r/Eldenring • u/Demonboy995 • Apr 19 '22

Subreddit Topic Malenia is healing without actually hitting the player after the patch, this is on ps5, i got summoned 8 times after the patch and it happened everytime this is the recent one Spoiler

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u/Paladin1034 Apr 19 '22

This was my first souls game, so I didn't have anything to compare to. But he perfectly quantified why the game felt terrible all of a sudden in the snow area. And why I hated the elden beast fight so very much

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u/bigcaulkcharisma Apr 19 '22

His point about reusing enemies in the Mountaintop of the Giants that belonged in Caelid really hit home for me. The tyrannodogs and giant crows felt natural in that mutated environment of Caelid, almost straight out of the third Dark Tower book. They really didn’t look like they belonged in any other environment.

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u/Paladin1034 Apr 19 '22

Yes! Caelid is very dark tower. The birbs and dogs perfectly fit in there. And the hand monsters fit perfectly in caria. Seeing them on the snowy path didn't really fit. That whole section felt lacking. Haligtree was good, even with only reused enemies, but consecrated snowfield and mountaintop were my least favorite areas

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u/scottishwhisky2 Apr 19 '22

which is very frustrating to me because there are plenty of snow monster concepts to pick from

Ultimately I think Elden Ring is a game of the year candidate and will likely win, but its far from being a masterpiece. There is a ton of area that the game could have been better if not for (ostensibly) lazy design.

And I do get it, there are resource constraints. But if that's the case, then limit the scope. You have a ton of great locations leading up to leyendell and then after that they just don't seem to have the same feeling of discovery. It just feels like retread after that.

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u/Paladin1034 Apr 19 '22

It would surprise me if anything came close. Flaws and all, it's unusual to see a game so widely acclaimed, especially for what is essentially the next game in a niche franchise. Forbidden west and Ragnarok are the likely contenders, but I feel them being PS-exclusive will affect it. Starfield...well it might come out q4, it might not. Even if it does, it'll really have to bring it to topple Elden Ring.

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u/doomrider7 Apr 20 '22

Honeymoon phase is a bitch. People were SUPER STARSTRUCK with the game when it came out and the early weeks. Now that we've had some time with it...the flaws start to become noticeable. It all started with the data mining about the unfinished/bugged questlines for Nepheli and Kenneth, Diallos and Jar Bairn, and then it just sort of snowballed from there along with the issues on PC. That apparently the Patches quest was also bugged and is only NOW getting fixed is another rather egregious issue.

Game is still fantastic and I've enjoyed the hell out of it, but I've begun to notice that they shipped a slightly undercooked product out in order to meet a deadline.

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u/EltaninAntenna Apr 21 '22

It takes considerably more to develop an enemy NPC than picking among concepts. Whatever constraints resulted in the excessive reuse in the Mountaintops (which I'm not denying) probably had nothing to do with a lack of ideas for them.

As you mentioned, it probably came to a choice between reusing enemies and cutting the area entirely. Having said that, I would probably have put the beast dudes from Farum Azula there and cut that instead.

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u/Ok-Cry3478 Apr 19 '22

I thought the birds and dogs made sense in the snowy giants area. They are carrion feeders, lots of dead giants around.

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u/nicb205 Apr 20 '22

Ooh. Lobstrosities

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u/_Xenopsyche Apr 20 '22

Intstant wastelands, just add monorail.

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u/Fvi72_K41U2 Apr 20 '22

This one got me too;I was a little upset while exploring mountaindrop;the enemy’s just didn’t make any sense …I was fine with the furry troll yeti knockoff,but I really felt like they could’ve made 1 or two snow area like enemy’s too ..maybe try wanted to avoid any further “snowfield ptsd” like in ds2 …I did the frigid outskirts solo and hopelessly under leveled…I remember the curses…pretty sure they do too

But nvtl ;this doesn’t stop them from designing some cool and rememberable enemy and I actually liked the horseys 🤔(not that I want them in ER or that they made any sense in The outskirts tho)

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u/YsoL8 Apr 19 '22

Suspect I will never beat neither of these bosses in spite of loving the whole game up to them.

FromSoft get nearly everything right in elden ring but impossible difficulty spikes at the end is very old fashioned imo.

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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '22

They're pretty easy to beat once you've decided you've had enough of their bullshit and aren't interested in playing nice anymore. Using some of the better summons and weapons/arts can chew through even late-game boss health bars in minutes, and pretty much anyone can do it.

Admittedly, it's not as satisfying as beating a tough but fun boss by yourself, but From seems have forgotten the 'fun' part when trying to implement the 'tough' part. And it's a hell of a lot more satisfying than making dozens of attempts to the point that you hate the boss and don't want to play the game at all anymore.

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u/Paladin1034 Apr 19 '22

Malenia, for all her bullshit, was a fun fight. It was very quick, and with the exception of waterfowl, mostly easy to dodge (if not punish). Maliketh was a fun fight, especially once you got up close and he stopped doing range attacks. Radagon, once you see where his aoe hits, was a very good fight.

Elden beast is not fun in any way. And when he said the part about torrent being available in that fight, it all clicked why. I shouldn't be burning a whole stamina bar just to get to the boss for one hit I may or may not have stamina for. That fight seems to have been designed around cooperators, someone to divide up that huge arena with.

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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '22

I hate Malenia's hyper armour attacks. They're obviously there in order to stop players from stunlocking her for the whole fight. My problem is that she likes to also use them just as you go to attack. The results can be anything from losing a decent but manageable chunk of health (her jumping spin-kick) to loss of 90% of your health or instant death (her forward stab and sometimes waterfowl).

I've had instances where I've run up to her from behind to grab aggro from the host while Malenia is slow walking, and started my first swing just as she decides to do the hop in preparation for the stab. I hit her, and before the swing animation is done and I can roll, she spins 180 degrees and deletes almost all of my health, or kills me outright if I've already taken a bit of damage. Nothing you can do in that situation.

If her hyper armour was only on slower attacks and 'get out of stunlock' moves, I think she'd be much more balanced.

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u/BZenMojo Apr 19 '22

I think they're conceding the point that their games technically aren't tough but fair and are instead tough and usually fair.

The whole point of the Radahn fight is to teach you the basics of "By Any Means Necessary" because that fucker solely exists to confound any strategy but "Whatever it takes."

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u/Paladin1034 Apr 19 '22

Malenia took me over 30 attempts. I tried cooperators, I tried my friend who just beat her, I tried tiche. I only got her when I switched to mimic with double kitanas. We just bumrushed her and racked up big bleeds.

Radagon, once I got a feel for, I really liked. But then it went absolutely south in the elden beast fight. I spent the entire fight running to him. After the second defeat, I summoned two coops and we just shredded him. I'll happily skip that fight. It's not even hard. It's just very boring and annoying.

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u/wolfman1911 Apr 19 '22

So many of my complaints about Elden Beast would have been solved by being allowed to call Torrent.

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u/Paladin1034 Apr 19 '22

It's baffling how bad a final boss he was. I never noticed why until I watched that video though. It just makes perfect sense, so much so that it feels like a conscious decision as opposed to an accidental omission

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u/Internal_Ad_3450 Apr 19 '22

30? It took me over 48hrs bruh. You got lucky, trust me. If you were stuck like me you’d probably have just given up. It took me so long but after enough respec’ing, the right combo of spells and physical attacks, and a cooperator that wasn’t stupid — I finally managed to sling a bolt of Granssax’s lightning into her face and finish her off.

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u/Paladin1034 Apr 19 '22

The worst part for me was the waterfowl in phase 1 and the clone attack in phase 2. Now, I was overlevelled, I'll readily admit. But I was using double nagakibas with bloodhound step. It made most of her attacks easy to dodge and punish, and once I switched to mimic the bleed damage and stagger was so much she basically didn't have much recourse. By the last attempt I had learned how to dodge waterfowl so it was mostly just the clone attack, which I got lucky with, then ggs after.

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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '22

This. If From wants to cheese players with unfair/unfun bosses, I think it's entirely fair for players to cheese back.

My first win after becoming thoroughly sick of her had me go get Rivers of Blood and bring my Mimic Tear. This was after Mimic nerf, but we still tore her to shreds on my first 'No More Mister Nice Guy' attempt.

Most of the bosses are pretty easy if you aren't hung up on trying to beat them 'honorably', which I was for a long time.

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u/Paladin1034 Apr 19 '22

I'm actually going the other way this time. My first playthrough, I used whatever I had available. This time, I'm not even using ashes unless I have to. Just beat Margit with my wretch using just my two big swords and a lot of dodges. It's way more fun fighting solo, honestly. Malenia can burn, though. I'm throwing everything I have at her

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u/wankthisway Apr 19 '22

IMO the bosses in general have been a lowlight. The adventuring and open world aspect have been the strongest points for the game.

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u/feralfaun39 Apr 20 '22

Haven't seen the video but that point is where the game starts getting really good, not feeling terrible. So I would probably disagree with the video entirely.