The Gaming Den

You want to know how much later that "boss" who was literally the simplest attack patterns in the game becomes a normal enemy?

If you walk past the tutorial, a thing you can do, walk outside, and follow the road, bypassing an actual boss, you encounter one kf thise guys as the first non boss enemy you fight. Then you keep going and find 6 of them at once. Then you keep going and reach a camp with 14 of them and one has a horn he blows to summon all of them to attack you at once, and theres a Leader of that camp that is like 4 times as tough as a soldier of goderik that's also not a boss.

Then! Then you get the ability to level up.

I travelled along that road, pretty sure you are mixing up the enemies.

I'm not. Godrick soldiers are the enemies you find around the limgrave area, including at the gatefront ruins and the forest right before that.

The 14 guys you describe were made up of several diverse sorts of soldier, and if I hazily recall, some dogs or something, so no, they can't possibly ALL be the exact same mini-boss you fight in the tutorial. I'm sure SOME of them were. Possibly oh I don't know, the mini-boss of that camp.

But meeting a Tutorial mini boss as a fairly regular encounter outside of the Tutorial is VERY standard in RPG Video games, it is a very standard if not at this point tired way of representing threat escalation, so again, DO YOU EVEN PLAY VIDEO GAMES?

I'll add one, related to the UI thing: if you are making a game that's going to be on the PC, then assume the players have a mouse and keyboard. Even before you assume they have a controller. Just let me move the mouse and click on an option, you don't need to force people to use the arrow keys to navigate a menu, and especially don't just map "your cursor is on this part of the screen, so we'll pretend you're holding that direction on a virtual D-pad".

No pl, the "miniboss" of that camp, who is not a miniboss, is not a godrick soldier. He's a knight.

The enemies that are on that road and in that forest are godrick soldiers. Which is the same enemy in the tutorial.

The very first enemy you face could be a godrick soldier.

They are "diverse" in that the same enemy has three different weapon sets.

Please pl, please for the love of God. Just admit that elden ring is not a game about face tanking bosses while not dodging and that your claim that it was because you faced the very first nonboss enemy of the game and face tanked it is not actually good evidence.

Good to hear that Elden Ring fights do get more interesting than dodge roll timing, that makes me feel much better about how well reviewed it was. Kind of dumb that I didn't see that shit during an hour of playtime, but also maybe I just misread some things as I did get killed by some huge guy on a horse that I couldn't figure out so I ended up avoiding that combat after a couple tries. I probably miss some games people consider good with my approach, but I also don't watch TV shows or movies where I get bored for the first episode or act so haha fuck you my subjective tastes don't care!

To contribute to the current Elden Ring discussion with my entire hour of experience: I do remember a combat against a camp of humans and a few dogs during my hour of play, I definitely could not face tank those guys (or any of the other combats I had, but idk what my equipment even was because I'm not going to nerd out about my equipment for a 1-hour fuckabout playthrough during a convention). But they were the "abuse AI" encounter because all you needed to do was lure them away and kill them in super fucking easy engagements until they were down to a manageable number. Or just kite them around stuff and use stealth because the AI was stupid? I remember it being entertaining in the "wow, look at how badly I can abuse this AI" sort of way, instead of the "wow, that was a thrilling encounter!" sort of way. Then there was a hole I got to go into that was inside of/next to the camp? I don't fucking know, that game was boring and my memory on it is fuzzy because of how little of an impression it made.

I do recall one of the enemies in that encounter being the obvious boss because he had more HP in true boring game "more health = more challenge" fashion. Add that one to the sin list, if your idea of a challenge is "give it more HP" they should take away your game design license. Looking at you, Divinity II. Way more interesting to add more enemies to fights or give them different abilities to increase the challenge, lazy design to just increase health and/or damage.

phlapjackage wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:52 am

As someone who has played 0% of any of these types of games (except Salt and Sanctuary on Vita, great game!), how does Elden Ring combat differ from any of the other souls-like games? Because most of the videos I've watched on any souls-like game seemed very "dodge, roll, attack...repeat".

This was my first ever souls-like game, so I can't speak to other ones. I will say playing Elden Ring was the final nail in the coffin for my interest in those games as they do look awfully similar to Elden Ring, so I will probably never be able to say how it differs from other souls-likes. I like combat-heavy games where you need to do lots of reactions and counterplay because I am a glutton for punishment, but as a true glutton I need to have it happen a lot and need it to feel actually punishing. Elden Ring was both slow and felt easy, you can only be one of those things and still keep my interest. I died several times to the cat statue because I'd get bored partway through and try to land extra attacks and then eat an attack I knew how to dodge because my character was so fucking slow.

Can confirm that tutorial 'boss' is just a soldier mook. Don't know why that is up for argument.

Elden Ring was fun for me. I also I enjoyed earlier dark shadows borne games so the ole "more of what I already liked but improved now" was going to get my money. Having played the whole game it I can say it is easier than other souls games in the way kaelik described but also because it is so big you can more easily outlevel most challenges in the game easily and only really have to fight two bosses before getting to the end. Jump heavy attack str builds staggerlocks most things in the game. Weapons have special effects and special attacks now. Mimic tear exists. You can also respec in this one. So you can change your entire playstyle as soon as you beat Rennala into whatever you are feeling like doing. The really difficult places have to be sought out or are in the DLC but even with those the game provides you with every tool necessary to beat them. I like dex builds and don't really like magic so a lot of the game was probably harder for me than it needed to be but also bleed kills a lot of stuff so building up arcane with my dex stuff provided me a way to win even if it took me a while to get to the end game with the (what used to be) broken bleed katana. I also ended up going STR for the ultimate last fight in the DLC because I couldn't figure out how to dodge attacks while being blinded by light. So I just face tanked and staggered the final DLC boss until it died (heard he got nerfed. Don't know how cause I haven't tried to do it again). So face tanking for most of the other bosses is possible (I imagine) and STR builds I think are still considered broken with jump attacks.

You can play the game in a number of ways. I think the only trouble is that finding out how to play certain ways either takes skill (running around and jumping instead of dodge spamming) or isn't going to be explained by the game (finding builds to make more niche playstyles work like throwing consumables).

Hey so Kaelik and MGuy what's this entry under bosses here about?

https://eldenring.wiki.gg/wiki/Cave_of_Knowledge

And if you click through on Soldier of Grodrick under Bosses, what's that there bit under the title Bosses say?

https://eldenring.wiki.gg/wiki/Godrick_Soldier

Oh and while you are there notice that the Boss profile "Soldier of Godrick" and the standard enemy profile "Godrick Soldier" are separate and different. Notice the different HP, the different totally not XP, the different drops and notice, the picture, with different weaponry. Also notice the mention of where it appears, which for the Soldier of Godrick profile, is exclusively as the boss in the caves of knowledge.

Like I said I got this information from fans and players of the game. You guys are out of line pretending that minibosses don't come back as regular enemies later. That isn't even how the community of fans that play the game see it.

LMAOOO. In your own link, if you go over the Godrick Soldier picture and click on the different weapons it show different pictures.

If you click on the Greatsword option, you will see that Godrick Soldiers have greatswords, the weapon used by the one in the cave. They have the same moveset as the Soldier in the cave, because it's literally just a Godrick Soldier.

How many people who actually played the game telling that the tutorial boss is a normal enemy would it take before you admitted you were wrong?

There is no number you would accept. This is unfalsifiable certainty you have that you beat a normal enemy in a tutorial and you decided that's how all elden ring boss fights work without playing them, and you will not be swayed.

It's a normal enemy PL. It's the exact same moveset as the Godrick Soldier, it's an intentional joke boss in the tutorial because they did not want people to actually be trapped losing several times against a tutorial boss.

It is not "a miniboss that you later encounter as a normal enemy" it is "literally one of the first most basic enemies in the entire fucking game."

Your own fucking link describes the Soldier of Godrick thusly: "Background
A lone Godrick Soldier encountered in the Cave of Knowledge. As with the rest of the dungeon, this boss serves as a tutorial for the player."

It's just a fucking Godrick Soldier, one of the first and most basic enemies. Successfully defeating the big strong regular enemy does not give you any information on how boss fights are supposed to play out.

Unlike you, the rest of us DO actually know about the community of fans that play this game, so we do in fact know that literally no one actually thinks this is a boss. It's a fucking joke that people in the community make.

Your ability to successfully beat a tutorial enemy with half the HP of the Knight of Godrick wandering around the Gatefront Ruins and the exact same moveset as other Godrick Soldiers does not tell you anything at all about how elden ring boss fights go, because the very basic enemy in the tutorial is not teaching you how boss fights go.

Me encountering a level 2 Pidgey on Route 1: This is a boss fight being recycled as a normal enemy!

Just keep saying Nuh Uh and trying to gaslight Kaelik. That wikki was pretty conclusively damning for your position.

LMAO.

Truly amazing. The tungsten brained stupidity of insisting you know how boss fights in Elden Ring work because you fought a basic enemy in a tutorial, and the wiki says it has 30 more HP then the normal godrick soldiers with greatswords that you encounter at the beginning of the game and literally describes it as godrick soldier, so it must have been designed to teach you to not dodge attacks against bosses who dies in 3 hits!

Do people who have played the game have anything to add to your understanding? No! You have learned the secret techniques from Godrick Soldiers that are definitely the same techniques used to beat bosses.

Kaelik you are the only one projecting claims about other boss fights. I only talked about how the introductory one was bad. And what fans had to say about it at the time.

Neo Phonelobster Prime wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 29, 2024 3:03 am

Kaelik you are the only one projecting claims about other boss fights. I only talked about how the introductory one was bad. And what fans had to say about it at the time.

But back in reality, this is what you actually said:

Neo Phonelobster Prime wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 26, 2024 10:44 pm

Actually, and I have had this explained to me in detail by fans, one of the philosophies of boss fights that FromSoftware has developed is that learning a bosses attack pattern and dodging it is somehow bad wrong fun. So, increasingly they make bosses that do not telegraph and have very random attack patterns which include absolutely deadly high damage wide targeted and/or super fast attacks you CANNOT dodge.

The actual most likely first boss you fight in Elden ring is not just an example of this but apparently a deliberate extreme example of this to try and "train" the player not to try and learn and respond to boss attack patterns.

The result is the actual correct way to fight it is to actually ignore the boss attacks and actions in general and just try and run in and deal as much damage as possible. Then you just win or lose based on how much damage the randomized attack patterns deal, so you just do it 3 to 10 times until you luck out on a low damage draw and win. But if you TRY and dodge in that fight, you will need substantially more than 3-10 attempts.

You very clearly were saying both that the first boss teaches you how to deal with all other bosses, and that specifically the success strategy is to not ever learn enemy attacks.

These are insanely stupid things to say about GODRICK SOLDIERS which is why I thought you were telephone gaming some things you heard about Margit the Fell Omen. But you were VERY CLEARLY saying this was general boss fight design and that the purpose of the "first boss" was to teach it.

Reading comprehension Kaelik, I was relaying to you what fans described as an over arching design philosophy AND one extreme example of that which I encountered, and what it, and the community, taught as the correct way to fight that encounter at that time was.

YOU made up the rest and have been fiercely attacking strawmen all over this thread, because you are fuming raging mad that I pointed out that the UI, in a game known for its bad UI, by a developer known for bad UIs, was kinda spectacularly bad.

No pl.

I responded to that post about boss design because it was wrong, and so obviously wrong that everyone else who has commented in this thread knows it is wrong.

At no point have I or anyone, expressed any upset over you criticizing elden rings ui. That is a thing you made up because you didn't want to respond to the actual criticisms I made, and so you invented an imaginary defense of the ui and/or being upset about you criticizing the ui to dunk on instead of responding to the things people actually said.

I invite anyone to read your actual post quoted by me above and then your disassembling here and judge for themselves if I am arguing with a "strawman."

But I absolutely love the idea of "the community" teaching "the correct way" to defeat Rick soldier of God, by giving advice on how to beat him in only 3-10 tries instead of way more if you use a different worse strategy.

Kaelik wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 29, 2024 4:55 am

At no point have I or anyone, expressed any upset over you criticizing elden rings ui.

Though you responded to me calling the UI horrendous and giving one especially ridiculous example of horrendous UI with...

Kaelik wrote: LMAO

A problem I've never heard about that was probably fixed immediately, that borderline softlocks (which I presume means doesn't softlock) is not a) Really about UI design at all, and b) lmao worst game of the year.

Like you can't just complain about the UI of a game, you have to say some weird shit about it being the worst game of the year just because you are mad people like it. Lots of games have glitches that just crash to desktop, so your worst game of the year has to somehow justify itself past a bunch of those before you start explaining how elden ring is worse then apparently free to play grindfest trash.

Are you OK Kaelik? You usually aren't this bad at this.

edit:Actually quoting that now... come to think of it, Elden Ring had crashes to desktop...

Did you try reading the post you quote?

100% Seriously though. Are you OK? this level of behavior isn't normal for you Kaelik.

Neo Phonelobster Prime wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 29, 2024 11:07 am

100% Seriously though. Are you OK? this level of behavior isn't normal for you Kaelik.

NPP,

For what it's worth, you said that Elden Ring is the worst game of the year. Kaelik pointed out that there are games that are absolutely unplayable released the same year. To be the worst, Elden ring would have to be worse then all other games, which is a tall order.

The whole argument about boss monster tutorials was in support of your hyperbolic suggestion that Eden Ring is the worst. Perhaps you want to revise your sentiment to 'a slightly annoying game that doesn't appeal to me, personally'?

Perhaps if the UI is troublesome, you would explain what makes it so. It sounds like you've got (1) complaint - that there's a button to close dialog boxes on PC that isn't intuitive so it took you a long time to move on. Since Elden Ring was one of the most completed games of 2022, it appears that the UI isn't a complete barrier to playing.

As for whether the tutorial counts as a boss or not, that's really just a semantic question. If you have to beat him to move on, calling it a boss isn't wholly inappropriate. But the tutorial boss, if you decide to call it that, isn't necessarily a good example of bosses in the game. The Tutorial is designed for you to learn, so it's a question of what are you supposed to be learning. Your claim that it teaches you how to beat boss monsters is relatively expansive - since every boss can potentially have a different requirement for how to beat them, any claim that this teaches the one true way of success is automatically suspect. At best it could teach you that 'bosses' require adaptation and analysis to discover what techniques need to be applied.

It's clear from a cursory review of game sites that the 'tutorial boss' (frequently referred to as a mini-boss) is exactly the same as regular creatures that you meet when going against one of the game's 'real bosses', and that you encounter frequently. The Elden Ring Wiki has 3 boss tiers: Demigods and Legents (highest), Greater Enemies (those that give a greater enemy felled achievement), and Field Bosses (those that give an enemy felled achievement).

This wiki does list a Godrick Soldier as a Field Boss for the tutorial, but it also includes 237 other 'bosses', and most people think of the 'top tier' bosses as 'bosses and mini bosses'. I see some criticism that this website is too permissive with the definition of 'boss'. My perception is that calling a 'Field Boss' (as they define it) a 'boss' is misleading, and then equivocating between 'boss' and 'mini-boss' just shows how it's entirely a semantic choice. Defeating the Godrick Soldier in the tutorial is not required to beat the game, so it's definitely 'optional'.

Wow. "It's listed as a boss". As if there aren't examples of games where there are bosses that would later become a normal enemy at some point in the game isn't a thing. A thing that has happened in the fromsoftware franchises before. You fight godrick soldiers practically over the next hill. What are you countering by pointing that out is listed as a boss?

You could've just retracted this minor fuck up (the adult thing) or just not mentioned it again (the ddm thing) and no one would've cared. By strenuously laboring over whether a common soldier dude you fight in a tutorial is at all relevant to the design of bosses in the game you've wasted several posts fighting reality instead of saying something meaningful. This is the ddm not understanding the difference between a regular guy and the president all over again. Why would you want to do that to yourself?

Hey MGuy, reading fail again. I don't think the tutorial should count as a boss because if you do, 296 other bosses are more important. I think that if you have nearly 300 bosses in your game, they're not all bosses. The roughly 12 major challenges are a more appropriate term for 'boss'. But that's all semantic. Boss is a poorly defined term, but even if the tutorial encounter counts as a boss, none of the 'lessons' apply to later bosses. NPP learned the wrong lessons from a tutorial and insists that it's the right lesson because unnamed people who play the game told him that it was.

It is clear that the vast majority of people who actually play the game don't think you should fight every boss by taking hits to the face and ignoring attack routines. So PLL is wrong even if 'it's a boss'.

Not having played the game, I can't comment, except that it doesn't seem to be worth the effort of arguing over.

deaddmwalking wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 29, 2024 6:03 pm

Hey MGuy, reading fail again.

DDM you probably want to read my post again. Presumably by putting my name here you meant to respond to an argument and I am really sure you failed to understand what mine is and very possibly who I am making it toward.

MGuy wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 29, 2024 5:52 pm

As if there aren't examples of games where there are bosses that would later become a normal enemy at some point in the game isn't a thing. A thing that has happened in the fromsoftware franchises before.

Did you not read the several times I said exactly that?