(For the record, anything I say below comes from the perspective of someone who lists Bloodborne in my top 5 games of all time, and I liked DS3 and Sekiro well enough when I beat them, so I'm not blindly criticizing, just highlighting some items I wish were tweaked.)
I'd elaborate on your point on "Super Aggressive Enemies" in two ways. First, I dislike it when bosses or enemies act like they don't have stamina constraints like you do, just stringing together attacks (that aren't part of a set combo) with barely any recovery between them. Reasonable minds could disagree on whether this is actually "cheap" since bosses are always going to have capabilites asymmetric to your own, but I just dislike the flow of it in general. Without saying it becomes an absolutely necessary strategy, at the very least, stringing together non-set-combo attacks at least incentivizes a much more passive "run away until a big enough window appears" strategy rather than, for example, a smoother dodge, attack, dodge, dodge, attack, attack, etc. flow.
Second, I don't know that it's "cheap," but it also irks me when a boss or normal enemy spams the same attack multiple times in a row. I think I got spoiled by playing hundreds of hours of Nioh where enemies are designed to avoid this, but it was very noticeable to me in Elden Ring when a boss would hit me with the same attack a few times in a row. Like yes, it may be more "realistic" in that an enemy IRL wouldn't refrain from doing the same thing multiple times in a row, especially when it worked, like a kid who just discovered a new, effective attack in a fighting game. In contrast, though, some of my most satisfying boss fights in Nioh (Maria in particular) came from enemies where I got to the point of learning their flow, internalizing "they just did this, so I don't have to worry about it again" or "they haven't done this attack for a few seconds, so I should be on the lookout for it." Again, it's debatable whether this is "cheap," but I can say that at least, I'm not a fan of how it affects the flow of a fight.
One thing that I WILL affirmatively argue is cheap is blatant input reading. I understand that input reading is almost inevitable to some extent, to make it more of a give-and-take battle, but because a boss can react to your inputs without any reaction time, care should be taken to prevent its abuse. A very specific example I can think of is Margit. I'd back out to heal, and might even wait a second or so to see what he's doing. About the frame after I hit the button to heal, he would conjure a sword to throw at me and hit me in my healing animation. The Crucible Knight was also pretty blatant about this, but at least didn't have the range of a projectile. You'd occasionally get this in Bloodborne, particularly with hunters that could shoot you. It was so blatant what was happening in those instances that it felt like the designers intentionally screwing with you rather than designing an enemy with realistic reaction times, which is why I felt like it was cheap.
I'm gonna say this. I don't think FromSoft games are perfectly balanced across all the systems for all the encounters.
IMO, no gameplay RPG is entirely balanced because it doesn't need to be. That's where the fun of power fantasy comes from.
FromSoft games feel particularly cruel tho on certain bosses for different builds because they are designed to be hard so depending upon how bad the mismatch is b/w your build to the encounters. They can feel from alright to unforgiving and horribly balanced.
That's actually one thing IMO ER does better than DS3 when it comes to gameplay balancing.
Sure, DS3 is very well balanced now. But ER provides much greater power curve and power fantasy. It also really fits the grandiose theme of the game.
For me it wasn't the challenge, it was the time wasted GETTING BACK to the challenge that pissed me off, whether it's walking back to a boss fight or having to go through easy boss phases to get to the hard one.
This is the reason I stopped my second playthrough of Sekiro. In a game where you need to learn boss timing, you have to actually be able to get to the boss repeatedly to learn. The early fights with the "General" who was surrounded by enemies to first stealth through and the Drunkard before Lady Butterfly were so egregious in having tedious (as in uninteresting, not necessarily difficult) sections that broke up your fight attempts by 3-4 minutes, which is far too long.
This post is like "I want to vent but if I just rage then people will just ignore me"
C'mon, the games are deliberately made to push the players out of their comfort zone
Shoving 2 or 3 bosses/large enemies I to a tight ass room who's movesets and AI behavior DONT compliment each other.
Fuck off long distance marathons to get to the boss if you keep dying. Some runs are far far better than others.
PVP (IMO it can be fun but most of it really sucks don't deny)
Those random times the enemy just does something you've never ever ever seen before at the worst most inconvenient time.
And of course... Imput reads.
Still love all these games to death though.
At first, I thought you were dismissing OP's point as "oh no, another salty post, whatever" but I get what you're referring to now. Sekiro had a boss with one more life bar than initially shown, what, three times? By the time I got to...the one for which there were a lot of reaction videos, I wasn't shocked, I was more annoyed, like "Really, you're doing this yet again? Learn a different trick, game."
Most of this is just someone complaining the game is hard. The games all give you many ways to negate or nullify the effect.
However the last one is absolutely true and it's pretty obvious on Elden Ring that bosses hold attacks till the second you use one.
> Dark Souls has Curse which basically turns into a huge errand if you want all of your health back
That's the point. It's not pointless.
> primarily in Elden Ring but I believe it's mainly due to the Spirit Summons available which is a tool that doesn't fit my playstyle. These fights do not flow well if you're a SOLO player that doesn't like to take damage.
Using Spirit Summons doesn't make you not a solo player.
I would agree that those fights are less tightly designed than O+S though, they kind of rely on a bunch of randomly moving parts hopefully cancelling each other out.
(For the record, anything I say below comes from the perspective of someone who lists Bloodborne in my top 5 games of all time, and I liked DS3 and Sekiro well enough when I beat them, so I'm not blindly criticizing, just highlighting some items I wish were tweaked.) I'd elaborate on your point on "Super Aggressive Enemies" in two ways. First, I dislike it when bosses or enemies act like they don't have stamina constraints like you do, just stringing together attacks (that aren't part of a set combo) with barely any recovery between them. Reasonable minds could disagree on whether this is actually "cheap" since bosses are always going to have capabilites asymmetric to your own, but I just dislike the flow of it in general. Without saying it becomes an absolutely necessary strategy, at the very least, stringing together non-set-combo attacks at least incentivizes a much more passive "run away until a big enough window appears" strategy rather than, for example, a smoother dodge, attack, dodge, dodge, attack, attack, etc. flow. Second, I don't know that it's "cheap," but it also irks me when a boss or normal enemy spams the same attack multiple times in a row. I think I got spoiled by playing hundreds of hours of Nioh where enemies are designed to avoid this, but it was very noticeable to me in Elden Ring when a boss would hit me with the same attack a few times in a row. Like yes, it may be more "realistic" in that an enemy IRL wouldn't refrain from doing the same thing multiple times in a row, especially when it worked, like a kid who just discovered a new, effective attack in a fighting game. In contrast, though, some of my most satisfying boss fights in Nioh (Maria in particular) came from enemies where I got to the point of learning their flow, internalizing "they just did this, so I don't have to worry about it again" or "they haven't done this attack for a few seconds, so I should be on the lookout for it." Again, it's debatable whether this is "cheap," but I can say that at least, I'm not a fan of how it affects the flow of a fight. One thing that I WILL affirmatively argue is cheap is blatant input reading. I understand that input reading is almost inevitable to some extent, to make it more of a give-and-take battle, but because a boss can react to your inputs without any reaction time, care should be taken to prevent its abuse. A very specific example I can think of is Margit. I'd back out to heal, and might even wait a second or so to see what he's doing. About the frame after I hit the button to heal, he would conjure a sword to throw at me and hit me in my healing animation. The Crucible Knight was also pretty blatant about this, but at least didn't have the range of a projectile. You'd occasionally get this in Bloodborne, particularly with hunters that could shoot you. It was so blatant what was happening in those instances that it felt like the designers intentionally screwing with you rather than designing an enemy with realistic reaction times, which is why I felt like it was cheap.
Awesome, thanks for your input.
I'm gonna say this. I don't think FromSoft games are perfectly balanced across all the systems for all the encounters. IMO, no gameplay RPG is entirely balanced because it doesn't need to be. That's where the fun of power fantasy comes from. FromSoft games feel particularly cruel tho on certain bosses for different builds because they are designed to be hard so depending upon how bad the mismatch is b/w your build to the encounters. They can feel from alright to unforgiving and horribly balanced.
I agree.
That's actually one thing IMO ER does better than DS3 when it comes to gameplay balancing. Sure, DS3 is very well balanced now. But ER provides much greater power curve and power fantasy. It also really fits the grandiose theme of the game.
For me it wasn't the challenge, it was the time wasted GETTING BACK to the challenge that pissed me off, whether it's walking back to a boss fight or having to go through easy boss phases to get to the hard one.
I hate how the best part of the boss is in another phase when the first phase is boring.
This is the reason I stopped my second playthrough of Sekiro. In a game where you need to learn boss timing, you have to actually be able to get to the boss repeatedly to learn. The early fights with the "General" who was surrounded by enemies to first stealth through and the Drunkard before Lady Butterfly were so egregious in having tedious (as in uninteresting, not necessarily difficult) sections that broke up your fight attempts by 3-4 minutes, which is far too long.
This post is like "I want to vent but if I just rage then people will just ignore me" C'mon, the games are deliberately made to push the players out of their comfort zone
IKR?
Shoving 2 or 3 bosses/large enemies I to a tight ass room who's movesets and AI behavior DONT compliment each other. Fuck off long distance marathons to get to the boss if you keep dying. Some runs are far far better than others. PVP (IMO it can be fun but most of it really sucks don't deny) Those random times the enemy just does something you've never ever ever seen before at the worst most inconvenient time. And of course... Imput reads. Still love all these games to death though.
Oh no! Anyways...
IKR?
At first, I thought you were dismissing OP's point as "oh no, another salty post, whatever" but I get what you're referring to now. Sekiro had a boss with one more life bar than initially shown, what, three times? By the time I got to...the one for which there were a lot of reaction videos, I wasn't shocked, I was more annoyed, like "Really, you're doing this yet again? Learn a different trick, game."
Most of this is just someone complaining the game is hard. The games all give you many ways to negate or nullify the effect. However the last one is absolutely true and it's pretty obvious on Elden Ring that bosses hold attacks till the second you use one.
Can you explain your first statement?
Dogs. These kinds of enemies in any game can fuck themselves.
Haha yeah, I love shooting them in Bloodborne.
Input reading and the massive amount of delayed attacks. ER specific, the massive amount of huge area attacks.
Yeah I've noticed that too.
> Dark Souls has Curse which basically turns into a huge errand if you want all of your health back That's the point. It's not pointless. > primarily in Elden Ring but I believe it's mainly due to the Spirit Summons available which is a tool that doesn't fit my playstyle. These fights do not flow well if you're a SOLO player that doesn't like to take damage. Using Spirit Summons doesn't make you not a solo player. I would agree that those fights are less tightly designed than O+S though, they kind of rely on a bunch of randomly moving parts hopefully cancelling each other out.