Delayed attacks as a form of increasing difficult are just extremely unfun. Yeah, you made the boss harder, you also made it extremely frustrating, congratz.
That’s my biggest problem with FromSoft games. They are not challenging, they’re just slow HP sponges that can one-shot you. That is not challenging, it’s just unfair, and frankly boring.
I think the game would be funner even with the simple tweak of making the animations faster. No fighter EVER wins IRL by telegraphing their attacks for three seconds.
Sekiro is much faster paced; it pays to be aggressive after all. The only time I felt like having to delay my reaction time was with the snake eyes with her weird grab iirc.
I didn’t like elden ring much, combat felt more plodding and frustrating to me (and I plat “difficult” games: HK, sekiro, STS).
Coming from someone who shares your frustration with morgott or morgit or the 3 other copy-paste boss’s stick that hovers in the air for 5 business days…
It’s literally helping you actually learn to dodge perfectly instead of just spamming it and getting lucky. Like instead of rolling when they do the back swing, you now have to actually wait for them to swing their attack.
If this was the first game like this you played, it wouldn’t even be that much harder to learn. It’s actually harder having played all the games prior to Elden Ring that conditioned you to dodge on the back swing.
It’s usually not a matter of just waiting - it’s a matter of memorizing. I get the impression if the AI bosses could manually set different delays on their swings after winding up each time, they would literally be impossible.
They can do that. And one of the first dudes you’ll see doing it is Margit. They only delay the time between back swing and the actual attack. So you’ll know it’s coming, you just need to dodge (or parry) when they take a swing at you, not when they bring their hand back. Shit, sometimes Margit will just do the back swing and if you stay away or calm long enough, he just goes back to an idle animation and doesn’t attack you.
The first measuring stick dude, he makes sure you learn the mechanics. I feel like Margit and morgott are the exclusively to make sure you have a handle on them. Hell I didn’t realize jumping could dodge attacks until godfrey.
The weird thing I found in the dlc with jumping is that, for whatever reason, when the Putrescent Knight does that blue fire attack, you can jump it but not roll it. Or at least, I can’t figure out how to avoid damage by rolling it. Rolling forward should avoid a hit, but I still take one; jumping it avoids it totally. It doesn’t even seem jumpable because the flames still touch your upper body while doing it and you only have i-frames from the waist down.
The fire is a persistent hitbox that lasts longer than a roll gives iframes. The airtime of the jump lasts long enough when timed right.
Some of the channels of blue fire can also be avoided outright but I never got a handle on how that worked. And the visuals, like a lot of fires in Elden Ring, don’t look like you should be able to jump it. Looks super edgy though when you do though.
The one he shoots at a single target in a straight line can be strafed if you’re at the furthest it can reach. But you can also roll left or right and not be in it anymore.
The weird one is the first time he busts it out. There’s like 1 big wave that goes everywhere. A small one that can be left or right of you, and then another big wave in front of him (which is usually facing you if you’re solo). Later on he might do something similar to the Elden Beast where he created a large ring that gets smaller so it comes at you from behind. That one always fucks me up because I expect the other one.
This dude is my arch nemesis, and just like the Nameless King in DS3 I am starting to get to a point where I can avoid him forever. Not quite, though. He has this weird hitbox on one of his ride by swings where I dodge completely away from the blade and he is like 5 yards away when my i-frames end and then I take a hit seemingly from nothing.
Delayed attacks as a form of increasing difficult are just extremely unfun. Yeah, you made the boss harder, you also made it extremely frustrating, congratz.
The delays in Elden Ring are fine, they all have some clear visual or audio cue to help dodge them.
Sekiro had way worse delays but people don’t want to talk about that
Because Sekiro is based and killing bosses is insanely satisfying (we do not talk about demon of hatred)
That’s my biggest problem with FromSoft games. They are not challenging, they’re just slow HP sponges that can one-shot you. That is not challenging, it’s just unfair, and frankly boring.
I think the game would be funner even with the simple tweak of making the animations faster. No fighter EVER wins IRL by telegraphing their attacks for three seconds.
Vigor check missed
Have you played their previous games? It’s only an issue in Elden Ring.
Dark Souls also has slow enemies. Supposedly Sekiro is better in that regard, but meh.
Slow and delayed is not the same thing, Dark Souls enemies won’t wait 3 seconds mid attack to throw you off.
Sekiro is much faster paced; it pays to be aggressive after all. The only time I felt like having to delay my reaction time was with the snake eyes with her weird grab iirc.
I didn’t like elden ring much, combat felt more plodding and frustrating to me (and I plat “difficult” games: HK, sekiro, STS).
Coming from someone who shares your frustration with morgott or morgit or the 3 other copy-paste boss’s stick that hovers in the air for 5 business days…
Play sekiro
It’s literally helping you actually learn to dodge perfectly instead of just spamming it and getting lucky. Like instead of rolling when they do the back swing, you now have to actually wait for them to swing their attack.
If this was the first game like this you played, it wouldn’t even be that much harder to learn. It’s actually harder having played all the games prior to Elden Ring that conditioned you to dodge on the back swing.
It’s usually not a matter of just waiting - it’s a matter of memorizing. I get the impression if the AI bosses could manually set different delays on their swings after winding up each time, they would literally be impossible.
They can do that. And one of the first dudes you’ll see doing it is Margit. They only delay the time between back swing and the actual attack. So you’ll know it’s coming, you just need to dodge (or parry) when they take a swing at you, not when they bring their hand back. Shit, sometimes Margit will just do the back swing and if you stay away or calm long enough, he just goes back to an idle animation and doesn’t attack you.
The first measuring stick dude, he makes sure you learn the mechanics. I feel like Margit and morgott are the exclusively to make sure you have a handle on them. Hell I didn’t realize jumping could dodge attacks until godfrey.
The weird thing I found in the dlc with jumping is that, for whatever reason, when the Putrescent Knight does that blue fire attack, you can jump it but not roll it. Or at least, I can’t figure out how to avoid damage by rolling it. Rolling forward should avoid a hit, but I still take one; jumping it avoids it totally. It doesn’t even seem jumpable because the flames still touch your upper body while doing it and you only have i-frames from the waist down.
Putrescent knight is probably the weirdest boss of the dlc, I had more trouble with him than anyone else save maybe messmer.
The fire is a persistent hitbox that lasts longer than a roll gives iframes. The airtime of the jump lasts long enough when timed right.
Some of the channels of blue fire can also be avoided outright but I never got a handle on how that worked. And the visuals, like a lot of fires in Elden Ring, don’t look like you should be able to jump it. Looks super edgy though when you do though.
The one he shoots at a single target in a straight line can be strafed if you’re at the furthest it can reach. But you can also roll left or right and not be in it anymore.
The weird one is the first time he busts it out. There’s like 1 big wave that goes everywhere. A small one that can be left or right of you, and then another big wave in front of him (which is usually facing you if you’re solo). Later on he might do something similar to the Elden Beast where he created a large ring that gets smaller so it comes at you from behind. That one always fucks me up because I expect the other one.
This dude is my arch nemesis, and just like the Nameless King in DS3 I am starting to get to a point where I can avoid him forever. Not quite, though. He has this weird hitbox on one of his ride by swings where I dodge completely away from the blade and he is like 5 yards away when my i-frames end and then I take a hit seemingly from nothing.
In Elden Ring you can often attack during the windup and then dodge. Creating a posture break during those delays can be quite a fun experience.
Plus you can do things like jumping attacks to dodge and duck a lot more of those spinning combos than you’d expect.
The ascetic with the hoops at the very start whiffs most of his chained attacks without you even having to dodge once you figure it out.
FromSoft games are fun to learn, and that frustration is often the appeal as the tricks are discovered.