They are catering ultimates to casuals like they did with Elden Ring.

[BaconBits]

It's a bit more complicated than that, the longer a fight goes on the more difficult it is to keep up.
It's not just about tedium it does make them easier, I am not saying it's a good or bad thing but I think it's a bit silly to argue that it doesn't add complexity to it when you have to juggle more things in each pull if you start from the beginning.
Ofc if you had to do phase 1 every pull in P4S it'd make that fight more complex too, especially without a reset like most do.

I don't think it's comparable to running back to the boss in Souls games for example, that's more a matter of tedium but if you could skip phase 1 in a boss fight then yes it'd be less complex.



The Souls games have become more and more popular with time, altho I'd say with Elden Ring the huge burst of it had more to do with the George RR Martin marketing machine and the open world ( I rly don't like open world games, but memes about them being overdone aside they do sell A LOT ).
Elden Ring has some of the most unfair and bullshit boss design in the entire series, it also has the most bullshit overtuned weapons and tools for the player in the series.
Most people seem to cheese the game and don't realize how bad the boss design actually is.

I loved the game still but the worst part was the bosses on a mechanical level, it's a huge step down from the other Souls games and it felt like the game was designed around people making themselves overpowered and basically cheesing them instead of a more fair 1vs1 duel like in past games.
I do think it caters more to '' casuals '' so to speak because they can just google/ youtube what the most op broken thing is and insta win and it basically just ignores the poor design of the bosses, but if you actually care about the bosses more for the type of challenge you got in past games it's not the same at all.

I do like that there was less running back to bosses tho, altho weirdly enough there were some exceptions to that for some reason.

Ngl Moonveil being a hop, skip and a jump away from Limgrave in one of Caelid's earliest caves is hilarious to me.

What isn't hilarious is running into Little Timmy and his password summoned phantoms all spamming the Moonveil ash of war like a bunch of discount Vergils. No style, no finesse, no pizzazz. Just makes invasions dull lmao.

[angienessyo]

Elden Ring is as easy or as hard as you want it to be. If you want the hardcore experience don't over level like crazy and don't go pick up the best gear/skills/spells a Youtube video tells you to get to be OP early. I've beaten all the Soulsborne games+Sekiro and I had a lot of difficulty getting through Elden Ring because I chose a very under tuned pure melee strength build. And for the record, every Soulsborne game has had a very OP af build/weapon that could carry you through the game. Even Sekiro has ways to completely trivialize fights. Did you know you can get a lot of bosses in Sekiro to not even do anything if you just throw fireworks at them between every few hits? And let's not forget you can completely trivialize the father of them all, Demon's Souls, by going with a Royal build. Even the infamous Nameless King can be completely trivialized with a crossbow. Want to stunlock 100% of bosses in Bloodborne? Run to the DLC and get the Whirligig and hold L2. Want an I win button in DS2? Pick up a rapier. Want one in DS3? Sellsword Twinblades. Did you know you can just stand and tank every hit in Four Kings with 0 effort with a full Havel set in DS1? And the bulk of DS1 can be trivialized with certain spells or big 2H weapons. Let's not act like these games are only for hardcore gamers.

As for DSU, like...did you step foot in DSU? I was in there all night and the check point didn't make it any easier. This is my third ultimate and it's definitely going to take a bit to clear this. Definitely going to take longer than Orphan of Kos, Sister Friede, Sword Saint Isshin, Fume Knight, etc.

[GrizzlyTank]

... nono wait.. I have to hear how this relates to elden ring somehow?

ER added checkpoints outside of bosses so you don't have to run from the bonfire, as well as a free choice of a wide variety of summons usable in near every boss fight.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

ER added checkpoints outside of bosses so you don't have to run from the bonfire, as well as a free choice of a wide variety of summons usable in near every boss fight.

And yet people have done some really silly runs with "weak" weapons. Bubble only, one dudes using the baby skull item only, etc.

The game let's you do w/e you want.

[Verius_Nox]

ER added checkpoints outside of bosses so you don't have to run from the bonfire, as well as a free choice of a wide variety of summons usable in near every boss fight.

I see people bring up the removal of the jog back to the boss room, but it's a bit silly. Most souls games you could just run passed the enemies, so it was just tedious and not actually difficult. I'm glad they removed it lol it added nothing having it

[Saraide]

Ngl Moonveil being a hop, skip and a jump away from Limgrave in one of Caelid's earliest caves is hilarious to me.

What isn't hilarious is running into Little Timmy and his password summoned phantoms all spamming the Moonveil ash of war like a bunch of discount Vergils. No style, no finesse, no pizzazz. Just makes invasions dull lmao.

But how would your opponent know you have rivers of blood if you dont spam the weapon art. They have to know!

[Thoosa]

I’ve been watching Xeno and his group prog it, and this fight does not look easy at all. PF will be struggling with it for a very long time.

[Karowolus]

Not an Ultimate Raider here but someone looking to get into doing DSR and maybe the others someday. Mostly stuff like anxiety and a terrible, terrible timetable stopping me from doing ultimates.

Frankly. I don't see the bad part about adding Checkpoints to a fight that we know is extremely long and tedious. It does have a sense of false difficulty, due to the difficulty, player stamina, etc. It's not something that you can compare to savage, as many folks have made clear... And I don't really know if my opinion is valid or takes into consideration the experience of Ultimate raiders and the like. But... I'm not against the idea of Checkpoints in long, arduous fights. But it has to be done right in my opinion.

[Stanelis]

Honestly checkpoints are a welcome addition due to how tedious the previous ultimates were. Maybe they should just give the option to toggle the checkpoint or not, so masochists can have their tediousness fix.

[BaconBits]

But how would your opponent know you have rivers of blood if you dont spam the weapon art. They have to know!

Sometimes I just choose violence and whip out the double seppuku Naginatas.