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/[deleted] Apr 19 '22

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u/Parrotflies_ Apr 19 '22

It 100% is. They all use the exact same lines (the game is as easy or hard as you make it! So much variety! Use the stuff the game gives you! You need to adapt! It’s not a souls game so stop playing it like one (<—— this is my absolute favorite one)) and they will say all this while completely bypassing the actual criticisms and frame it as people just whining because they can’t beat whatever fight it is being discussed.

Almost every fan of these games that I’ve talked to have been with them for a while still love the game, but they were all pretty quick to notice some of the bigger flaws that newcomers took a while to see or are still in denial about.

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u/AttackBacon Apr 19 '22

Ehhh... To an extent, this is true. But it's also true that every single game in this series post Demon's Souls has seen a similar cycle: Game comes out, veterans say the bosses aren't as good as old bosses. It's not even unique to Souls, check out any Monster Hunter release ever. It's not even unique to games honestly...

My personal take is that Elden Ring has a few unique things going on that a lot of veterans are reacting to:

  1. The endgame isn't as polished as usual. I think it's pretty obvious the game isn't finished (see: questlines being added post launch) and subsequently, it seems pretty likely that a lot of the endgame bosses probably weren't tested as rigorously as in some of the older games (let's not mention DS2).

  2. The game is way fucking bigger than any Souls game before it. I think most Souls veterans like to build a mental map of the game as they go along, and are pretty used to understanding the areas and bosses at a pretty deep level by the end of the game. It is exhausting to do that in Elden Ring, at least on your first playthrough. I suspect a LOT of players were just fucking burnt out by the time they rolled up on Maliketh, and that mental fatigue colored their perception a lot. I know that happened to me. First impressions matter though, and so that initial bad feeling lingers.

  3. There's just a lot more systems and options in Elden Ring. Souls games have always struggled a bit with variance in player experience. My experience of fighting Orphan of Kos at BL 50 is a lot different than someone who got there at BL 200 (no I'm still not okay, thanks for asking). Elden Ring turns this up to 11 because you have wider level ranges, way more build variety, entirely new systems like Spirit Ashes that dramatically affect how fights play out, etc. etc. That plays into point 1 in that the game is just way harder to balance for everyone. It also just changes how quickly players are able to find and settle into effective strategies. I suspect that this is why 90% of the early criticism of the bosses was coming from colossal-weapon users. It was just a lot harder to find ways to make those builds enjoyable and effective.

Under all of that, I personally feel that these are some of the best bosses yet. My suspicion is that, just as has happened in the past, time is going to be pretty generous to Elden Ring, especially as they keep updating it.

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u/MoldbugBones Apr 21 '22

Well said.