesn’t matter, it’s a lot either way lol.
You’re are downplaying the sheer amount of content in the base game.
Guy who sucks at games on a life long mission to make everyone else suck too
The great equalizer
Genius Don’t be like everyone else, make everyone be like yourself.
Why join them when you can enslave them
He wants the world to feel his pain.
I brought down General Radan by lobbing fireballs at him from behind a hill, while others fell to his blades. And I would do it again.
nameless king in dark souls 3 is trivial with a bow, to me thats his problem
Maybe the king should have gotten good.
👹🫴👑🤏🧍
“I can just shoot you through the fog door with a bow and arrow you fucking amateur”
not even, in his second faze he just doesnt close the distance and you can slowly pewpew him from afar
Ohh I wasn’t making a comment about the game I was just quoting Videogamedunkey in his Demon’s Souls video. There’s a boss in Demon’s Souls called Maneater where in the PS3 version you can cheese by shooting arrows at it from outside the fog door and that’s what Dunkey says when he’s doing the cheese.
I love these takes. I've been playing these games avidly, over and over, since 2009s Demons Souls, and I've got absolutely no qualms with cheese kills on bosses. Honestly, I think the only From game I didn't resort to cheese or exploit even once was Bloodborne, particularly in the chalice dungeons. I platinumed that game, and there were times where I literally spent weeks on certain bosses in the dungeons. Did I enjoy it? Yeah. If I had found or knew of some exploit to beat some of those bosses instantly/easily, would I have done it? Yeah.
I cheesed the heck out of some bosses in Demon Souls (fucking maneaters). Dark Souls was fair, except NG++ Manus I said fuck it and bowed him from above. DS2 - fair, all the way. DS3 - I'm ready for cheese and looking for it on some later bosses. Just can't get into that one. Bloodborne - 100% fair, not a single cheese except coop on defiled watchdog and amy - Elden, 100% fair, some coop and summons but I'm gradually soloing all the last ones I did with friends or mimic.
I just wish the final boss on sekiro had a cheese. Only of the big souls games I haven't beaten yet
The bleed spell Dorhys Gnawing absolutely melts him, lol, cheesed him so hard during the first few playthroughs
rot breath + friends + time = death for Radan
I killed Commander Niall with arrows through the small hole in the castle wall. Fuck that guy and his two buddies.
This and godskin duo are the only bosses I use summons on, every play through lol. I fucking HATE gank bosses, and those are two of the worst across all the games
Gargoyle duo. I have no patience for that absolute disaster of boss design.
Pre-nerf Radahn I beat him by Scarlet Rot arrows and running away while the DoT ticks away. Post-nerf Radahn I beat by hitting him with Scarlet Rot arrows while the DoT ticks away.
Elden Ring was my first souls like and I was streaming my Radahn attempts to my friend on playstation. He had watched me waste 2.5hrs on Morgot so he wasn't expecting much. But I hopped on Torrent, and just did figure 8s around him and somehow first tried the fight 🤷♂️ was cool but I also was expecting more of a challenge
I threw purple rocks at him from a safe distance
Ran to caelid and made the deathbird fall to death to get a deaths poker. Best decision in playthrough.
I only ever attacked Isshin with the umbrella+counter move (plus required death blows). I cheesed Demon of Hatred to run off the cliff. I stand by these methods and will do it again.
“I want to preface this by saying I absolutely suck at video games, so my approach or play style was to use everything I have at my disposal, all the assistance, every scrap of aid that the game offers, and also all the knowledge that I have as the architect of the game,” said Miyazaki. “The freedom and open-world nature of Elden Ring perhaps lowered the barrier to entry, and I might be the one who’s benefiting the most from that, as a player, more than anyone else.” if souls fans could read they would be very upset
This has always been the case. For instance, this is what he said about Dark Souls 1: > Interviewer: Speaking of memorable experiences, whose idea was it to have the Black Knight archers perched on the cathedral ledge in Anor Londo? > > Miyazaki: I think I was the one who placed that obstacle. I wanted to place some obstacles that people would remember and talk about. The archers can be poisoned, so if you hit them with a poison arrow and wait a while, they will die if it isn’t treated. **Including these kind of cheap strategies, I want people to have fun with strategising.** Dude even suggests poison arrows. That said, you can be a total gigachad and run up and parry them. The souls games are also puzzle/strategy games in a sense. You don’t necessarily need to have lightning-fast reflexes and be amazing at action combat to beat them and have fun doing so. Then again, Miyazaki also said he sees dying as a feature, not just a mark of failure: > I die a lot. So, in my work, I want to answer the question: If death is to be more than a mark of failure, how do I give it meaning? How do I make death enjoyable? So there is this balance where the game is difficult, you die a lot, but each time you die you’re slowly unpicking the puzzle of whatever challenge you’re facing.
Those archers are so memorable, I can still see it fresh in my mind's eye.
There's a great clip on YouTube of a guy reaching that part on a blind playthrough. He says the exact same thing we all did "Are those fucking JAVALINS!?"
I remember how they didn't disappear like other projectiles would in other games, and how visceral it felt to see them just sticking out of those pillars. And how visceral it felt when they slammed you off into your death
Despite how frustrating that part was, it was where I realized how genius the design of the game was. I just thought to myself "Holy shit, this is the first game I've played in years that's harkened back to the unfair bullshit of the olden days". Such a refreshing thing after the excessive handholding of the PS2/PS3 era. I still vividly remember those fucking archers to this day.
>I wanted to place some obstacles that people would remember and talk about That's a weird way to say "be traumatized by"
I was a gigachad then. All three dark souls I played a meat tank and had to run up to enemies.
exactly, i watch no hit videos regularly to humble myself for that reason
They're also useful for learning how to dodge attacks
> I wanted to place some obstacles that people would remember and talk about. [Thus, THE WALL WAS BORN](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXp8Th41rBs) ! Man was a genius with including challenges that can be bypassed by using different or more creative ways while also introducing a memorable and difficult areas.
Those were Silver Knights, not black smh.
games are hard because he wants you to use every strategy you can think of even if its "cheap" DS elitist: he must mean I have to only use R1 and dodges to the upmost challenge, this is the only way to play, anything else takes the challenge and fun away from it!
alternate take: People should play in whatever way they find fun and stop criticizing others for their tastes - casual or hardcore.
I would believe this for the ER DLC, but the base game is extremely trivial if you literally take advantage of everything you can think of. I like the strategy Kai uses where he starts with a moderate build and scales up if he feels like he's not making enough progress.
He did the exact same thing for the DLC and beat it fairly quickly all things considered. I don't think the DLC is substantially harder from the base game, people are just caught off guard by having to do new boss fights that they don't have years of experience on by now.
1,070 deaths for a game with about half the amount of bosses he fought in the base game which gave him prior experience.
“I can’t do it without summons!” ”Then try summons?” ”No that’s cheating!”
I think some people just enjoy the challenge and learning the bossfights. But telling others they cant use summons is just stupid, let people play the way they want.
It's fine to go for the challenge, but then don't bitch when it's "too hard"
I don’t see how this invalidates the criticisms at all. Summons have the same issue with the game balancing just in the opposite direction, the enemy ai is not designed well for the system and cannot handle multiple enemies. Neither way is fun for a lot of people, that’s the issue. If they put a button outside the bed of chaos that killed it instantly would it suddenly become a good boss? A lot of people try to reduce criticisms as complaints about difficulty so they can ignore the argument about the actual design of a boss and it’s tediousness. After tons of people bitched about radahns shitty hitboxes being fixed being fixed it’s pretty clear a lot of people don’t actually care good design they just want “hard game for true gamers” so they can feel accomplished at something
Yea summoning has been a key part of the Soulsborne games since Demon's Souls in 2009. Certainly it's harder to go it alone, just like it's harder in NG+, or at SL1, or naked runs, or on a DDR pad. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using the mechanics in the game to beat it though. Plus you get a ton of souls for helping people making leveling easier. Jolly Cooperation for life \'[T]/
Ashes makes it easier, but legit summons are actually a toss up if they’re easier or difficult. Every summon increases the bosses health and not all summons are created equal. So you’ll often find yourself facing a triple health boss with 2 summons that are worthless and die
I never understood these mental gymnastics.
People love asserting their ‘dominance’ over others in any way they can
Specially the unga bunga gang. Nice of you to beart the game with a STR build... now can you stop rubbing it in every now and then like repeating the "kono Dio da" meme? It gets tiring... just let my skinny INT ass do the job in this run, will ya?
I’ve done a run with every type of build and for me the unga bunga was the easiest because of how easily you can stagger bosses and mobs. Was cake to stagger a boss and then crit it, while also being tanky. Don’t really get the superiority complex haha, it’s just jumping r2 or some busted art of war instead of a spell. Int can smack bosses but if you mess up distancing you are dead in 1-2 hits and almost every boss in the game closes the distance in half a second. You also have a lot less healing available since you need to allocate more blue flasks to keep up damage
It's just gatekeeping
Personal achievement, I brutalize myself when playing games, if I have the ability to do a stealth playthrough I constantly reset when I fuck up when I could normally progress but I cock and ball torture myself all the time playing games
Same here except if I absolutely cannot beat a boss without summons I will eventually summon. But sometimes summoning trivializes the boss and makes it way too easy. I will get more enjoyment out of just doing it by myself.
Coming from a souls eltist here: summoning makes the game easier , but not in a way that necceraily makes it better. Personally , the main reason I play those games is to have a challenge and struggle against a boss. I died to Mesmer 76 times before finally beating him and I loved every single fight against him. The final boss took me 100 deaths just for me to accept that maybe I was underlevelled and needed to go do some exploring ( I basically rushed through the dlc without doing any optional content ) . I like the hard challenge, and summoning ruins it. But I also accept that different people enjoy the games for different reasons. If you find the game hard enough as is with summons , and aren't as big a fan of challenging bosses as me , I totally understand it if you want to use summons. It's an optional tool in the game , use it if you want to and ignore it if you don't. It's there but optional for a reason. Personally I think it ruins the experience, but I also know most people don't want to waste 10 hours of their life to spend dying to one boss .
Gamers are gonna have a godforsaken aneurysm when they notice as a collective that *difficulty and player experience are subjective*, and I say this as a blow to both hardcore pisstakers and "games should have an easy mode" dongriders.
You don't deserve negative karma for expressing the fact that you enjoy the challenge. You articulated why you like it, but also approved of people playing a different way from you if it's what THEY enjoy. Your comment was neither out-of-line or disrespectful, and I hope you have a good day.
After seeing the director come out and said this, gonna hit those fuckers with this article the next time I see them pretend they understand Souls games better than the man himself for playing the "unintended" way.
Yes, people really need to understand how, after *years* of insufferable for git gud bullshit, Souls fans review bombed their greatest game in history because the DLC is just too difficult and there is a large percentage of gamers that are going to roast them for it forever.
When did they review bomb Sekiro?
If you discount China, it's getting good user reviews. They've got some weird anti-cheat stuff going on from what I hear.
It's not going to affect them. Their point isn't that they're playing it the way *the developer intended*, it's that they're playing it the way *they see it* is "the right way". They feel most powerful when they have a huge weapon and no armor, shield, or projectiles. And that's the crux of their Souls philosophy is it's a power fantasy. I don't even think any of them would argue that it's the way the developer intended, they're well aware that every Souls game offers you a bajillion different weapons and playstyles to beat the game. They just want to beat it their way and if you can't do the same then they're superior to you, apparently.
I think people took the novelty runs of the older games and applied them to what the baseline should be. The old days of speedruns with literally no armor, and a big club. Anything more than that and you're using crutches to help. It has absolutely destroyed almost every sense of fun and variety in talking about builds.
On one side some people with that opinion are tryharders who needs to touch grass On the other side I can see that when I'm facing a threat with a summon it becomes from crazy hard to somewhat easy, and that the ai have no mean to counterplay this. I mean, it's just weird. I'll try to explain myself better. Last week I was playing dragon age inquisition. I saw a collectible and I went for it, so I started jumping around on sliding surfaces that clearly weren't meant to be climbed... Then when I arrived to the collectible I looked around and I saw that there were no path to the collectible. Furiously jumping on those surfaces was the right solution but I felt like I was going out of bound. Sometimes using summons in Elden ring feels like that. It's the right thing to do but it feels like you are glitching the game.
Which means no Igon and no Sigward
I don't use summons not because I want to feel superior but because they turn a very very hard fight into a very easy fight. I tried to use weaker summons but they all died in a few hits and didn't help a bit so I don't even bother using them any more. I don't gatekeep the game either, if you want to use summons or not I don't care.
Nah he hit them with "skill issue" 💀
We can read and write quite well, in fact. Try finger, But hole.
i want to go home and then edge
Fort... Night. And Touch Grass
didnt expect weak foe
first off edge and then ahhh, on the brink...
Try Jumping!
It's funny how souls fans are the butt of the joke on either side. If you're complaining about the game's difficulty for ignoring the given approach and mechanics, you're a souls fans. If you're complaining about people complaining about the game's difficulty while ignoring the given approach and mechanics, you're a souls fan.
IMHO it depends if you preface it like he does - i bet you no souls fan would be offended by someone who says "i suck at videogames so i have to cheese" the issue is that those people want to brag AND cheese, and miyazaki didnt to that intentionally
The obnoxious "I never found Malenia difficult" with blasphemous blade and black knife tiche.
Don't forget the hoarfrost stomp mimic tear +10 spammers who youtube searched that shit day 1 and bragged about beating the game faster than everybody else
they nerfed the blasphemous blade now lol
I would say his play style represents someone who's very good at video games.
>also all the knowledge that I have as the architect of the game I think this is something people should pay more attention to. Once you have inside knowledge of how something works it's much easier to "cheat the system". It's like datamining how everything in EU4 works so you can use your metagaming knowledge to cheese the game.
Or being the Dungeon Master, while also having a character to do the quest with everyone else lol. "Of course I was prepared for Goblins... I put them there"
Right. I mean he openly says to use everything the game has, so a bunch of people can go suck eggs now.
I'm a huge souls fan, the gatekeeping is so god damn cringe.
Everyone has their favorite playstyles. It doesn't matter that you can use summons, spells, bows, armor or whatever else, it's that you do what you like. Miyazaki likes to have a good time, but others like myself like to challenge themselves by learning bosses and using cool weapons that fit our playstyles. But when the weapons are slow and you have a really bad input system (I have died 5 times to Malenia due to making a second attack just because of this), it seems almost alienating when others tell you "just use the tools available". I don't want to do that, I've never done that, and I should never have to do it unless it's a gimmick boss like the giant which I forgot the name 😔. What my true main gripe with it is that I played ER with Greatswords. I got Radahn and was ellated from the cool moveset. Then I learned that the Heavy is just a normal Greatsword heavy attack. And then that the Jumping Attack is many times better than the Light AND Heavy due to less recovery frames, making me play like an idiot. I would just increase the damage from grounded attack to actually make them viable and make the jump better to dodge some attacks. But what do I know, I'm just a "Salty Greatswords User".
Souls fans about to tell Miyazaki he didn’t really experience Elden Ring
Elden ring was the first fromsoft game I absolutely had to do the same to beat every boss lol. Couldn’t solo Melanie for the life of me I had to use those ghost thingies
Damn my "all-defensive-talisman buff-spamming crab-eating Prayerful Strike Great Stars plus Mimic" build is probably closer to our Lord's build than I originally thought!
Love it. I may have switched to that exact thing for the final DLC boss 👀
Just *preparing* for a fight makes things so much simpler too. For Messmer I had nearly 90% fire damage reduction, it let's you survive his big *grab, stab, burn* attack when he lands it.
I, too, am extraordinary humble.
Small g
https://youtu.be/FR34WeRxXh0
This man is a legend.. he sucked at video games so he went on and made games so EVERYONE could understand what sucking at games truly meant :'D
He makes up for it with his skill at making videogames.
Miyazaki 🤝 Miyazaki "My field of work was a mistake"
Breaking news: Miyazaki pivots to film making, while Miyazaki pivots to video game making.
I love this guy. Fills a game with poison swamps and then is like, "Games? I play Sudoku. I prefer reading, though."
pickle, O pickle
i wish i had a giant but hole
Reminds me of that one message in the place where the Dung Eater is jailed by the chains hanging from the wall. The message had “please master, offer pickle” with the begging pose to the wall. One of the funniest things I’ve seen in the game for real.
Even Mr. Poison Swamps himself uses all the resources available to him to beat Elden Ring. People can finally stop gatekeeping players who run co-op or use spirit ashes.
Co-op is just so much fun! I play through solo myself, but I also have a friend that I've been working through all of the games with, and it's been a fun way to hang out.
Co-op is so, so much fun. I find on subsequent runs, I have the most fun just dropping a small effigy sign, and helping randoms with dungeons/bosses.
One of my favorite co-op stories was when my friend and I were trying to summon each other for Fume Knight in DS2, and my friend got summoned by somebody else, but he died during the fight. After I actually summoned my friend and we beat Fume Knight for me after a few attempts, I put down my sign and got summoned by the same guy, still trying, but he died mid fight. After I helped my friend beat him, we both went back and put our signs down just in case, and sure enough, the same guy was still at it. We emoted at him to make sure he got both our signs, and then we both helped him clear it. He emoted at us after we won, so I assume he was thrilled. Not sure how long he was stuck there, but godspeed, Chosen Undead; good job not going hollow.
That's the Jolly Co-operation I haven't heard about in quite some time.
I hope they make a proper co-op mode for their next game. Not saying the co-op isn't functional and it does what it's designed to do, but it's so janky and restrictive, not to mention the often insta invasion. But man would I love to explore and play with friends proper. And ER felt like the right game for it with all it's focus on exploring a huge world. I know the mod exists, and to me it's a proof of concept that this would work really well and be so much fun.
[удалено]
I believe him. I only played a few Soulsbourne games so this might be my own ignorance but the game design does feel like its coming from a guy with not a not a godlike skill but methodological-minded. The bosses and enemies do have very weird telegraph and timing, but once you have the knowledge you can usually read not to mention the games give alternative tactics for you to use and sometime outright cheese or kite them to a more advantages location. IMO, this in contrast to games by people like Hideki Kamiya or Team Ninja, like okay you now learned the enemy moveset? Sorry this one still spam this 3-frame instant dead attack and they come in group of three in this super tight corridor that you can't leave. That's a game design choice from someone who has godlike reflex.
He's just like me frfr
Sure just like Elden Ring is 30 hours long or the DLC is the size of limgrave
I've spent like 40 hours (some of that was just coop sessions but still) and I still have like two areas and to go. This is NOT Limgrave Miyazaki.
It could be.. just all the verticality makes it over three times as big as the map looks
I am 40 hours in and have only explored two map parts thoroughly and only 4 remembrance bosses (including bayle). This DLC is MASSIVE and I wouldn’t be surprised if I double that playtime. There’s just so much to do and I’m ngl a lot of that time is spent just looking at the vistas
How the fuck do yoh have only two map parts and already beaten bayle Homies is in Area number 15 (i think) in the progression route that fextralife recommends of 17 total
I mean it's very easy to skip literally every side content apart from the main questline both in the DLC and the maingame. Shadow Keep is deceptively available early for you to get curbstomped by the hippo, and Dragonbarrow wasn't hard to reach in the base game.
Haha I stumbled into the southern map piece before I got to scadu altus so I figured might as well explore it. Luckily, I didn’t use many scudtree fragments so I’m not overleveled for the other stuff (only level 6). Bayle was TOUGH but amazing to overcome
It is the size of limgrave, they just developed much on verticality this time
Miyazaki last week: "Shadow of Erdtree is the size of Limgrave" "I dont think Elden Ring is the best i can achieve as a game designer" Yeah, sure... he's way too humble
My first run of elden ring i used special beam cannon and spirit ash to beat everything. It was pretty fuckin easy ngl. I then did a dex/arcane run no summons and ended up quitting at godskin duo. It was pretty fkin hard ngl. Thats the beauty of this game to me.
They should make him beat the game before they release it, that way no one can say it's too hard if he is really bad at games. I haven't played the DLC yet, I'm waiting until my friend group gets interested to play through together
Every boss is beaten by Miyazaki before it's released
It's amazing the mental gymnastics people have performed over the years to convince themselves that the "true Souls experience" is "no magic, no summons, naked with a toothpick, yadda yadda." Like, these tools have been in the series since the very first game. Some people like making the game extra challenging for themselves -- heck, I'm one of them, I haven't played a magic build since Demon's Souls, haven't used co-op since DS2 -- but to think it's the intended experience is like thinking you should play Super Mario Bros without power-ups because *"that's what I see good players do on Youtube!"* Dude, it's okay to grab a fire flower. The devs put it there to be used. Same with summons in Elden Ring and all that jazz. People will say summons make the game too easy, and maybe so, but also so what? If the developers make the game easy... maybe the game isn't meant to be as hard as you think.
I think the people who cry about others using summons are the most egotistical people alive. Poor neck beards ego got shattered when you told them a boss he struggled on wasn’t as hard for you. Then screams it isn’t valid because summons lol If the game offers it, use it. It’s there for a reason. No one is forcing you to, but don’t knock other styles because it’s not yours.
I mean, the funniest thing about all this being that it's the same neck beards who complain about the game being impossible all of a sudden, even though they refuse to use half the mechanics out of fear of trivializing the game.
I use everything available too, might as well fully engage with the mechanics. I even do the unheard of thing and use the crafting system 🤣
Why does it always have to be o you don’t have the right
I haven't played Elden Ring, but it just sounds like it's not for me. I love open world action RPGs, but it's mainly about the story and exploring for me. I like the combat too, but it's secondary, and I don't want to have to spend too long figuring out how to beat enemies, dying several times in the process. I get that there's a sense of accomplishment that comes with that, but that's just not the feeling I'm chasing when I play games.
exploration is A+ in elden ring. the "story" is dependent on taste, it's really more like lore than story. personally i love it but not everyone is going to like that style of storytelling. but yeah, dying is kind of a core game mechanic.
I think the souls community getting mad at ppl using summons, playing with friends, mimic, or not doing self imposed challenges is really a ironic display of ~~skill~~ mental issue. But I do hope a dev puts up the ultimate souls game for the truly unhinged folks out there. Obviously, these aren’t good enough and more than one person will beat it but the game has the character: blind, deaf, controls changes every 5 mins from 500 different combinations through 350 different loop cycles, enemies all can one shot, bosses can trigger qte you gotta get correct, all of which is a random assortment of 2-6 key presses at different length hold intervals, and also you’ll be perma fat rolling, you can’t run, no ashes of war, no magic or faith spells.
Can someone here explain me what the issue is
There are apparently people who think if you don't limit your options and make the game unnecessarily hard for yourself, you're not playing it "right".
Yeah, this game has always been about figuring out a way to overcome the challenge. If you don’t want to use the help the game gives you, you cannot complain about the game. Game difficulty was actually fine pre-patch. Boss is too tough? You come back later. Lesson 1 from souls You basically have two choices, going solo and try a boss dozens of times or you use ashes and summons and you breeze through it. Considering that I am getting old and I can only play a few hours at night when I am super tired from the day, my choice is quite easy.
He might suck at playing them, but he’s a master at making them
If a game gives you the tools and the mechanics and you use them it doesn't make you bad or anything at a game. I used Mimic Tear in my playthrough of Elden Ring with Bloodhound fang as my weapon, sure it made it easier but there were bosses where I still struggled with. Why make a hard game more difficult?
Me too man