Quote Originally Posted by Kolsykol View Post
I dunno how people can respond to criticism about the bosses in Elden Ring being poorly designed by essentially saying '' just cheat bro '' lol.
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Sounds like you don't want to adapt your play style to actually give yourself an advantage in the fights. It's no different than any previous souls game. Every boss has buttons to press that you can take advantage of by design. Elden Ring's design is merely one that encourages you to use the Spirit Ash system. That's why there's so many duo bosses, and why so many bosses can turn on a dime. They're all designed to be possible to beat alone, but simultaneously designed for the player to have helpers. Except for the Evergaol bosses, obviously.

It's extra funny that you bring up reading inputs, but say the last two fights are fun. Radagon, second to last boss, literally reads player input, and he has/had a glitch where if you move up to him as the cutscene ends, he will not move, allowing you to cheese him with any attacks that do not cause your character to move (bows, certain spells).

The real problem with the Souls community is this very ideal trail. "I must be able to fight every boss with a wet noodle, making every fight an elegant dance of attrition where I eventually win due to dodge mastery." That is stale and boring, if you ask me. But it's still doable in Elden Ring. Just watch Ongbal or Faraaz Khan.

Almost every boss in Elden Ring can be utterly obliterated with weapons that inflict status ailments. Bleed, Frostbite, Poison, Scarlet Rot, Sleep, and Blackflame. It is designed to be beaten, but to still challenge you while you do it. Are a lot of the duo / gauntlet boss fights bull crap? Yeah. But I assure you that the game provides you the tools you need to defeat all of them. How much they make you swear and sweat is up to you. The design is clearly deliberate in that sometimes they just want to pound you into the ground.

Cheesing is so prevalent due to the expanded mainstream playerbase, but also due to the original playerbase for these games. OG Playerbase for Demon's Souls looked for ways to kill the bosses while expending minimal effort. That was the old mastery. The new mastery(dodge gods) is just as flawed if you obsess over it being the standard. Particularly when From doesn't shy away from fights like Rykard's.