Elden Ring (FromSoftware)

[Cyrrex]

So I am level 65 and just finally looked up guard countering.  Turns out I have probably never done it even once.

[Trippy]

If you picked a class that started with a shield it’s in the missable tutorial but otherwise yeah the game doesn’t tell you it’s a thing.

[Cyrrex]

I think I just assumed it was the regular attack after a block, and never understand why people kept talking about it.  Very excited to try it.

[Falconeer]

Guard counter is immensely powerful if you use a shiel, potentially game-ruining. There's even a talisman who makes it even stronger. Almost a cheat.

Blah blah not all enemies. Of course.

[Jeff Kelly]

Brace of the Hallig Tree or „what if we placed dozens of every deadly and/or annoying enemy in one cramped level“

[Jeff Kelly]

I have to finish up the game because I’m slowly getting burned out on all the bosses.

At times it is an exhibition of what makes those games brilliant but right now it’s bullshit fight after bullshit fight and my tolerance for From Software‘s bullshit boss tactics is wearing thin.

Attacks that have reach of half a baseball field, enemies lunging 30 meters forward and hitting you from half way across the map while you drink, combos which require so many dodges that your stamina bar is empty even though you have 40+ endurance. Attacks that take away target lock on so you end up standing with the your back to the enemy. One shot kill attacks that punish that one mistake you made after you’ve been in the fight for the last 15 minutes. Scarlet Rot, lifesteal, instant poise breakers etc.

I wish they had more creativity than just designing twitch bosses which hit like a truck, instant murder you if you make just one mistake at a critical moment and can jump around like Kirby on meth.

[Trippy]

I'm way behind most of you (just started exploring Raya Lucaria Academy) so I don't have any specific advice but I would recommend watching the (glitchless) no-hit and/or speed runs for tips and tricks if you haven't been already. That how I managed to get through 12 of 17 bosses in Bloodborne before running out steam despite only getting to the first or second bosses in the other games. Somebody also did a Spirit Ashes only run if you want to cheese the bosses that way.

No hit (not no damage): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK-qC0rnUDU

No hit & no damage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcd0Ne7ke4k

All remembrances (glitchless): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GVRSo_6AVs

Spirit Ashes only: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEsG-UnVMdI

[Zetor]

Yea, Elden Ring seems to have a fair number of cheese builds. Thankfully I played a build (sorcerer) that has a lot of cheese already baked in.

Still had problems with a few bosses (and some of their bullshit moves, though relatively few of them present a risk at range), but could almost always brute force them by throwing big magic at them from a safe distance before they had a chance to kill me and/or getting lucky with their move selection (while a maxed-out Tiche or Mimic Tear kept their attention -- yea, it's still amazing even post-nerf, just does a bit less damage). One-shot abilities were a problem if my dodge timing was off (and it was, a lot of the time), but there are a few ways that allowed me to ignore them (wondrous flask with the damage reduction shards, Uplifting Aromatic cast by myself and my mimic)

[01101010]

Godskin Duo can go get bent. After beating my head against the wall all morning, decided to use the sleep arrows to make things manageable. Worked for the most part, kill the skinny then reset health and FP and start in on the fat man... until the skinny one repops. Trying to figure out which to off was only a matter of which was close to death, but man that chaos until one drops is frustrating. Luckily, I got off an attack just as my mimic got vaporized which AoE'd both together. Tell ya though, that smithing stone bell ALMOST made it worth it.

[Khaldun]

The deeper I go, the more the bullshit also aggravates me. They fixed a huge problem with their design fixations with a more open world design, now they need to fix how they think about content/gear chokepoints and what constitutes "difficulty". But that last point is literally one that 95% of existing developers in any company fail on, so no surprise.

[Jeff Kelly]

I'm way behind most of you (just started exploring Raya Lucaria Academy) so I don't have any specific advice but I would recommend watching the (glitchless) no-hit and/or speed runs for tips and tricks if you haven't been already. That how I managed to get through 12 of 17 bosses in Bloodborne before running out steam despite only getting to the first or second bosses in the other games. Somebody also did a Spirit Ashes only run if you want to cheese the bosses that way.

No hit (not no damage): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK-qC0rnUDU

No hit & no damage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcd0Ne7ke4k

All remembrances (glitchless): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GVRSo_6AVs

Spirit Ashes only: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEsG-UnVMdI

Thanks for the info. I’ll keep this bookmarked for when I really hit a wall.

It’s not the difficulty per se though at the moment. I’ve completed Brace of the Hallig Tree (so I can now beat my head against the wall that is Malenia) and I’m also currently at the Fire Giant.

It‘s more that the sort of challenge the boss battles focus on has been very samey for the last few fights and I’m simply a little tired of yet another duo fight and yet another dragon and yet another ulcerated tree spirit and yet another „dodge a seven hit boss combo perfectly or die“ boss fight.

They should do more bosses like Rykart or Radahn and fewer Foreskin nobles

[Velorath]

I have to finish up the game because I’m slowly getting burned out on all the bosses.

At times it is an exhibition of what makes those games brilliant but right now it’s bullshit fight after bullshit fight and my tolerance for From Software‘s bullshit boss tactics is wearing thin.

Attacks that have reach of half a baseball field, enemies lunging 30 meters forward and hitting you from half way across the map while you drink, combos which require so many dodges that your stamina bar is empty even though you have 40+ endurance. Attacks that take away target lock on so you end up standing with the your back to the enemy. One shot kill attacks that punish that one mistake you made after you’ve been in the fight for the last 15 minutes. Scarlet Rot, lifesteal, instant poise breakers etc.

I wish they had more creativity than just designing twitch bosses which hit like a truck, instant murder you if you make just one mistake at a critical moment and can jump around like Kirby on meth.

I think part of the problem is that with the Spirit Ashes, they've had to balance the game around almost always having help for boss fights. The problem with that is that spirit AI's are incredibly inconsistent, and you also never know when a boss is going to shift agro from the spirit to you.

Also since they had to generate a lot of content it doesn't feel like any particular boss encounter was crafted to the extent that a Demon's Souls boss encounter was. Almost half of them seem to be "wide open space with nothing in it" and most of the other half is "cramped room with a large boss who moves quickly".

That said, as mentioned there are so many broken builds and crazy farm spots that there were only a few endgame and optional bosses that gave me a somewhat hard time, and I pretty much blew through NG+ (or Journey 2 as it's called) without any sort of problem.

[Khaldun]

I'm kind of frustrated because I got into Leyndell--killed the golden guy on the horse at the gate--and I've been moving down to explore the city without finding any other grace. It's getting a little annoying--no matter how careful I am sooner or later I make a mistake with all of those various mobs and I have to either rush down to get the runes or methodically work my way back to that point. I feel like there's got to be a grace down there somewhere but I just cannot find it. I may have to look at a walkthrough.

The snowmen with the bubble pipes are pretty fucking weird.

[Jeff Kelly]

If you’re down in the city past the overturned carts then you already passed two or three graces coming from the entrance next to the  guardian on the horse

[Khaldun]

Outside the city? Sure. Inside? Not that I can see.

[Jeff Kelly]

There’s a grace directly behind the door the draconic tree sentinel guards on the eastern ramparts of Leyndell and there’s at least another one down at the plaza (the big avenue with all of the overturned carts and the giant) in one of the buildings. There’s also at least two or three different shortcuts/elevators.

[Jeff Kelly]

Open World action RPGs must turn balancing your game’s difficulty into an absolute nightmare.

The assassin inside the ringleader’s evergaol was significantly harder than the last three main line story bosses I faced.

Fire giant was a total pushover by comparison.

[amiable]

Open World action RPGs must turn balancing your game’s difficulty into an absolute nightmare.

The assassin inside the ringleader’s evergaol was significantly harder than the last three main line story bosses I faced.

Fire giant was a total pushover by comparison.

I think he is one of the if the not hardest bosses in the game.  Basically you need to constantly be dodging until you develop carpal tunnel and then plink in during the one animation that lets you attack.  Also you need to avoid his ridiculous jump from anywhere undodgeable instakill attack.

Or you could do what I did and back him into a corner where his AI bugs out and just auto-attack him to death.

[Zetor]

Low poise is the general Achilles heel of hyper aggressive dodgy assassin aasholes (also the invisible jerks in that weird ass village). Adula's Moonblade pretty much destroys them by itself, since every hit staggers them out of their attack animation and will hit them even if they dodge (still need to dodge a lot of their attacks to beat them, though). Are there any equivalent fuckhueg 2h weapons that can hit them as they're coming out of a roll?

[Jeff Kelly]

Open World action RPGs must turn balancing your game’s difficulty into an absolute nightmare.

The assassin inside the ringleader’s evergaol was significantly harder than the last three main line story bosses I faced.

Fire giant was a total pushover by comparison.

I think he is one of the if the not hardest bosses in the game.  Basically you need to constantly be dodging until you develop carpal tunnel and then plink in during the one animation that lets you attack.  Also you need to avoid his ridiculous jump from anywhere unforgeable instakill attack.

Or you could do what I did and back him into a corner where his AI bugs out and just auto-attack him to death.

She gives you the Black Knife Tiche legendary spirit summon though and using that almost feels like cheating.

That „do a salto, leap thirty miles across the arena and then absolutely murder you with an aoe attack which also causes a bleed dot  which heals“ attack was an absolute bitch though. Even at 40  vigor this one attack basically instant kills you

[Jeff Kelly]

This was also the fight where I unmapped crouch from L3 because I was gripping the thumb sticks so hard that I accidentally crouched all the time and then couldn’t run away or dodge correctly.

IMHO making analog sticks clickable and assigning controls to the „button“ was a mistake and should have never become a standard.

[Trippy]

Yeah I have the same issue too and end up crouching a lot in boss battles because of that. Most FPS/3PS games put run/sprint there, if they don't have a dedicated face button for that, which makes sense, if still awkward at times.

[Zetor]

Ya'll need to play with mouse+keyboard, The Way Miyazaki Intended.   Shift to run, Ctrl to crouch, space to jump, mouse side button to dodge, sorted.

(I find the entire "if you aren't playing From games with a gamepad, You're Doing It Wrong" meme amusing btw -- yeah, DS1 and DS2 were complete clownshoes, but DS3 was kinda playable, and ER is pretty damn playable as long as you use some autohotkey scripts to get around From's pants-on-head approach to kb+m UX)

[Jeff Kelly]

Then I’d have to check how to plug KB and mouse into my PS5 and check if my Logitech optical mouse still works on the red fabric of my sofa. Controller is fine and Sega solved the issue thirty years ago on the Genesis, just make controllers with 6 face buttons

[ezrast]

I'm generally in the "gamepads are overrated" camp, but I tried kb+m for like 30 seconds and found the mouselook bizarrely jerky in exactly the way I remember from Dark Souls 1 (the last From game I played). Maybe I just need to mess with the settings or get used to it though.

[Falconeer]

I think he is one of the if the not hardest bosses in the game.  Basically you need to constantly be dodging until you develop carpal tunnel and then plink in during the one animation that lets you attack.  Also you need to avoid his ridiculous jump from anywhere undodgeable instakill attack.

Malenia changed my perception of this game. Black Knife Assassins are little puppy dogs compared. Really.

[Trippy]

Parrying seems to be the "git gud" strategy du jour against Malenia.

[Falconeer]

She has a poise issue herself. Her only weak point I'd say. But the health regen is the stuff of nightmares.

[Rasix]

Decided to do a Journey 2 rather than a clean playthrough. God, I missed so much shit in this game the first time through. There are entire areas I somehow missed. NPCs that I didn't know had actual questlines.. damn.

Malenia is brutal. I don't know if I could do that fight without a summon. There would be so much relentless dodging you need to do perfectly. Then if you're melee, you need to be really safe to not be close when she does the flurry. Or just dodge it like a god or something.

[Khaldun]

I was working from the East Ramparts grace but I did finally find one way down so now I feel a bit better about exploring everything from both ends and not being super ultra-cautious all the time.

[schild]

Decided to do a Journey 2 rather than a clean playthrough. God, I missed so much shit in this game the first time through. There are entire areas I somehow missed. NPCs that I didn't know had actual questlines.. damn.

Malenia is brutal. I don't know if I could do that fight without a summon. There would be so much relentless dodging you need to do perfectly. Then if you're melee, you need to be really safe to not be close when she does the flurry. Or just dodge it like a god or something.

The quantity of shit in this is astounding. I beat the guardian in front of the capitol but haven't gone in yet. I'm level 118, over 100 hours and I've still got like 6 dungeons to do outside of it.

[Jeff Kelly]

I’m now level 165 about 130 hours into the game and I’m still missing the latter half of Crumbling Farum Azula, Brace of the Halig Tree and a lot of side stuff.

I don’t even know when was the last time I was so obsessed and had so much fun with a single game.

I just finished the godskin duo fight. I used my spirit summon and an NPC summon and it was almost cathartic watching three people stomp those two motherfuckers into the ground. Good riddance you skin wearing weirdos.

If I can beat Malenia I will platinum this game.

[01101010]

Halig Tree is terrible. I already get vertigo and this place is just a nightmare.

[schild]

Halig Tree is terrible. I already get vertigo and this place is just a nightmare.

stop playing in VR

[01101010]

Halig Tree is terrible. I already get vertigo and this place is just a nightmare.

stop playing in VR

If only... fighting on cat-walks is really not my thing in a game where survival is built on dodging.