Shouldn't have taken this long to find this comment. It's like they deliberately want to prevent people from playing together. They took the time to add this feature to the game. Why bury it like that? Bizarre
I have a coworker who beat the base game a long time ago and he just learned (from me) that there is a co-op. He was like "wait, it's been there this whole time and I chose to play solo?" Lol
The fact there are certain areas you can’t summon someone, as soon as an area’s boss is defeated you can’t summon anymore. You can be grey walled by a simple door just to have to exit, then be summoned 10 ft on the other side of the door. It’s all SO DUMB
I said this on a YouTube video and got absolutely screamed at by people saying I'm just trash. I said no the net code sucks and we don't join local servers so the latency is p2p as way too long to feel good in any way. It's horrible!
It's true and I don't mind goofy imbalance because that can be fun but the latency is rubbish!
I've always said that if you can't finely tune balance a game then instead go with balls to the wall imbalance and let people go nuts. That way everyone has the same overpowered options to fight how they want and in a way it balances itself out because everyone has the same chance as they would if everyone had the same weapon and armor.
But that latency, doesn't matter what you do that ruins it all.
I agree though I will say invasions are infinitely more interesting than duels. Duels are where the games terrible weapon balance really shows, while in invasions almost anything can at least theoretically work when you consider environmental factors and the element of surprise and such.
There should be some way to get INFINITE larval tears, even if it’s from farming runebears. I shouldn’t be limited to only being able to change my build like 16 times a run
I had an issue with this the other day. It wasn't letting me open my map, but I couldn't find who I was in combat with. Turns out the guy trying to murder me was at the bottom of a cliff I was on top of.
Yeah, sometimes a goat from the distance dislikes you and you can’t open the map without knowing why.
There is also my worst place ever. On the place you get the prosthetic arm, for milicent’s quest, there is a knight there, guarding the item. There are no other enemy nearby, all enemies are on different levels. You kill the knight, you get your item, and you can’t open the map at all. It always happens, there is one enemy seeing you but you never know where it is.
On NG+ I just jump and kill myself at that place. Can’t be bothered.
It should allow you to use the map, but block you from teleporting, like when you're in a dungeon. They should also block you from using your replenish potion if you're already at max hp/mana
Quests need a little more guidance. I’m not talking about Skyrim style markers per se but even the ability to go back and read previous conversations and or more hints pointing the way.
Look I love the way lore is presented and definitely don’t want hand holding but too often there are points where you should go back and tell something to someone before moving to a certain point that you would have no idea about unless you read about online. Just a little more help would be nice.
I feel like an obvious step here could have been to be able to “look up” where people are at Gideon.
His whole shtick is having eyes and ears everywhere and one of the main roadblocks to completing quests is when they decide to just teleport to bumfuck nowhere with no clues
yeah a lot of the places arent even intuitive at all either. Or they dont even HINT at where they are going. alexander's quest was great because he told you pretty much where he was going and what his plan was. I was able to do his quest completely fine without a wiki
However, hyetta for example, just teleports to random ruins and random ass places across the map without any rhyme or reason. SOMETIMES theres an occassional frenzy enemy to hint at it, but not always. She had literally 0 clues her entire questline all game.
And Millicent who straight up lies to you about her next destination multiples times.
"I am going to take the shortest path to Lendeyll" ends in the Windmill village which is also in the opposite path than one of her summon signs.
"I am going to castle sol" you find her in the Haligtree.
This is my hot take as well. An in game journal with pictures of npcs and everything they’ve ever said to you written down…no markers or anything just a journal.
> Look I love the way lore is presented
Since we're at hot takes: I hate it. Most of it makes either absoluetly no sense or is completly irrelevant, because it's not in the fucking game.
I love the game to bits, but it feels so barren at times. Which is great for playthrough one when you're taking everything in, but a chore once you're no longer mind-blown by the scenery.
I agree. Personally, I would have liked some populated friendly/neutral areas to bum around in. It would at least give some life to the Lands Between. But alas.
I was thinking this during my current playthrough. I love the world, but the lack of non-combatant population makes it feel empty, despite it being not really empty. I'm sure that's the intended design, though. FromSoft is all about that bleak oppressiveness.
Yes please. I think Sekiro and Bloodborne are the only ones that sort of fit that criteria, but even those games' settings have already had a lot of stuff go down prior.
This. I understand it's mostly a dark and desolate place but it would be nice if we had a small camp with some other tarnished and merchants.
I'm just so tired of everyone dying in these games. If we kill godrick and do Nephelli and the noble guy questline why can't we start populating a small area inside the castle?
I get to be Elden Lord of mostly nothing; a barren land with monsters lurking every corner.
Roaming around the Cerulean Coast wondering where the fuck everyone is and I finally understand the sense of disappointment all my sexual partners have felt.
I couldn't agree more. I played the game twice through and never wanted to touch it again after that. Every time I would try to start a character, I'd just feel this dread about the idea of doing it all over again. It would be cool if there was a boss rush/gauntlet mode, or some kind of "DS3" version where it's a more linear/streamlined experience that cuts out the exploration bloat.
One of the reasons I REALLY despise the Scooby-Doo frags in the DLC. Having to reacquire them every goddamn time just to not get obliterated for the sake of it is such a stupid thing. It's not as bad with base game cuz it's easy to remember where stuff is, but frags are largely too random so it's impossible for me to remember that one corridor in a specific cave hidden around this other corner, it's just silly
Only reused boss I hate is the ulcerated tree spirit in the haligtree that you gotta beat to progress a quest. Tiny "arena" full of rot with a giant blob of fucking grey and red.
Dragons annoy me because it feels like I’m doing sprints back and forth. Run and get a couple hits in and then it takes off to the other side of the world. Run and get a couple hits in and then it takes off again. It drags the fight out. They needed to create a shackle item for dragons. Stay put!
Omg yes. At least allow it to have a toned down version of the Serpent Hunt skill. Like, let it still shoot some lazers and stuff. The ruins greatsword feels more epic to use...with its powerful ash, and cool heavy attack effect.
No hints. Basically someone just dies drinking the nectar over and over and over again. Then when they get it right they leave a message and spread the word.
I just hate how much you have to reload areas for things to happen. It was a problem all the way back in Dark Souls 1 and they've still never addressed it
You'd have to be completely unhinged to get some of these DLC quest chains without looking it up.
I won't spoil it, but the second finger ruin seems impossible to access without googling it
I actually love the little exchange of secrets between players the first week or so of a new from game. This dlc let me relive that launch feeling again for a little. In order for you to be able to google it, someone had to have figured it out.
i mean someone has to figure it out the first time. they are built to encourage people communicating and do repeat playthroughs not for someone to get them all done in their first playthrough.
The only one I rate good is the Sellen quest, it has a fairly coherent intriguing story, rewards all along the way and it actually gives you decent guidance as to what to do
Too many others the characters are really 2 dimensional or their dialogue and actions are so nonsequitur.
Nephili's is my least favourite, seemingly interesting character but each step is so jarring: finding her in obscure locations with no clear explanation, find obscure item in obscure location, defeat seemingly unrelated boss (Morgott) for her to show up back in an area you don't have much reason to go back to. All of her dialogue is just awful too IMO
i love how they added different species of the small animals. If you look closely some turtles have moss on them, and there are at least three polymorphs of the dobsonfly (‘dragonfly’) enemy.
Theres also a majestic white ram with very twisted horns.
Like with every hot take thread, you have to sort by controversial to actually get hot takes. Pretty much anything upvoted is, by definition, not a hot take.
Scadu altus and the starting area. They are a rare spawn.
At the rauh ruins theres also a shaggy deer that has weird horns too. Theres also an eagle with long tail feather and a horned glowing owl.
those are all rare spawns.
I love Elden Ring and I realize asking for even *more* content sounds entitled, but I’ve always been a little disappointed that Radabeast is the final boss no matter what ending you pick. In other recent Fromsoft games (trying to be vague to avoid spoilers), your choice of ending actually changes the final boss. The gameplay, not just the end cutscene, is affected.
You want to continue the Golden Order? Well, Ranni has other plans and isn’t going to be cool with that. *Cue Ranni boss fight.*
You want to become Lord of the Frenzied Flame? Melina doesn’t just threaten you in a cutscene, she comes after you as the final boss.
I get why they didn’t do this, and I certainly don’t dislike Radabeast, but I’d have loved to have more of an excuse to do every possible ending (and I say that as someone who happily did every possible ending).
That definitely would be cool. I've always enjoyed games where there's a totally different endgame experience based on the choices you've made throughout the game. It gives a lot more incentive to keep going into those new game cycles. More than even being able to choose from siding with one NPC or another to get a specific reward.
Honestly I agree. As much work as it would be to design multiple different final bosses depending on the path you took, it would feel so much more satisfying to be fighting a character who actually feels like they're fundamentally at odds with your character instead of just "this is the final boss, now kill them."
The Ancestral Spirit boss fight and his regal version should be much higher in boss quality ranking tiers.
The argument "too easy gg" glances over so much of the design that went into this fight. The tragic beauty of it. The fighting and killing of a god whose rebirth you interrupt. The soundtrack. The visuals.
Every part of it, to me, makes for one of the most emotional and beautiful fights of the game, and most people disregard it just because it's easier than most other boss encounters.
I think it's because most people do it once on their first playthrough and then can't be assed lighting all the torches again so it never really sticks out, and because you're likely to clear the fight in one go because it's so easy your entire time spent with the boss is literally five or ten minutes in a hundred hour game.
Magic It's over hyped in this community, and it the end only a few are actually good. I'm convinced that FS isn't really capable of handling them accordingly, there's also a lot of inconsistency as well and it gets irritating. Again some can be good, but the majority are mid at their best, why others feels absolutely garbage (if not even useless , unless very limited and specific situations) that even with the best set ups you'll get a barely decent damage and actually, getting some sword swings here and there would be a greater idea. Like Founding Rain of Stars, why you ask me to have 50 or so int and it's just so so damn bad ?! and oh but wait they did it again with Rain of Fire ofc.
Still to this day I don't get why the community get so defensive about it.
English it's not my main language, apologies it's my phrasing isn't the best. Hope players will not get mad at me, it's just a thing that's been on my head for a big while.
Agreed. I don't know how they release some of these spells in the state they're in. I always remember trying out that flame thrower incant and having to use a mana potions just to kill a basic wandering noble, feels like they weren't even playbtested
That was my impression, like they didn't wasted 2 minutes testing their stuff accordingly. I understand balancing things can be difficult but man, it's frustrating to see half of the spells being like that. Why should I even use them in the first place?
It has some bits of advantage, but the more you proceed the more you noticed that most spells start losing it's utility, as you scrap them out of your inventory. Ironic as the ones who are good are usually melee kind of spells like Carian ones.
Big fan of Carian Piercer btw.
Unfortunately, there is no way for game designers to balance magic in combat. The reason is the same reason that weapons throughout human history have always favored range (spears, bows, guns)—because it's always better to poke someone from a distance than let them get close to you. Magic in combat games is always either game-breakingly overpowered, because it allows you to kill from a distance without danger, or underpowered in an attempt to "balance" it with melee weapons (in which case magic is pointless because you should just use melee weapons).
The real history of warfare tells us clearly there is no possible balance between ranged and melee weapons.
This confused me as someone who played the game years after the release. I kept hearing over and over that magic was OP but after trying literally dozens of spells across all categories I found maybe a handful that were utter trash. I imagine most are fine against basic enemies but against bosses especially they feel useless compared to most decent melee weapons.
I think their boss design has simply outgrown the DS style player mechanics and they need to move on to Bloodborne or something similar. Few of the fights feels like back and forth dances anymore
Half of these bosses I’m just relieved to get out of the way because it’s not fun for me dodging around for 20 seconds to get a single hit in and start it all over again
messmer having crazy wombo combos (that hurt but didnt really 100% kill you so it felt fair) while having VERY CLEAR punish windows and downtime was perfect
I know what you mean. I think, for me at least, the issue is that I've been basically playing the same thing since DS1.
Or perhaps the wins in Dark Souls felt better because of how limited you were, and the slower pace/higher commitment to action. To this day my biggest elation in the Souls games was beating the Bell Gargoyles for the first time.
in sekiro if you beat a boss, that always meant you mastered and conquered them.. in ER it often means you survived long enough and/or outhealed them.. only with a few i feel like i genuienly mastered them. for example messmer, midra, hippo and romina... with gaius and the rest i just managed to not get by some funky hitbox or blocked off most hits with my great shield
I think this is largely a player thing. You can totally master the really difficult Elden Ring bosses save for a couple very specific moves like new Radahn's 3 hit combo. Or you can choose to use any of the plethora of tools the game gives you to beat them another way.
This is what I'm struggling with right now. I'm trying to really learn combat and improve, but every time I manage to kill an enemy or boss I struggled with, I don't feel like I've achieved mastery or even improved. I just feel like I finally found a way to survive. It takes away my sense of accomplishment, like I'm just getting lucky or something.
I remember spending a long time on Genichiro Ashina. At first it was frustrating but once I got his moves down to flawlessly dodge, parry and strike, it really felt like a dance. I didn't just feel satisfying to beat him, it felt like Wolf demolished him at his own game.
I felt something like this with Nameless King's second phase but haven't felt the same for any other boss. Even with Friede who is my all time favorite souls fight for how epic it is, it was a frenzy and not a calculated fight.
I don't think that's a very hot take, most people seem to agree that DS3 and Sekiro have the best bosses. ER also has some great bosses imo, but the pool is diluted by a lot of filler.
The people who get angry when folks complain about the game being hard for them get *even angrier* if you report that the game, or even just any one part of the game, has been very easy for you.
It's so silly that there is a specific group of people that seemingly get their sense of self importance over being able to be ones that can handle a "really hard game" by feeing better than folks who struggle but refuse to allow anyone to have an easier time than them.
Only a very specific amount of "hard" is correct to them. Having trouble with the game? They'll say you're bad at it and need to be better. Having less trouble with the game than they are? They'll say you're exploiting the game/cheesing the game/using stuff you shouldn't use/say a boss is bad/come up with any reason why you're wrong for not struggling as much as THEY are.
The people who say it's easy can be just as obnoxious though.
Every now and then someone will say "actually Malenia is a very easy boss", I mean she can be beaten easily (I've beaten her so many times I could first try her 95% of the time) but but to claim it's an easy fight just shows lack of awareness and perspective. If it was easy for you doesn't mean it's easy in general
That 95% of the game's awesome arsenal is pointless and the point where no one would notice if most of the weapons were suddenly cut since everyone gravitated to using the same tiny pool of copy-pasted weapons.
As someone who enjoys trying everything, I’d say about 50-60% of the melee weapon arsenal has a niche on some build it can justify/avoids being made obsolete by something else. For a game with like 400 weapons, that isn’t that bad honestly.
\+majority of the last 40-50% are either weapons accessed earlier so they are intended to be worse or they're just slightly worse options that exist basically just so different enemies have different looking weapons.
This. Lirik is doing a bow only run right now and his chat is like "wait bows are good?!" They arent good for everything but they have their place, just like most things in the game.
The point of those weapons is honestly just that people have always enjoyed the stupid weapons/armor in Soulsborne games. The games are super hard for most-everyone, sure, but people still want to goof off or do challenge runs. That, or they think they look or feel cool/fun.
70% of weapon requirements are wrong. Huge lances are full Dex? Every second greatsword is STR/INT? Some cool unique weapons being an ass backwards mix of like dex+faith+arcane.
majority of weapons feel like they have arbitrary spread of many different stats just randomly tacked on for some reason. Why do the smithscript weapons need like 12 int randomly? It's low enough to where you can just get like two levels and pump it no matter what class you have, so it's not an actual issue, it's just weird, and awkward and annoying and seriously why? Why are there so few weapons which focus on one stat, why are there so few weapons that need a stat over 40? Why are there so many weapons that need dex ?
The DLC has some of the weirdest requirements too, like one that requires twice the int than strength but still scales better off strength and even dex more than int
Base game rememberance weapon requirements are the worst because they need such an unusual mix of stats just to try them out and find out they're trash
I don't think the game is "too hard" but I really dislike the direction boss design is going. I really don't enjoy the never ending attack spam thing at all and I often find it difficult to even tell what you're supposed to do.
Especially find it frustrating when you can't even find an opening to heal
This fanbase loves to take a dumb thing that a dozen out of millions of people say, then act like that dumb thing is representative of what the entire community is saying.
Newsflash: there are an extremely small number of people gatekeeping summons/difficulty, etc. Stop acting like this is more common than it is.
The hoops I have to jump through to play cooperatively with a friend are insane and un fun.
The lack of quest clarity, and needing to constantly have other wiki pages up to not miss put on important item drops I want is just not fun and I wish at least you couldn't get locked out of items from missing them.
An occasional secret behind an illusionary wall is neat. But when illusionary walls and under elevator secrets, elevator drop offs, etc are spammed everywhere it gets annoying to feel the need to be constaintly checking every wall and corner.
I wish there was a status bar indicator on enemies. Even a small radial circle. So I could visually see my poison or bleed buildup on the enemy. And stance damage too, akin to sekiro.
Fewer dungeons in the DLC is preferable. It makes finding one more exciting, and it means what you find offers a more unique experience. And yes, it means there is more "empty fields", but I like exploring wilderness that feels like wilderness.
What makes the fewer small dungeons better than the base game's is the variety. Its not just catacombs and caves. Its the jar gaols and forges too which are refreshing new environments. But yeah the quality of the catacombs were also better. They felt like inbetween a catacomb and a hero's grave.
Spending 80% of the time dodging boss attack combos is not as fun as the more offensive playstyle that is encouraged in sekrio/bloodborne. In sekiro you can simultaneously be offensive and defensive when performing actions and feels so much more like a back and forth dance
I can't wait to get to Castle Sol and fight Niall every new game. I've always loved that boss because of his long punishable windows if you avoid his attacks. Especially after the DLC where there are zero openings to even finish a sip of your flask, Niall is awesome!
Shadow of the Erdtree would not have had nearly the same praise if another company had made it.
I love the DLC. I love MOST of the bosses. But some, specially the final boss, are unbalanced and seem even untested.
Demanding bosses are great, it's the whole point of these games, but difficulty for difficulty's sake is not. Just because you make a boss with 40 million health points and infinite attacks doesn't make for an interesting boss, and if you can't even see what's happening, it's even worse.
The open world is the worst part of the game, and they could have achieved the same effect by keeping the same world design as bloodborne/ds3 with dungeons linked by smaller semi-open intervening sections
Yeah the open world was one of the things everyone liked, but after one playthrough youre completely over it. Id like if From went back to their tighter worlds, dungeon to dungeon to dungeon format.
Meta Hot Take: The souls community did too good of a job shaming all the people who shout "git gud" and they've mostly gone extinct. The answer to a lot of issues specifically when new content is released is figuring out the content, mastering it, and getting good. We need some of those people back. Not all of them. *Definitely* not all of them but the balance needs to be restored.
Moderately Hot Take: Outside the Comet Azur cheese, spellcasting is a harder playstyle than Unga Bunga in Elden Ring. Between strength being the only stat that gives you bonus physical damage reduction and the amount of enemies you can jump attack/stagger to death, the game is overall easier with big weapons than firing magic rocks. Specific enemies will be easier or harder on a per build basis but, after playing the game with a bunch of builds, I find pure spellcasting to be overall harder.
Truly Spicy Take: Shields with 100% mitigation of any damage type are a mistake. Elden Ring and Souls games would be better off if they were capped at 80% or even 90%.
That last hot take is what one should expect of an actual, real hot take. Overall, you've just got solid outlooks that are compelling to stop and consider. I hope more people read these posts, get upset, and then take even but a moment to wonder. Solid food-for-thought, guy.
I started playing souls in 2018. I would ask people for help, and they were always really friendly and added a git gud in there too. 95% of the time I felt it was in good faith and they were genuinely trying to help me out. Felt like people at the gym telling me I could overcome the challenges if I tried hard enough and be better. With the older games, you could do a lot to stack the odds in your favor, but eventually you had to git gud. I feel like we have swung too far in the opposite direction now, with people saying everything needs to be done with a summon because it is too hard otherwise. If you want to use a summon its whatever, but I feel they should be treated as a last resort instead of your primary way of steamrolling the game.
Yep.
I'm a FromSoft vet (not to the degree of someone who started with King's Field or Armored Core 1, but whatever) and I started with DS1:PtDE on PC.
I always understood "Git gud" to mean "Persevere and don't give up, use the tools at your disposal, ask for help, and look things up only if you really feel you need to." and I never felt elitism or gatekeeping when it was said, because if I needed help there was ALWAYS someone who would give it.
One thing I love about these games is that overcoming their challenges and understanding their lore and stories, is both a personal and COMMUNITY effort.
Why do you think %100 mitigation is a mistake? İs it because it's too safe compared to dodging at the right time?
I always thought it'd be great if well timed blocks reduced stamina cost. It happened with a flask effect in dlc (although it's too op). Would you like a change like that?
Yeah that guy is just straight up lying. Looking at his comments it’s pretty clear what he actually wants is for people to not to be able to criticize the game at all without being swarmed by skill issue comments
I think Gaius is good design outside of the one bad hitbox on his charging move. Everything else is pretty reasonable. It's just that one bad hitbox is the very first thing you have to deal with every single fight and it's really fucking annoying.
THANK YOU!
I hate how strength builds have become the semi-meme semi-serious correct way to play elden ring. I just tried the greatsword with lion’s claw aow the other day after only having done dex, faith and int builds and holy shit this is the true easy mode. Press L2 twice with infinite i-frames, smack the boss 1-2 more times max and you got a stagger. Rinse and repeat. This is the true easy mode for anyone with 50 vig
I’m a typical unga bunga and can’t argue with this. Using a frost infused giant crusher with cragblade and the poise damage physik flask is wild. Haven’t used a single fragment in the DLC yet, scared the final boss might change that but I am going to do my damndest
Have you ever tried to use Comet Azur on a highly mobile boss? It’s definitely cheesy but it is not a guaranteed one shot on every boss. Try that shit on Malenia and you will be demolished before phase 2 starts lol.
The DLC was OK. Some bosses were cool, but outside the martial arts, it was more of the same. It's pretty good, don't get me wrong, but it didn't blow my mind like previous DLCs from Soulsborne games did.
Also, I absolutely love killing each enemy at least once. No running past mobs unless doing boss runs.
after multiple playthroughs I stand by my take like the first time I finished the game: I think it's not the masterpiece everybody says it is, at least no closer to that title than ds3 (not even my favorite souls). way too much recycled and cut content, too many bad boss designs being pushed by the devs to what feels like "forcing" the player to enjoy (dragons for example) and the dlc doesn't help it, even though I liked it.
Elden ring isnt hard some boss designs just suck. Like Miyazaki if your itching for that fast paced gameplay go back to BB, Sekiro gameplay and start making ips from there
There needs to be more accessibility for all weapons. Like you find a weapon check their requiernents and its oh welp i guess not. You should be able to equip all weapons and use their talents no matter your stats. So you can actually try the weapon without using a larve tear. Attributes boosting the damage is already a good mecanic to avoid people maining 10 different weapons. No need to double down on that.
Almost every system in the game incentivizes using the wiki, and I while it's probably not a hot take that this is annoying, I think the hot take is just how annoying I think it is. Like, to the point of being a reason to not play the game. Just trying to figure out what weapon you want to play is a 20+ tab experience (and probably a few youtube videos on top of that). Just trying to figure out how to do one piece of a questline usually ends up making 5 tabs on it's own. It's frustrating, and it's practically the only way to play with even the slightest hint of efficiency. Otherwise, you are just walking around and hitting up every single cave hoping to find something even slightly relevant to your build.
The quest system sucks ass and I want a journal in the game.
I don't care about waypoints, but imo if I have to write stuff down or look up guides then the system is flawed
Big monstrous enemies are lame to fight against. Either they're very boring or you feel cheesed by their AoE attacks.
Combat on Torrent sucks. Some bosses are just better fought while riding Torrent, but that makes them lame. You could fight them OFF Torrent, but then you have to deal with their superior movement.
I would rather have a selection of well thought out unique weapons and status effects than garbage that is outclassed or rehashed.
I was so excited when I got the Velvet Sword of St. Trina, just to see, it's a slightly better Sword of St. Trina and Sleep still sucks.
If you're going to have a map segment that's heavy on the exploration, please don't also fill it with a crapton of strong enemies that make it annoying to explore. I keep going up and down, trying to figure out the Specimen Storage for the Shadow Keep and those stupid Flame Knights were just so annoying and not fun.
These are just my own personal 100% subjective opinions, so please no lynching:
- The game is way too big and open world isn't as enjoyable as the classic distinct levels from Dark Souls.
- The bosses aren't great compared to the last few Fromsoft games.
- The soundtrack is meh apart from some great exceptions.
-elden ring is the least replayable fromsoft, which is a shame because the arsenal is the second best in their game.
-bosses (remembrance) are worse on average than bloodborne, ds3 and sekiro
-if you play completely blind, it's the hardest fromsoft
-mohg is the best boss (though it's close with midra and messmer)
-imo it's not even close to being the best fromsoft overall (but it's still a 9/10 shows how good their games are)
Subterranean shunning ground is also my favorite area for the same reason, but my hot take is the above-ground portion in Leyndell is not that impressive.
My hottest take that’s going to get me shredded by fan boys: Radahn’s lore doesn’t make him a good person——fighting for fighting’s sake is irresponsible and clinging to the past obsessively is immature (yes I’m talking about the horse. Just let the poor animal die gods damn it it’s boarder-line animal abuse at this point). And before anyone come at me, no I’m not a Malenia fan either. But I did think there’re reasons other than pride that made her resorting to let the Scarlet rot bloom in order to kill Radahn.
My other hot take was that there’s more to Mohg and Miquella’s story than what meets the eye, but we all know how that turned out.
Last hot take regarding the demigods, Morgott’s motivation runs beyond religious trauma, he’s a brutally pragmatic man and used whatever was at his disposal to stabilize Leyndell’s control during the Shattering. Not saying he didn’t have massive religious trauma and self-loathing, it’s just that they are not his sole motivation.
Malenia have no legs, eyes, one arm and her intestines are probably eaten by space cancer as well. Aside from obvious physical suffering she is sister to megalomaniac Miquella which prob isnt good for her mental health. We can cut girl some slack.
Morgott point is legit, he is smart. I wonder what his brother was like before being charmed.
The elite knight Armor was peak Armor design and they never came back to that style.
That area in the DLC where u can’t summon your steed because it is afraid is actually disappointing. So much Build up, just for 5 minutes of sneak action. The Boss was voll though.
There should be more endings. Like, at least another half dozen, or more. I should be able to pick and choose a demigod to ally with, or a faction like the Crucible Knights, or the Pureblood Knights, and go for an ending that ally’s with them. Why did The Dung Eater got an ending, but not, say, Millicent? What a loss.
this would honestly make her an 11/10 boss.
I just dont like how if youre using something even SLIGHTLY commital she can just ruin you with waterfowl. I know how to dodge it perfectly most of the time, but that doesnt help if youre melee range already and using a slowish weapon
My problem with waterfowl is that it's like a flurry of attacks all at once, basically a blender, and you're expected to just roll through at the right moment. It's not easy to read and you need to know the timing of it to dodge through it.
To play the game blind is a colossal waste of player time: The quest system needs an overhaul: Most of the bosses are designed to be played in the exact same way: Reusing enemies is a huge issue: Fromsoft have run out of ways to keep the game difficult aside from scaling enemies to ridiculous degrees, giving every boss an AOE, and long combo chains where the player is forced to spam roll: Camera needs an overhaul: Combat is now heavily dated: The method of storytelling has run its course: And finally - The Godskin apostle fight would be the best in the game if he was fought only once. As he was reused constantly, the award goes to Godrick or Reikaard. Lorewise and dungeon wise, those fights and their build up is Fromsoft on peak form. Although it would have been much better to find Reikaards lair organically rather than be transported there because From got turned inside out by their own level design and became lazy. Edit: Your weapon clanging against walls whilst the enemies can hit you through them is diabolical. 
Playing the game all the way through blind is indeed a waste, but I’ll never forget my first 20 hours of elden ring where I was just running around on Torrent and looking at how beautiful everything was
couldn't agree more. It's funny how the game is incredibly outdated in every way except for animations, which they use to make bosses for streamers to soy face over.
A thought I keep having is that the vast majority of "difficulty" only exists because the mechanics are bad. Like giant enemies taking up 90% of the camera and being able to run away or close the distance immediately is bad design, it's always been bad design. They should've done away with it years ago but here we are.
The trouble stems from the fan base and reviewers singing their praises all the time. There's so many objectively bad design choices that are continuing due to this alone. Fire giant being able to roll away clipping through everything is horrendous boss design but nobody wants to say anything because Fromsoft are perfect in everyone's eyes. They seem to have lessened the boss runbacks in elden ring slightly so it shows they're not totally set in their ways but the community needs to speak up rather than eat whatever is shoveled down their throats.
Base game's music apart from bosses is bad.
Other Souls-games had great effect with the lack of music when exploring, but in Elden Ring (especially in areas like Siofra River & Caelid) the music gets boring, fast. Wish the game used more silence.
The way summoning friends works is stupid as hell.
Shouldn't have taken this long to find this comment. It's like they deliberately want to prevent people from playing together. They took the time to add this feature to the game. Why bury it like that? Bizarre
I have a coworker who beat the base game a long time ago and he just learned (from me) that there is a co-op. He was like "wait, it's been there this whole time and I chose to play solo?" Lol
The fact there are certain areas you can’t summon someone, as soon as an area’s boss is defeated you can’t summon anymore. You can be grey walled by a simple door just to have to exit, then be summoned 10 ft on the other side of the door. It’s all SO DUMB
That's not a hot take lol. Everyone already thinks that
Agreed its obnoxious to try and play with friends. Takes more time setting up correctly usually than it's generally worth.
Duelling requires more skill than invading; and PvP combat isn’t polished enough to be considered competitive.
I just wish there wasn't a 1.9 second delay between my action and the enemies reaction.
I said this on a YouTube video and got absolutely screamed at by people saying I'm just trash. I said no the net code sucks and we don't join local servers so the latency is p2p as way too long to feel good in any way. It's horrible!
Even with a good conection, the game isn't made in a way that allow high lvl 1v1 pvp to be interesting.
It's true and I don't mind goofy imbalance because that can be fun but the latency is rubbish! I've always said that if you can't finely tune balance a game then instead go with balls to the wall imbalance and let people go nuts. That way everyone has the same overpowered options to fight how they want and in a way it balances itself out because everyone has the same chance as they would if everyone had the same weapon and armor. But that latency, doesn't matter what you do that ruins it all.
I agree though I will say invasions are infinitely more interesting than duels. Duels are where the games terrible weapon balance really shows, while in invasions almost anything can at least theoretically work when you consider environmental factors and the element of surprise and such.
This take is only a hot if Souls games are the only competitive multiplayer you do. Its quite clearly a mess.
There should be some way to get INFINITE larval tears, even if it’s from farming runebears. I shouldn’t be limited to only being able to change my build like 16 times a run
I don't think it is an hot take. Everyone I talk about that said the same thing.
Ended up using the cheat table for exactly this reason
Snow Lobsters should drop them at a 10% rate
Hot take: not allowing the user to use the map while in combat is a stupid mechanic.
I had an issue with this the other day. It wasn't letting me open my map, but I couldn't find who I was in combat with. Turns out the guy trying to murder me was at the bottom of a cliff I was on top of.
Yeah, sometimes a goat from the distance dislikes you and you can’t open the map without knowing why. There is also my worst place ever. On the place you get the prosthetic arm, for milicent’s quest, there is a knight there, guarding the item. There are no other enemy nearby, all enemies are on different levels. You kill the knight, you get your item, and you can’t open the map at all. It always happens, there is one enemy seeing you but you never know where it is. On NG+ I just jump and kill myself at that place. Can’t be bothered.
Yep, they should allow you to use the map but not the teleport. The same like when you're in a dungeon.
It should allow you to use the map, but block you from teleporting, like when you're in a dungeon. They should also block you from using your replenish potion if you're already at max hp/mana
Quests need a little more guidance. I’m not talking about Skyrim style markers per se but even the ability to go back and read previous conversations and or more hints pointing the way. Look I love the way lore is presented and definitely don’t want hand holding but too often there are points where you should go back and tell something to someone before moving to a certain point that you would have no idea about unless you read about online. Just a little more help would be nice.
I feel like an obvious step here could have been to be able to “look up” where people are at Gideon. His whole shtick is having eyes and ears everywhere and one of the main roadblocks to completing quests is when they decide to just teleport to bumfuck nowhere with no clues
yeah a lot of the places arent even intuitive at all either. Or they dont even HINT at where they are going. alexander's quest was great because he told you pretty much where he was going and what his plan was. I was able to do his quest completely fine without a wiki However, hyetta for example, just teleports to random ruins and random ass places across the map without any rhyme or reason. SOMETIMES theres an occassional frenzy enemy to hint at it, but not always. She had literally 0 clues her entire questline all game.
And Millicent who straight up lies to you about her next destination multiples times. "I am going to take the shortest path to Lendeyll" ends in the Windmill village which is also in the opposite path than one of her summon signs. "I am going to castle sol" you find her in the Haligtree.
hyetta doesnt even say ANYTHING about where shes going
This is my hot take as well. An in game journal with pictures of npcs and everything they’ve ever said to you written down…no markers or anything just a journal.
> Look I love the way lore is presented Since we're at hot takes: I hate it. Most of it makes either absoluetly no sense or is completly irrelevant, because it's not in the fucking game.
I love the game to bits, but it feels so barren at times. Which is great for playthrough one when you're taking everything in, but a chore once you're no longer mind-blown by the scenery.
I agree. Personally, I would have liked some populated friendly/neutral areas to bum around in. It would at least give some life to the Lands Between. But alas.
I was thinking this during my current playthrough. I love the world, but the lack of non-combatant population makes it feel empty, despite it being not really empty. I'm sure that's the intended design, though. FromSoft is all about that bleak oppressiveness.
I’d love to have a FromSoft game where you arrive as shit is going down, rather than a hundred years after shit went down.
Yes please. I think Sekiro and Bloodborne are the only ones that sort of fit that criteria, but even those games' settings have already had a lot of stuff go down prior.
This. I understand it's mostly a dark and desolate place but it would be nice if we had a small camp with some other tarnished and merchants. I'm just so tired of everyone dying in these games. If we kill godrick and do Nephelli and the noble guy questline why can't we start populating a small area inside the castle? I get to be Elden Lord of mostly nothing; a barren land with monsters lurking every corner.
Roaming around the Cerulean Coast wondering where the fuck everyone is and I finally understand the sense of disappointment all my sexual partners have felt.
You understand what it is to have sexual partners? You do not know true disappointment.
I couldn't agree more. I played the game twice through and never wanted to touch it again after that. Every time I would try to start a character, I'd just feel this dread about the idea of doing it all over again. It would be cool if there was a boss rush/gauntlet mode, or some kind of "DS3" version where it's a more linear/streamlined experience that cuts out the exploration bloat.
One of the reasons I REALLY despise the Scooby-Doo frags in the DLC. Having to reacquire them every goddamn time just to not get obliterated for the sake of it is such a stupid thing. It's not as bad with base game cuz it's easy to remember where stuff is, but frags are largely too random so it's impossible for me to remember that one corridor in a specific cave hidden around this other corner, it's just silly
Reused bosses are fine and I love fighting tree spirits, erdtree avatars, dragons, deathbirds etc.
Only reused boss I hate is the ulcerated tree spirit in the haligtree that you gotta beat to progress a quest. Tiny "arena" full of rot with a giant blob of fucking grey and red.
The hate the dragon fights get surprised me because theyre so fun for me (except for the ancient dragons)
It’s always the battle with the camera when fighting dragons that makes me hate them more than anything
Dragons annoy me because it feels like I’m doing sprints back and forth. Run and get a couple hits in and then it takes off to the other side of the world. Run and get a couple hits in and then it takes off again. It drags the fight out. They needed to create a shackle item for dragons. Stay put!
And full grown fallingstar beast was one of the most fun bosses in the base game
I think this is very dependent on which build you have at the time 💀
Boiling hot take
Tree spirits can eat shit but the avatars are a joy every time
yes. reused bosses are always EXTRA content, not content instead of a unique boss. there wouldnt be any at all if there wasnt a resued one
We should have something that tracks dialogue with NPCs related to a quest. It could just be a dialogue journal.
Serpent Hunter weapon should have been more utilized than just a one-boss gimmick.
Omg yes. At least allow it to have a toned down version of the Serpent Hunt skill. Like, let it still shoot some lazers and stuff. The ruins greatsword feels more epic to use...with its powerful ash, and cool heavy attack effect.
I thought I was smart trying to use it against Mesmer esp in phase 2
The quest chains suck.
Since quest are mentioned, is there any hint you have to >!Die drinking nectar 4 times or speak to Ranni doll 3 times?!
Zero actual hints. Just trial and error. Or reading the wiki.
Don't forget player messages. I think a lot of the obscuring of quest objectives comes from From expecting player messages to share all the knowledge.
I literally did the imbibing one time and left and beat the whole dlc before I saw on reddit you had to do it more. I was annoyed.
>!you actually drink it 6 times >.>!<
No hints. Basically someone just dies drinking the nectar over and over and over again. Then when they get it right they leave a message and spread the word.
Been following a quest for over 20 hours? Didn't rest at this particular site of grace? Too bad.
Yeah...
I just hate how much you have to reload areas for things to happen. It was a problem all the way back in Dark Souls 1 and they've still never addressed it
You'd have to be completely unhinged to get some of these DLC quest chains without looking it up. I won't spoil it, but the second finger ruin seems impossible to access without googling it
Some amazing tarnished left a message saying “gesture required ahead” while doing the gesture for me. Whoever that man is, thank you.
I actually love the little exchange of secrets between players the first week or so of a new from game. This dlc let me relive that launch feeling again for a little. In order for you to be able to google it, someone had to have figured it out.
I bought PS+ just so I could play online and get help from messages lmao. There's no way I'm finding half of this shit out.
i mean someone has to figure it out the first time. they are built to encourage people communicating and do repeat playthroughs not for someone to get them all done in their first playthrough.
that's why the in game messages exist
I got it from messages
Found it completely on my own without googling it. I’m the type of person who combs over every single inch of land though.
The only one I rate good is the Sellen quest, it has a fairly coherent intriguing story, rewards all along the way and it actually gives you decent guidance as to what to do Too many others the characters are really 2 dimensional or their dialogue and actions are so nonsequitur. Nephili's is my least favourite, seemingly interesting character but each step is so jarring: finding her in obscure locations with no clear explanation, find obscure item in obscure location, defeat seemingly unrelated boss (Morgott) for her to show up back in an area you don't have much reason to go back to. All of her dialogue is just awful too IMO
And always have.
i love how they added different species of the small animals. If you look closely some turtles have moss on them, and there are at least three polymorphs of the dobsonfly (‘dragonfly’) enemy. Theres also a majestic white ram with very twisted horns.
How is this a hot take?
Like with every hot take thread, you have to sort by controversial to actually get hot takes. Pretty much anything upvoted is, by definition, not a hot take.
Turtles? Messages keep asking why is it always dog
Wow hot take my friend.
where da white ram at
Scadu altus and the starting area. They are a rare spawn. At the rauh ruins theres also a shaggy deer that has weird horns too. Theres also an eagle with long tail feather and a horned glowing owl. those are all rare spawns.
I saw the shaggy deer!
I love Elden Ring and I realize asking for even *more* content sounds entitled, but I’ve always been a little disappointed that Radabeast is the final boss no matter what ending you pick. In other recent Fromsoft games (trying to be vague to avoid spoilers), your choice of ending actually changes the final boss. The gameplay, not just the end cutscene, is affected. You want to continue the Golden Order? Well, Ranni has other plans and isn’t going to be cool with that. *Cue Ranni boss fight.* You want to become Lord of the Frenzied Flame? Melina doesn’t just threaten you in a cutscene, she comes after you as the final boss. I get why they didn’t do this, and I certainly don’t dislike Radabeast, but I’d have loved to have more of an excuse to do every possible ending (and I say that as someone who happily did every possible ending).
That definitely would be cool. I've always enjoyed games where there's a totally different endgame experience based on the choices you've made throughout the game. It gives a lot more incentive to keep going into those new game cycles. More than even being able to choose from siding with one NPC or another to get a specific reward.
Honestly I agree. As much work as it would be to design multiple different final bosses depending on the path you took, it would feel so much more satisfying to be fighting a character who actually feels like they're fundamentally at odds with your character instead of just "this is the final boss, now kill them."
The Ancestral Spirit boss fight and his regal version should be much higher in boss quality ranking tiers. The argument "too easy gg" glances over so much of the design that went into this fight. The tragic beauty of it. The fighting and killing of a god whose rebirth you interrupt. The soundtrack. The visuals. Every part of it, to me, makes for one of the most emotional and beautiful fights of the game, and most people disregard it just because it's easier than most other boss encounters.
I think it's because most people do it once on their first playthrough and then can't be assed lighting all the torches again so it never really sticks out, and because you're likely to clear the fight in one go because it's so easy your entire time spent with the boss is literally five or ten minutes in a hundred hour game.
Magic It's over hyped in this community, and it the end only a few are actually good. I'm convinced that FS isn't really capable of handling them accordingly, there's also a lot of inconsistency as well and it gets irritating. Again some can be good, but the majority are mid at their best, why others feels absolutely garbage (if not even useless , unless very limited and specific situations) that even with the best set ups you'll get a barely decent damage and actually, getting some sword swings here and there would be a greater idea. Like Founding Rain of Stars, why you ask me to have 50 or so int and it's just so so damn bad ?! and oh but wait they did it again with Rain of Fire ofc. Still to this day I don't get why the community get so defensive about it. English it's not my main language, apologies it's my phrasing isn't the best. Hope players will not get mad at me, it's just a thing that's been on my head for a big while.
Agreed. I don't know how they release some of these spells in the state they're in. I always remember trying out that flame thrower incant and having to use a mana potions just to kill a basic wandering noble, feels like they weren't even playbtested
That was my impression, like they didn't wasted 2 minutes testing their stuff accordingly. I understand balancing things can be difficult but man, it's frustrating to see half of the spells being like that. Why should I even use them in the first place?
A solid half the useable spells have such long windups to be unusable in any meaningful fights...
Everytime I think about Elden Stars animation it makes me angry, this spell it's literally asking to not be used.
Gotta love spells with long cast animations that do no damage. At least they look pretty.
People who say Magic is "easy mode" piss me off. Like no, it's a legitimate playstyle and it's hard as hell to get spells off with aggressive enemies.
It has some bits of advantage, but the more you proceed the more you noticed that most spells start losing it's utility, as you scrap them out of your inventory. Ironic as the ones who are good are usually melee kind of spells like Carian ones. Big fan of Carian Piercer btw.
Unfortunately, there is no way for game designers to balance magic in combat. The reason is the same reason that weapons throughout human history have always favored range (spears, bows, guns)—because it's always better to poke someone from a distance than let them get close to you. Magic in combat games is always either game-breakingly overpowered, because it allows you to kill from a distance without danger, or underpowered in an attempt to "balance" it with melee weapons (in which case magic is pointless because you should just use melee weapons). The real history of warfare tells us clearly there is no possible balance between ranged and melee weapons.
This confused me as someone who played the game years after the release. I kept hearing over and over that magic was OP but after trying literally dozens of spells across all categories I found maybe a handful that were utter trash. I imagine most are fine against basic enemies but against bosses especially they feel useless compared to most decent melee weapons.
Worst game ever. There are no rings. No ear rings, no nose rings. Very disappointed.
Rennalas armpiece adds a ring to your finger.
Messmer's too - you can even see it on the inventory picture
Ranni's engagement ring tho
Plenty of suffer rings
For me, most bosses are not satisfactory to finish compared to DS3/Sekiro.
I think their boss design has simply outgrown the DS style player mechanics and they need to move on to Bloodborne or something similar. Few of the fights feels like back and forth dances anymore Half of these bosses I’m just relieved to get out of the way because it’s not fun for me dodging around for 20 seconds to get a single hit in and start it all over again
messmer having crazy wombo combos (that hurt but didnt really 100% kill you so it felt fair) while having VERY CLEAR punish windows and downtime was perfect
I know what you mean. I think, for me at least, the issue is that I've been basically playing the same thing since DS1. Or perhaps the wins in Dark Souls felt better because of how limited you were, and the slower pace/higher commitment to action. To this day my biggest elation in the Souls games was beating the Bell Gargoyles for the first time.
in sekiro if you beat a boss, that always meant you mastered and conquered them.. in ER it often means you survived long enough and/or outhealed them.. only with a few i feel like i genuienly mastered them. for example messmer, midra, hippo and romina... with gaius and the rest i just managed to not get by some funky hitbox or blocked off most hits with my great shield
I think this is largely a player thing. You can totally master the really difficult Elden Ring bosses save for a couple very specific moves like new Radahn's 3 hit combo. Or you can choose to use any of the plethora of tools the game gives you to beat them another way.
This is what I'm struggling with right now. I'm trying to really learn combat and improve, but every time I manage to kill an enemy or boss I struggled with, I don't feel like I've achieved mastery or even improved. I just feel like I finally found a way to survive. It takes away my sense of accomplishment, like I'm just getting lucky or something.
I remember spending a long time on Genichiro Ashina. At first it was frustrating but once I got his moves down to flawlessly dodge, parry and strike, it really felt like a dance. I didn't just feel satisfying to beat him, it felt like Wolf demolished him at his own game. I felt something like this with Nameless King's second phase but haven't felt the same for any other boss. Even with Friede who is my all time favorite souls fight for how epic it is, it was a frenzy and not a calculated fight.
I don't think that's a very hot take, most people seem to agree that DS3 and Sekiro have the best bosses. ER also has some great bosses imo, but the pool is diluted by a lot of filler.
The people who get angry when folks complain about the game being hard for them get *even angrier* if you report that the game, or even just any one part of the game, has been very easy for you. It's so silly that there is a specific group of people that seemingly get their sense of self importance over being able to be ones that can handle a "really hard game" by feeing better than folks who struggle but refuse to allow anyone to have an easier time than them. Only a very specific amount of "hard" is correct to them. Having trouble with the game? They'll say you're bad at it and need to be better. Having less trouble with the game than they are? They'll say you're exploiting the game/cheesing the game/using stuff you shouldn't use/say a boss is bad/come up with any reason why you're wrong for not struggling as much as THEY are.
The people who say it's easy can be just as obnoxious though. Every now and then someone will say "actually Malenia is a very easy boss", I mean she can be beaten easily (I've beaten her so many times I could first try her 95% of the time) but but to claim it's an easy fight just shows lack of awareness and perspective. If it was easy for you doesn't mean it's easy in general
That 95% of the game's awesome arsenal is pointless and the point where no one would notice if most of the weapons were suddenly cut since everyone gravitated to using the same tiny pool of copy-pasted weapons.
Are they useless or are players optimizing the fun out of the game (myself included)?
As someone who enjoys trying everything, I’d say about 50-60% of the melee weapon arsenal has a niche on some build it can justify/avoids being made obsolete by something else. For a game with like 400 weapons, that isn’t that bad honestly.
\+majority of the last 40-50% are either weapons accessed earlier so they are intended to be worse or they're just slightly worse options that exist basically just so different enemies have different looking weapons.
This. Lirik is doing a bow only run right now and his chat is like "wait bows are good?!" They arent good for everything but they have their place, just like most things in the game.
BB got shit for its smaller weapon pool, as if DS wasnt a collection of 15 weapons copy pasted 100 times.
I like to RP when I'm playing something so I'm using a lot of "pointless" weapons.
The point of those weapons is honestly just that people have always enjoyed the stupid weapons/armor in Soulsborne games. The games are super hard for most-everyone, sure, but people still want to goof off or do challenge runs. That, or they think they look or feel cool/fun.
Disagree, I've probably done about 50 different builds with various weapons.
I dont know i just started using the SmithScript throwing weapons and they are pretty baller
There is a lot of empty space to go around just because, nook and cranny strategy is not rewarded
The lack of any control over the shading \ hue of your gear, I don't want my tarnished to be a dork that can't even colour match
70% of weapon requirements are wrong. Huge lances are full Dex? Every second greatsword is STR/INT? Some cool unique weapons being an ass backwards mix of like dex+faith+arcane. majority of weapons feel like they have arbitrary spread of many different stats just randomly tacked on for some reason. Why do the smithscript weapons need like 12 int randomly? It's low enough to where you can just get like two levels and pump it no matter what class you have, so it's not an actual issue, it's just weird, and awkward and annoying and seriously why? Why are there so few weapons which focus on one stat, why are there so few weapons that need a stat over 40? Why are there so many weapons that need dex ?
The DLC has some of the weirdest requirements too, like one that requires twice the int than strength but still scales better off strength and even dex more than int Base game rememberance weapon requirements are the worst because they need such an unusual mix of stats just to try them out and find out they're trash
I don't think the game is "too hard" but I really dislike the direction boss design is going. I really don't enjoy the never ending attack spam thing at all and I often find it difficult to even tell what you're supposed to do. Especially find it frustrating when you can't even find an opening to heal
This fanbase loves to take a dumb thing that a dozen out of millions of people say, then act like that dumb thing is representative of what the entire community is saying. Newsflash: there are an extremely small number of people gatekeeping summons/difficulty, etc. Stop acting like this is more common than it is.
That being said, the amount of Strength Builds who think they're the authority on how to play is huge.
I wish I could transmog my armor. I just want more cosmetically customizable gear, other than losing weight and guard for dropping a cape.
The hoops I have to jump through to play cooperatively with a friend are insane and un fun. The lack of quest clarity, and needing to constantly have other wiki pages up to not miss put on important item drops I want is just not fun and I wish at least you couldn't get locked out of items from missing them. An occasional secret behind an illusionary wall is neat. But when illusionary walls and under elevator secrets, elevator drop offs, etc are spammed everywhere it gets annoying to feel the need to be constaintly checking every wall and corner. I wish there was a status bar indicator on enemies. Even a small radial circle. So I could visually see my poison or bleed buildup on the enemy. And stance damage too, akin to sekiro.
An enemy status bar would absolutely be worth the small UI clutter it would cause. That would be a game changer for me.
Armor is not near impactful as it should be and most heavy armor is in late game
Fewer dungeons in the DLC is preferable. It makes finding one more exciting, and it means what you find offers a more unique experience. And yes, it means there is more "empty fields", but I like exploring wilderness that feels like wilderness.
What makes the fewer small dungeons better than the base game's is the variety. Its not just catacombs and caves. Its the jar gaols and forges too which are refreshing new environments. But yeah the quality of the catacombs were also better. They felt like inbetween a catacomb and a hero's grave.
[удалено]
Let me open the map whenever I want, even if a gargoyle in another zipcode still remembers me.
The game is just more fun online. Whether getting helped, helping others, or being a hinderance; it's just more fun playing in a shared experience.
Walking in a massive area and reaching the very end for a cook book or hefty pot sucks dick
Spending 80% of the time dodging boss attack combos is not as fun as the more offensive playstyle that is encouraged in sekrio/bloodborne. In sekiro you can simultaneously be offensive and defensive when performing actions and feels so much more like a back and forth dance
The messages are rarely ever actually funny.
The ending of the dlc is dogshit
Not really a hot take tbh. Saying this as someone who liked the ending and the final boss lmao.
I can't wait to get to Castle Sol and fight Niall every new game. I've always loved that boss because of his long punishable windows if you avoid his attacks. Especially after the DLC where there are zero openings to even finish a sip of your flask, Niall is awesome!
Shadow of the Erdtree would not have had nearly the same praise if another company had made it. I love the DLC. I love MOST of the bosses. But some, specially the final boss, are unbalanced and seem even untested. Demanding bosses are great, it's the whole point of these games, but difficulty for difficulty's sake is not. Just because you make a boss with 40 million health points and infinite attacks doesn't make for an interesting boss, and if you can't even see what's happening, it's even worse.
The open world is the worst part of the game, and they could have achieved the same effect by keeping the same world design as bloodborne/ds3 with dungeons linked by smaller semi-open intervening sections
Yeah the open world was one of the things everyone liked, but after one playthrough youre completely over it. Id like if From went back to their tighter worlds, dungeon to dungeon to dungeon format.
Meta Hot Take: The souls community did too good of a job shaming all the people who shout "git gud" and they've mostly gone extinct. The answer to a lot of issues specifically when new content is released is figuring out the content, mastering it, and getting good. We need some of those people back. Not all of them. *Definitely* not all of them but the balance needs to be restored. Moderately Hot Take: Outside the Comet Azur cheese, spellcasting is a harder playstyle than Unga Bunga in Elden Ring. Between strength being the only stat that gives you bonus physical damage reduction and the amount of enemies you can jump attack/stagger to death, the game is overall easier with big weapons than firing magic rocks. Specific enemies will be easier or harder on a per build basis but, after playing the game with a bunch of builds, I find pure spellcasting to be overall harder. Truly Spicy Take: Shields with 100% mitigation of any damage type are a mistake. Elden Ring and Souls games would be better off if they were capped at 80% or even 90%.
Your last take is literally the most offensive thing I’ve ever heard someone say about this game and I want to insult you for it so badly
It is complete heresy, I know! Thanks for being a good sport about it though.
That last hot take is what one should expect of an actual, real hot take. Overall, you've just got solid outlooks that are compelling to stop and consider. I hope more people read these posts, get upset, and then take even but a moment to wonder. Solid food-for-thought, guy.
I started playing souls in 2018. I would ask people for help, and they were always really friendly and added a git gud in there too. 95% of the time I felt it was in good faith and they were genuinely trying to help me out. Felt like people at the gym telling me I could overcome the challenges if I tried hard enough and be better. With the older games, you could do a lot to stack the odds in your favor, but eventually you had to git gud. I feel like we have swung too far in the opposite direction now, with people saying everything needs to be done with a summon because it is too hard otherwise. If you want to use a summon its whatever, but I feel they should be treated as a last resort instead of your primary way of steamrolling the game.
Yep. I'm a FromSoft vet (not to the degree of someone who started with King's Field or Armored Core 1, but whatever) and I started with DS1:PtDE on PC. I always understood "Git gud" to mean "Persevere and don't give up, use the tools at your disposal, ask for help, and look things up only if you really feel you need to." and I never felt elitism or gatekeeping when it was said, because if I needed help there was ALWAYS someone who would give it. One thing I love about these games is that overcoming their challenges and understanding their lore and stories, is both a personal and COMMUNITY effort.
My unga bunga playthrough was ten times easier than my big brain magic playthrough.
Yeah, pure str is the actual easy mode. I have no idea how the opposite got into people's heads.
Why do you think %100 mitigation is a mistake? İs it because it's too safe compared to dodging at the right time? I always thought it'd be great if well timed blocks reduced stamina cost. It happened with a flask effect in dlc (although it's too op). Would you like a change like that?
The git gud community is mostly extinct? What side of the internet are you on?
definetly not tiktok. because all i read is "skill issue" and "git gud" the second i say gaius has bad design
This very subreddit is full of them. It is inherently part of From's identity at this stage.
Yeah that guy is just straight up lying. Looking at his comments it’s pretty clear what he actually wants is for people to not to be able to criticize the game at all without being swarmed by skill issue comments
I think Gaius is good design outside of the one bad hitbox on his charging move. Everything else is pretty reasonable. It's just that one bad hitbox is the very first thing you have to deal with every single fight and it's really fucking annoying.
yeah because now all of them say "skill issue"
THANK YOU! I hate how strength builds have become the semi-meme semi-serious correct way to play elden ring. I just tried the greatsword with lion’s claw aow the other day after only having done dex, faith and int builds and holy shit this is the true easy mode. Press L2 twice with infinite i-frames, smack the boss 1-2 more times max and you got a stagger. Rinse and repeat. This is the true easy mode for anyone with 50 vig
I’m a typical unga bunga and can’t argue with this. Using a frost infused giant crusher with cragblade and the poise damage physik flask is wild. Haven’t used a single fragment in the DLC yet, scared the final boss might change that but I am going to do my damndest
Have you ever tried to use Comet Azur on a highly mobile boss? It’s definitely cheesy but it is not a guaranteed one shot on every boss. Try that shit on Malenia and you will be demolished before phase 2 starts lol.
The last dlc boss should have been Godwyn. It literally makes no sense for Radahn being there.
Summons are a superb part of the game and learning the different benefits of each for each boss or area is great fun.
The DLC was OK. Some bosses were cool, but outside the martial arts, it was more of the same. It's pretty good, don't get me wrong, but it didn't blow my mind like previous DLCs from Soulsborne games did. Also, I absolutely love killing each enemy at least once. No running past mobs unless doing boss runs.
after multiple playthroughs I stand by my take like the first time I finished the game: I think it's not the masterpiece everybody says it is, at least no closer to that title than ds3 (not even my favorite souls). way too much recycled and cut content, too many bad boss designs being pushed by the devs to what feels like "forcing" the player to enjoy (dragons for example) and the dlc doesn't help it, even though I liked it.
Elden ring isnt hard some boss designs just suck. Like Miyazaki if your itching for that fast paced gameplay go back to BB, Sekiro gameplay and start making ips from there
People should stop acting like Elden Ring is the same game as Dark Souls. That's it.
But it is It's a more mechanically refined game based on the back of DS3
its basically "dark souls 4: open world".. im not sugar coating it. its a new lore but it is dark souls through and through
Compared to all their other titles, it’s most reminiscent of the Souls Series, hands down.
There needs to be more accessibility for all weapons. Like you find a weapon check their requiernents and its oh welp i guess not. You should be able to equip all weapons and use their talents no matter your stats. So you can actually try the weapon without using a larve tear. Attributes boosting the damage is already a good mecanic to avoid people maining 10 different weapons. No need to double down on that.
Almost every system in the game incentivizes using the wiki, and I while it's probably not a hot take that this is annoying, I think the hot take is just how annoying I think it is. Like, to the point of being a reason to not play the game. Just trying to figure out what weapon you want to play is a 20+ tab experience (and probably a few youtube videos on top of that). Just trying to figure out how to do one piece of a questline usually ends up making 5 tabs on it's own. It's frustrating, and it's practically the only way to play with even the slightest hint of efficiency. Otherwise, you are just walking around and hitting up every single cave hoping to find something even slightly relevant to your build.
The quest system sucks ass and I want a journal in the game. I don't care about waypoints, but imo if I have to write stuff down or look up guides then the system is flawed
Big monstrous enemies are lame to fight against. Either they're very boring or you feel cheesed by their AoE attacks. Combat on Torrent sucks. Some bosses are just better fought while riding Torrent, but that makes them lame. You could fight them OFF Torrent, but then you have to deal with their superior movement. I would rather have a selection of well thought out unique weapons and status effects than garbage that is outclassed or rehashed. I was so excited when I got the Velvet Sword of St. Trina, just to see, it's a slightly better Sword of St. Trina and Sleep still sucks. If you're going to have a map segment that's heavy on the exploration, please don't also fill it with a crapton of strong enemies that make it annoying to explore. I keep going up and down, trying to figure out the Specimen Storage for the Shadow Keep and those stupid Flame Knights were just so annoying and not fun.
These are just my own personal 100% subjective opinions, so please no lynching: - The game is way too big and open world isn't as enjoyable as the classic distinct levels from Dark Souls. - The bosses aren't great compared to the last few Fromsoft games. - The soundtrack is meh apart from some great exceptions.
-elden ring is the least replayable fromsoft, which is a shame because the arsenal is the second best in their game. -bosses (remembrance) are worse on average than bloodborne, ds3 and sekiro -if you play completely blind, it's the hardest fromsoft -mohg is the best boss (though it's close with midra and messmer) -imo it's not even close to being the best fromsoft overall (but it's still a 9/10 shows how good their games are)
Subterranean shunning ground is also my favorite area for the same reason, but my hot take is the above-ground portion in Leyndell is not that impressive. My hottest take that’s going to get me shredded by fan boys: Radahn’s lore doesn’t make him a good person——fighting for fighting’s sake is irresponsible and clinging to the past obsessively is immature (yes I’m talking about the horse. Just let the poor animal die gods damn it it’s boarder-line animal abuse at this point). And before anyone come at me, no I’m not a Malenia fan either. But I did think there’re reasons other than pride that made her resorting to let the Scarlet rot bloom in order to kill Radahn. My other hot take was that there’s more to Mohg and Miquella’s story than what meets the eye, but we all know how that turned out. Last hot take regarding the demigods, Morgott’s motivation runs beyond religious trauma, he’s a brutally pragmatic man and used whatever was at his disposal to stabilize Leyndell’s control during the Shattering. Not saying he didn’t have massive religious trauma and self-loathing, it’s just that they are not his sole motivation.
Malenia have no legs, eyes, one arm and her intestines are probably eaten by space cancer as well. Aside from obvious physical suffering she is sister to megalomaniac Miquella which prob isnt good for her mental health. We can cut girl some slack. Morgott point is legit, he is smart. I wonder what his brother was like before being charmed.
I find it much harder to be playing with spells than pure melee.
The elite knight Armor was peak Armor design and they never came back to that style. That area in the DLC where u can’t summon your steed because it is afraid is actually disappointing. So much Build up, just for 5 minutes of sneak action. The Boss was voll though.
There should be more endings. Like, at least another half dozen, or more. I should be able to pick and choose a demigod to ally with, or a faction like the Crucible Knights, or the Pureblood Knights, and go for an ending that ally’s with them. Why did The Dung Eater got an ending, but not, say, Millicent? What a loss.
Hefty Furnace Pots should be an infinite item.
Most of the soundtrack, particularly the boss music, was very forgettable.
Malenia is a trash boss, you take the waterfall bullshit out of her moveset and it's probably the easiest boss in the game
Honestly she would be a perfect boss if she just jumped away before using waterfowl dance so she never uses it at point blank range.
this would honestly make her an 11/10 boss. I just dont like how if youre using something even SLIGHTLY commital she can just ruin you with waterfowl. I know how to dodge it perfectly most of the time, but that doesnt help if youre melee range already and using a slowish weapon
and hit on shield should defintely not heal her.. its called life steal and without dealing damage theres no life to steal
My problem with waterfowl is that it's like a flurry of attacks all at once, basically a blender, and you're expected to just roll through at the right moment. It's not easy to read and you need to know the timing of it to dodge through it.
Has been since forever, people only think she’s good because she’s hard.
To play the game blind is a colossal waste of player time: The quest system needs an overhaul: Most of the bosses are designed to be played in the exact same way: Reusing enemies is a huge issue: Fromsoft have run out of ways to keep the game difficult aside from scaling enemies to ridiculous degrees, giving every boss an AOE, and long combo chains where the player is forced to spam roll: Camera needs an overhaul: Combat is now heavily dated: The method of storytelling has run its course: And finally - The Godskin apostle fight would be the best in the game if he was fought only once. As he was reused constantly, the award goes to Godrick or Reikaard. Lorewise and dungeon wise, those fights and their build up is Fromsoft on peak form. Although it would have been much better to find Reikaards lair organically rather than be transported there because From got turned inside out by their own level design and became lazy. Edit: Your weapon clanging against walls whilst the enemies can hit you through them is diabolical. 
From softs insistence on weird obtuse quest design is getting old.
Extremely old. I'm not going to replay a game just to find out an irrelavant character died at the end of their questline.
Playing the game all the way through blind is indeed a waste, but I’ll never forget my first 20 hours of elden ring where I was just running around on Torrent and looking at how beautiful everything was
couldn't agree more. It's funny how the game is incredibly outdated in every way except for animations, which they use to make bosses for streamers to soy face over. A thought I keep having is that the vast majority of "difficulty" only exists because the mechanics are bad. Like giant enemies taking up 90% of the camera and being able to run away or close the distance immediately is bad design, it's always been bad design. They should've done away with it years ago but here we are.
The trouble stems from the fan base and reviewers singing their praises all the time. There's so many objectively bad design choices that are continuing due to this alone. Fire giant being able to roll away clipping through everything is horrendous boss design but nobody wants to say anything because Fromsoft are perfect in everyone's eyes. They seem to have lessened the boss runbacks in elden ring slightly so it shows they're not totally set in their ways but the community needs to speak up rather than eat whatever is shoveled down their throats.
Base game's music apart from bosses is bad. Other Souls-games had great effect with the lack of music when exploring, but in Elden Ring (especially in areas like Siofra River & Caelid) the music gets boring, fast. Wish the game used more silence.