I really wanted to like ER. It’s fucking beautiful and seems to have a lot of depth, but the a appeal to difficulty doesn’t really hold any water, cuz the only thing that makes it difficult is unnecessarily clunky controls.
Maybe there’s a mod or something now that makes the combat more fluid… I should give it another visit.
soulslike mechanics probably feel clunky to people that don’t really play soulslike. That said a bunch of things totally are clunky like cycling through spells and items which hasn’t significantly changed since dark souls, and for people that would rather take their time browsing the items walking while the menu is up is probably pretty jarring. Probably other things. It really has come a long way from demon souls but I honesly kinda prefer the jankiness of the older games.
It’s been a while, but I recall most attacks having an obnoxiously long animation, and that animation being set in stone once you trigger it. There is no aborting a sword-swing midway through to dodge or block. And if you make the mistake of pressing the attack button twice, apparently there’s a built-in ability queue that can’t be disabled, so you have to wait for the first animation to completely play through, then wait again for a second animation to play from start to finish.
It makes it extremely unresponsive. That unresponsiveness seems to be what most folks are talking about when they’re applauding the game’s “difficulty”… but you could make any game that flavor of difficult by obstructing the controls.
One could accuse Elden Ring of many things, but clunky controls is definitively not one of them.
It’s probably one of the best combat systems I’ve ever played. When you die, you know it’s your fault (usually because of greed), not the system cheating you. It’s very fair, unlike many others.
I mean, bosses input reading my heavy attack to suddenly turn their three move combo into a four move combo 50% of the time feels a bit lame. For instance the dancing lion suddenly going into the spray carousel after it would have exhausted its combo and rested otherwise. My main issue is on the inconsistency.
Don’t get me wrong, that fight was really fun and I overcame it, but there are many such cases where it feels overtly like the game just threw in the extra attack as a “fuck you” while trying to learn the mechanics. There might be a subtle cue to the boss’s body language I didn’t see but there’s also the issue of the camera in encounters with large enemies.
On the whole though, as frustrating as it may be at times, often there’s still an underlying pattern. The only fights I think are explicitly unfair are the ones with adds or multiple enemies that add a lot of uncertainty especially if some are off camera. The twin gargoyle fight comes to mind, as does the Godskin duo where you explicitly have to kill both around the same time or the other respawns.
Which stats? I put over 100 hours into ER if that’s what you’re looking for. Like I said, I really wanted to like it, and ‘got gud’ (learned to time the control’s clunkiness) enough to progress a decent way through the game. But it never actually got fun, nor did it live up to the wildly positive feedback it was getting from the gaming community. ER is an okay game. 5/10. It’s not bad by any stretch, but it’s not the posterchild of a perfect game that it was/is lauded as.
They couldn’t even be bothered to report the correct keys if you use anything but an xbox controller or allow custom key binds in Dark Souls 3. I will never understand the praise the Dark Souls 3 PC port got.
I really wanted to like ER. It’s fucking beautiful and seems to have a lot of depth, but the a appeal to difficulty doesn’t really hold any water, cuz the only thing that makes it difficult is unnecessarily clunky controls.
Maybe there’s a mod or something now that makes the combat more fluid… I should give it another visit.
What are you even talking about? In what way are the controls clunky?
soulslike mechanics probably feel clunky to people that don’t really play soulslike. That said a bunch of things totally are clunky like cycling through spells and items which hasn’t significantly changed since dark souls, and for people that would rather take their time browsing the items walking while the menu is up is probably pretty jarring. Probably other things. It really has come a long way from demon souls but I honesly kinda prefer the jankiness of the older games.
It’s been a while, but I recall most attacks having an obnoxiously long animation, and that animation being set in stone once you trigger it. There is no aborting a sword-swing midway through to dodge or block. And if you make the mistake of pressing the attack button twice, apparently there’s a built-in ability queue that can’t be disabled, so you have to wait for the first animation to completely play through, then wait again for a second animation to play from start to finish.
It makes it extremely unresponsive. That unresponsiveness seems to be what most folks are talking about when they’re applauding the game’s “difficulty”… but you could make any game that flavor of difficult by obstructing the controls.
One could accuse Elden Ring of many things, but clunky controls is definitively not one of them.
It’s probably one of the best combat systems I’ve ever played. When you die, you know it’s your fault (usually because of greed), not the system cheating you. It’s very fair, unlike many others.
I mean, bosses input reading my heavy attack to suddenly turn their three move combo into a four move combo 50% of the time feels a bit lame. For instance the dancing lion suddenly going into the spray carousel after it would have exhausted its combo and rested otherwise. My main issue is on the inconsistency.
Don’t get me wrong, that fight was really fun and I overcame it, but there are many such cases where it feels overtly like the game just threw in the extra attack as a “fuck you” while trying to learn the mechanics. There might be a subtle cue to the boss’s body language I didn’t see but there’s also the issue of the camera in encounters with large enemies.
On the whole though, as frustrating as it may be at times, often there’s still an underlying pattern. The only fights I think are explicitly unfair are the ones with adds or multiple enemies that add a lot of uncertainty especially if some are off camera. The twin gargoyle fight comes to mind, as does the Godskin duo where you explicitly have to kill both around the same time or the other respawns.
Get the fuck out of here. Absolute troll post.
Post your steam account stats, I dare you.
Which stats? I put over 100 hours into ER if that’s what you’re looking for. Like I said, I really wanted to like it, and ‘got gud’ (learned to time the control’s clunkiness) enough to progress a decent way through the game. But it never actually got fun, nor did it live up to the wildly positive feedback it was getting from the gaming community. ER is an okay game. 5/10. It’s not bad by any stretch, but it’s not the posterchild of a perfect game that it was/is lauded as.
People are allowed to not like games you like …
I also find souls likes to feel janky. Elden Ring is playable for me, Dark Souls 3 I just rage quit rather than dealing with its UI.
They have the same UI and flow between each element…
They couldn’t even be bothered to report the correct keys if you use anything but an xbox controller or allow custom key binds in Dark Souls 3. I will never understand the praise the Dark Souls 3 PC port got.