That moment when you are wielding in each hand a colossal greatsword of black meteorite steel, etched with gravity defying magic runes, taken from the corpse of a warrior demi god who once had enough power to halt the very motion of stars, but you're getting slaughtered by rats because their teeth are apparently as strong as my swords
I have this experience.. I'm running double faith scythes but play them agile like a greatsword. I fight rune bears when I see them just to kill them, and have first tried a few bosses (albeit possibly overleveled)... but rats and dogs I fear the most.
love that giant guy who shoots arrows the size of pine trees at you? bout 170 damage little red dog with some mange and bleed? that'll be about 4000 damage
Rather than turn enemy damage down, I think the player needs to be able to increase their damage mitigation actively, more. Leveling up your stats should have a greater effect on it as you scale later into the game, where the damage starts to actually become a problem.
I think they shoulda pulled a DS2 and had every level increase your max hp while still having the vigor stat to really boost it when you wanted. Better defensive scaling coud also help this too
or increase the bosses health and decrease their damage. ds3 mightve taken it too far with midir, but that dragon was challenging as shit to overcome but not because of bs damage numbers
@@marshallhiggins4194 Bruh, you think out of this 4 and a half tries he didnt do the normal "knight with big sword" build? I finished this game 3 days ago using the General Rick (TM) characterset with the grafted blade greatsword, and it has been as equally painfull at the endgame as boring. Tank god for beef Endurance beacuse fatrolling will never lets you win. Ever.
@@sopadefideos5636 yea I think they're designed specifically to use summons. Like double crucible knight etc. Batman players try to do it solo anyways even when it'll be unfair doing it solo. Godskin duo is a perfect example of a boss that was seocifically designed with spirit summons and multi-player in mind yet people hate it because they try to solo it
For me it's too hard and too easy at the same time. I think that's okay tho cos there's different ways that work best with different bosses and it makes the player think smart.
Yeah, but then he also does reviews for games that don't need one like Knack 2, why would you do a review on that if everyone already knows it's a *mastapiece*
Dunkey is so real, he beats the game 4 times and loves it but will still point out to you the biggest flaws with the game in the most entertaining way. The GOAT of game reviews.
The health bar is a ruse. You have 3 hearts like in Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It's just that you're fighting an orbital space cannon powered by the disappointment of Christmas gifts you didn't get as a child.
I see where you're coming from, but it's still more like a 1 heart challenge. If it was three, you'd still be taking three hits to die most the time. This is I Wanna Be The Dark Souls.
Same. I'm like 200 hours in and only just getting to the capital. Granted, I'm exploring every inch of every map and not leaving them until every rock is turned over.
When the thing has a thing the thing said the thing was thinging too thing but now the thing lives in the things life... that thing, the thing is, a thing.
@@ALFREDSTARK bloodborne is crazy but very few bosses have combos as long as most of the bosses in this game plus most of them have huge aoe’s that’ll one shot you both are great but bloodborne is a pretty decent amount easier and that’s coming from someone who considers blood borne their favorite game
I mostly agree on the balancing....its the fact that it swings wildly between too easy and too hard is the real problem. I am constantly changing from feeling overlevelled to underlevelled, often in the same area.
I kind of hope they go back to more linear Souls-Like-Games in the future or figure something out for their open world. Cuz in a linear game you would not have that problem, in the original Dark Souls you are almost always as strong or weak as they want you to be in that moment, and if an area is unbeatable hard, you are not supposed to be there. In Elden Ring, I could not tell if I am right or wrong all the time.
I actually think the areas are reasonably consistent within themselves for the most part, it's mainly bleed I have a problem with. Other than that just build Vigor you'll be ok.
@@williamhall9271 I agree with this, There are definitely instances where you can accidentally stumble upon an area that's too high level (like going from Limgrave to Caelid for instance), but to the player, spending even a good 5 minutes in these areas should tell yourself "Oh I shouldn't be here yet". But overall I never really experienced this too much, because the game incentivizes you to explore everything, rather then trying to go from area to area as quickly as possible... in fact you'll get punished more often then not if you play like that. Most of the time, I was quite on par for every new area I entered because of that fact, albeit maybe even a little OVER-leveled. I also think people severely underestimate how important vigor is. I've seen people who are like level 80 and only have like 20ish vigor which in most areas around that level will have enemies that borderline one shot you.
Holy fuck this was my freinds the whole time when i was playing, i had 35 vigor and they were still like "omg you have too little health no wonder you are getting 1 shot"
@@BlueeCatss I found health much more important in this game, since it spikes massively past a certain point. From 30-40 you basically double your health.
@@BlueeCatss 35 vigor more than enough i believe, gives you around 1500 hp which is only 400 less than what you would get for 60 and 600 less than what you get for 99.
It's true, I thought 35 vigor was enough until I got to real end game areas like the Haligtree, where the ants cum shot beam will one shot you at like 50 vigor.
@@thomaskobylas1268 I think that there’s so many broken builds and weapons that they just increased end game damage to balance it out xD More seriously no the game doesn’t seem unbalanced, if you have the level and the experience you can roll over each boss, even without a broken build or mimic tear. For exemple, many people say that Orstein n Smough, Artorias and Manus are some of the toughest boss in Souls game and I beat them first try no sweat with a mere Zweihander. On the other hand Sullyvan pounded me so hard, I still have ptsd on new games + xD so go figure.
@@thomaskobylas1268 what the fuck is this supposed to mean, the fact that the game as objectively better strategy does not have nothing to do with me, and especially does not have anything to do with your little "the guy who did this"
I still think its the easiest one out of the bunch, yea some bosses are hard as hell but the game never forces you to play one way, theres so many different variables and options to get around things that i never found myself getting too frustrated
yeah im going through phases like i need to check out this whole area then its i need to go and check out the next one because theres soooo much veriety in landscapes that is so captivating, like it was jaw dropping the first time i wenty underground, and that not just because of the archers with giant bows who headshot you from a mile away lol
I think they probably hand-picked several minibosses and toned down the souls you get to prevent you from becoming overlevelled as you explore, not sure it was the best way to handle it but I think it works (yes I said souls, fight me)
My favorite part was watching the bosses do a 30 hit combo, dodging it perfectly then failing to get a counterhit because they landed too far away. Great game nonetheless
Yeah the mobility is the biggest issue. Damage can be dodged, but mobility to jump away from return damage, and never-ending combos that leave tiny windows in which to do that return damage, are the main issues with lategame bosses.
It's sad to think how many bosses would be infinitely improved if their damage wasn't so badly over-tuned. Getting your ass kicked around the arena by a tough boss can be heaps of fun, but getting nuked so fast you learn nothing about their attack patterns, then spending the next five minutes staring at loading screens and running back to the fog door is incredibly dull and frustrating.
Yeah honestly one of the worst parts of dying for me was watching my character scream out in pain, the "You Died" text appearing, and having to look at a loading screen in silence for a whole minute just so that I could walk back to the boss to fight them again. I wouldn't mind failing so much if you could just quickly continue fighting the boss.
I've put 200 hours into this game and the rune scaling for enemies frustrates me the most. Dunk put it perfectly here - you get basically no runes from normal enemies and even minibosses, so you're incentivized to run past things you've beat once and grab items on the way, and either use sleepy boys' farming ledge or rush main bosses so you can actually level up
@@SpoonyBard88 True, but the main boss chain is a fair bit longer in this game, so it becomes more noticeable. It would be nice to see at least a little rune reward rebalancing for some of the later zones.
If you have that many hours then you should know runes dropped by regular mobs are irrelevant. You get so many souls from bosses and so many loot souls like hero's rune and lord's rune. Any one of the last few bosses drop over a hundred thousand runes if you hop over to do co op.
@@SotC402 100k runes are irrelevant if the sleepy boys give you that much in 15secounds And I'm not even over exaggerating any decent aoe ash of war or skill will kill all of them in 1 or 2 attacks on a good upgrade level, which you'll have anyways in the endgame. And one run nets you upward of 40k without the item that temporarily boost rune gain. Heck you can kill that bird for like 14k at level 1, no need to do any real damage to him either and you can redo that about every 20s or so aswell Boss runes just feel unrewarding. And before the update 100k runes are not even enought to boost a unique to +9 if you had to buy some stones
Elden ring has some of the best examples from any fromsoft game of why I don't feel bad about cheesing fromsoft games. Enemies have absolutely no problem stunlocking you, hyper-armoring through everything you do, one-shotting you, or doing really whatever they feel like to make you drop your runes. You best believe I'm going to come back at that shit with every tool under my belt idc if I gotta lure em off a cliff or snipe them from on top of rock lmao fuck them
I'd say I agree with this especially for Elden Ring, some Dark/Demon Souls and some Bloodborne bosses . Sekiro though because you're supposed to play a certain way is hard but fair and just require to memorize every boss move until you anticipate each of them. And Sekiro being a solo experience first it's pointless to cheese your way to the game. That said I'm in the Souls game (including Elden Ring) for the PVP so my goal now is just to quickly get 2 or 3 builds to meta level and you can bet I'm not going to try and beat every boss fair and square haha
@@TheBGYeti I wouldn't describe Monster Hunter as the pinnacle of balancing. Some bosses are straight copy and paste with artificial difficulty slapped on, while some bosses just put giant AoEs of debuffs everywhere that force you to roll 20 times just to be hit by another one. I get the complaint tho.
The rule of thumb I used was if it was a unique design or a main story boss to beat it myself - but if it’s a boss I’ve already fought in a previous area or a bullshit double fight then the cheese tactics come out
@@GuitarSlayer136 to be fair some of elden rings bosses are the best in the series since sekiro. Margit/Morgott for instance are amazing and can be fought super clean, same goes for Godfrey, Radagon, etc. When elden ring wants to have a fair fight it's usually pretty good.
I’m so glad he mentioned how the respawning giant guys that can’t turn and have 1 attack are worth almost as much as a non responding mini boss in the same area that’s much more difficult. When I killed him I thought there was some glitch because he wasn’t worth the effort for that little at all.
When I first killed one of those guys, I thought I might have accidentally gotten myself way overlvled for the current zone. I didn't have to travel much further to realize that was definitely NOT the case.
It's even worse in Ashen Capital. There are some miniboss encounters there that could probably slap some of the earlier Shardbearer bosses to death that only give like 18k souls when you beat them. Soul crushing. Mohg alone gave me 500k and a Great Rune while a more difficult miniboss encounter at endgame gave me like 18k and nothing else.
Oh that's because you have to figure out a way around their annoying breath attack, the few thousand souls is your reward for doing so. The Crucible dudes are more out of the way and you have to more or less seek them out.
"Pre-morgott" and "post-morgott" genuinely feel like 2 different games. I enjoy making a new character build just so I can play "pre-morgott" elden ring some more.
Exactly. You either farm forever to boost your stats so you can have a semblance of fun in the Mountaintop, or you go to the Mountaintops and run for your life. But wait! Did you decide not to farm for 10s of hours? Well then good luck fighting the 45,000 HP Fire Giant, you will 1 shot you with any of his moves. I am of the group of people who straight up dislike post-Morgott. Not a fun game after that. Haligtree is cool i guess
@@billycostigan1247 Haligtree looks nice, but it just being a tiny zone with relentless enemy spam of reused mobs is lame. Fighting swaths of enemies at once is a breeze for certain builds and a borderline impossibility for others without kiting or cheesing. The couple of zones like that in Ds2 got an incredible amount of criticism but people just refuse to criticize elden ring no matter how much it deserves it for lazy reused enemy spam.
@@billycostigan1247 I have bought the game 2 weeks ago, I have 120 hours in the game and I just can't fucking kill the fire giant at level 110. Its like a wall I can't pass
@@beastmasterbg Thats the worst part! You are supposed to be lvl 120 for the fn Giant. I dont know how you are sopposed to get that without farming halligtree Soldiers or farming auranics in moghs palace. I finished the game with a lvl 160 Character recommended is 150. Thats my complaint that i dont ever read around here: Runes are super hard to come organically by after lvl 50-60. Without extensive Farming you are always underlevelled.
@@christopherschneider2968 yeah , I finished the game at level 147. Once I did a new build on faith. It was easier to kill them but I had to cheese it with lvl10 mimic spirit
Honestly while I wasn't super aware of it as I played, Dunkey's final point really hit home. I dumped heavily into vigor, having an insanely big health bar, combined with a greater rune to give me even more health, still get one shot. How did I beat the last few bosses? A super cheesy double giant-crusher build and my mimic. Cause if I got wrecked by Malenia's jumping flurry attack one more time I was going to lose it. I hope Fromsoft does adjust the damage values on some enemies, because it would help with more build variety.
I'll be honest, I've been running around with 40 vig and really light-weight armor and it feels like plenty. Malenia's full flurry can still kill you, but you can safely tank one or two parts of it.
@yoda gaming Exactly and its not that you have to dodge everything. With the right build you just need to identify 4 categories. Dodge, tank with shield and guard counter, trade, completely free to wreck their shit. I played power stance great swords in the beginning. Went full weeb with moonveil and meteoric ore blade after Rennala. Went back to great sword power stance after getting radhans weapon plus meteoric ore blade and shield or meteoric ore blade and wakizashi depending on the situation or how I feel.
@yoda gaming ah, the usual "git good" reply instead of an actual useful comment. Maybe it would be nice if failing to dodge one hit didn't end the entire fight.
Spot on with this. The scaling is insane and you can do a whole dungeon and get 3k runes after a boss that will make you its bitch but you can shoot a bird 4 times for 10 times the amount.
the point still stands even in the late game lol. a late game optional dungeon can take you an hour and give you 50k runes, and you can get 50k from fighting common enemies in a neighbor area for 2 minutes
The damage near endgame is indeed a problem. Leveling your vigor to softcap is supposed to give you more chances to recover from fucking up. It's not supposed to be a minimum requirement to prevent a single mistake from killing you. You shouldn't have to level your vigor to softcap to prevent the game from feeling like you're doing a SL1 challenge run. When I want that experience I'll choose it by keeping my vigor low. The fact that you can get 1-shot with 40+ vigor and 33%DR in NG is absurd, but merely one extreme of the issue. Pack leader mobs can 2-shot you with attacks that are as swift as an R1 from a straight sword. Mobs can turn a single hit into a guaranteed second hit that will 2-shot you. During my first playthough, I pumped my vigor from 27 to 40+ because I wanted some leeway. I was using dual daggers, favoring ripostes with the critical hit hp recovery talisman. I wanted that HP leeway so that when I took a hit from a trash mob, or got clipped by a swift boss attack, or missed a parry by a few frames, I wouldn't HAVE to top off to prevent one more mistake from killing me. If I could get a critical hit without fucking up again I could recover from the initial mistake. But near endgame that leeway disappeared. I stopped using the critical heal talisman because I could no longer use it safely. I stopped trying to learn parry timing because a single small mistake, a single misread of enemies with timing mixups, could easily kill me. Often you lose so much HP from a single mistake that a single flask can't even put you back to safety. It's not like this was a single boss my build was poor against. It's entire areas: bosses, mini-bosses, tough mobs, and even trash mobs included; Multiple areas even!
@@Massakre8492nd 'Getting used to the BS' is tolerating ass game design that you're forgetting you're paying actual money for, often hours worth of actual time for. It's worth thinking about, and not even with this specific game. I mean, you're right, after all. It is a souls game. Nobody was under the impression it'd be easy.
@@theinstitute1324 it's not about tolerating it, it's about bracing yourself before it hits, this game it's vigor that is essential until it's not, bleed and lack of balance, you can expect that from a man with crippling poison swamp addiction. Overall brace for bs, You know it's there, nobody says it's good but that's the hand we're dealt
Wholeheartedly agree with Dunkey here, the damage output of enemies is astronomically high. There are so many instances where you can go from full HP to dead in less than a second with you not being able to do anything about it that it just gets exhausting and once you do win, it's less of a satisfying "Hell yeah, got their ass" and more of an exasperated "Thank God that's finally done, I hope the reward is actually worth it". It's artificial difficulty, whether others will accept that or not. I feel I was truly beaten when I got out played by someone/something out-maneuvering, not when the game just says "lol you got grabbed and insta-killed/you didn't react in time to that auto kill combo that gives you 1 frame to react". This game is fun and I enjoy playing it, but the balancing stops existing at some point and it hurts the game.
Anyone who actually plays Elden Ring long enough to beat it has Severe OCD no exceptions. hell anyone who plays any fromsoft souls like titles has OCD if they can stick with it, it's a more reliable way to diagnose OCD than anything else we have. Also one of the things that makes having OCD at least worth something. I Say this as someone who has severe OCD as proven by the fact I play these games a lot.
@@BornFlunky 😂😂 I mean, what you said was funny and all. But he could technically correct his theory by simply educating himself. If he were to put forth all his effort, and apply diligence and determination to learning everything there is regarding psychology and psychiatry, he would have a very high chance of being a good psychiatrist. I know what you said was a passive-aggressive joke, but I’m just being technical. Idk why 😂
It's quite funny you said this. I have struggled with OCD my entire life. I'm 28 years old and my family still calls me "wings," because when i was a little boy, I would pull my velcro on my shoes so ridiculously hard that the sides of my shoes would have large velcro overhangs on them, resembling wings. My feet were sore, blood cut off severely, and I still insisted on doing it. My point here is, I still have bad problems with it, and I am the biggest souls junkie Fromsoft loser on earth. I have put a minimum of 500 hours into every one of their games (not saying this proudly btw) and I cite their games as one of my biggest inspirations in life in general. To get to the point, I have only gotten so good at souls games and beaten all the bosses and games because of the fact that I have OCD. Now, this does include other games as well, as I have never not finished a game even if I despise it because of my disorder, but it rears its ugly head the worst when it comes to soulsborne. I will bang my head against the wall for days just to be able to tell myself that I completed the game one hundred percent and beat every boss, even tho no one except for me will ever know. Anyway, maybe souls likes really do cater to the folks with OCD the most. Who knows. @@zeehero7280
I completely agree. I've beat the game 7 times now (don't judge too hard) and I love it. But the amount of damage enemies do breaks the RPG elements and basically forces you to waste countless levels on HP just so you can not get instakilled. Even with the best armor in the game and almost 2000hp, you can get 2 shot from full health by some enemies. That is garbage. That's not skill based difficulty, that's wasting my time. Still love the game but the balancing for some stuff is truly abhorrent. Luckily they changed some balancing in the latest patch so maybe they will continue tweaking things in the future
the vigor system is there so that there are different options, high damage and low health, high health and low damaged or a balance or both. Don't get me wrong there are a few enemies that do an absolute bull shit amount of damage but I fell it is taken way out of proportion here, I found most enemies doing a fine amount of damage with only a select few that were slightly bull shit.
I honestly have to respect Dunkey for giving Elden Ring a chance even though it’s not a strand-type game. Obviously it’s not going to be on the same level as brilliant titles like Death Stranding or Knack 2, but it is a decent little game for what it is.
Dunkey usually takes some time to give the spotlight to indie studios like FromSoftware, even though this is not his type of game. Dunkey is the realest 💯👊😎
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who had that reaction to the map constantly getting bigger. I feel like the developers knew exactly what they were doing with expanding the size of the blank map beyond its borders, instead of it all being visible immediately (like in Horizon and BoTW)
@@jasonwandererssimplesystem675 Yeah but you can see how big the map is by virtue of the size of the screen. In ER, you don't know how big the game world is until you teleport to Caelid, and then to the Royal Capital. And even then it still catches you off guard with underground biomes which aren't on the map at first, and other weird crap (like the Crumbling Lands)
I feel like a major issue with a lot of bosses especially in the late game is the lack of a meaningful punish window. Think of Pontiff in DS3, dude was very fast and incredibly aggressive he had this one move that felt like a 15 hit combo, but if you were able to successfully dodge that combo you were able to get 3-4 hits in. You were rewarded for playing well. Elden Ring they just launch into another combo or hit you with an attack that’s so fast you barely have time to read it. Just seems like you don’t really get rewarded for playing well most of the time. Still love the game tho I just think they kinda fumbled there
honestly this is my only issue with the game, cos I can level up from exploring if a boss is too tough. But a lot of fights feel like "roll, hit, roll away, dodge, hit, roll away". Take crucible knight. He has a total of ONE moves that can be punished with more than one attack, and it's at the end of an at least 3-hit combo. In his defense, he's a bit of a parry check and I found his fight a lot more fun once I equipped a buckler, but when commander O'' neil uses a gigantic 3 hit aoe rot attack, he has to recover for several seconds, while malenia can use one of the most broken moves ever created by fromsoft and instantly recover as if it was a tuesday, it's ridiculous.
i think most of the enemies have an invisible stamina bar and mana bar you can't see, and their moves consume that, which is why they might go bullshit move into bullshit move very quickly but then take a 6 second breather after a relatively weak move, but that may just be me coping
I’ve heard horror stories of Pontiff. By some random stroke of luck I managed to beat him on my first try. I guess I got extremely lucky with RNG and he didn’t do any sort of wacky combos. I stayed behind him pretty much the entire fight and just made him go around and around in a circle.
Well, a lot of bosses in this game are simply designed to confuse you with their moves. Morgott, for example, has like 4 different variants of a certain move of his (the one where he raises his sword/staff high, then after a delay slams it down hard), which look similar, especially at the start of the animation, but have considerably different speed and most importantly different follow-ups. If you succeed in dodging the slowest variant, you are rewarded with a meaningful punish window, which is as big as Pontiff's after his long-ass combo. The faster ones, however, aren't very punishable, since after those he immediately does a really fast follow-up attack and, what's even worse (or better, if you enjoy getting fucked), the combos they're part of can potentially loop What I'm getting at is that the game's bosses (yes, even Malenia) give you a lot more punish windows than you think. Identifying them, however, can be difficult
this, its not even the big damage thats a problem. with proper talismans and enough hp (not even the recommended 60 vigor), you still dont get 1 shot by the VAST majority of things, or even 2 shot. The problem is when certain bosses do an 80 hit combo and you dodge a lot of it, then youre out of stamina and need to heal and they do a follow up 80 hit combo. (looking at you horah loux). I love the game, beat it several times. But dunkey is off with the damage problem, its a punish window problem.
Absolutely agree with this take. The scaling is absurd and the bosses seem to have infinite stamina, leading to you running desperately away from endless combos. My late game boss victorys dont feel earned, instead feeling like i had to beat my head against the boss until the one attempt where they didn’t decide to one shot me
Nailed it! You have to try and try and try again and HOPE they don't pull off "that" move. So, it makes you find a cheap way to beat them, just to get past them, instead of enjoying the battle.
@@vsm303 me when I just take my hand off the controller when malenia decided to use her weapon art. It wasn't worth the hassle of maybe dodging it and losing like half my estus. Just go next and hope she doesn't use it.
You must've been underleveled if you felt like the endgame bosses were overpowered, once you actually pay attention to their attack patterns they become fairly trivial. And there's tools the game gives you to make bosses easier like Elden beast/haligdrake talisman+2, Mohg/purifying crystal tear and shackle, maliketh has the pillars to block his projectiles easily, even with Godfrey you can literally jump over all his AOE attacks lol
@@CallMeTeci chill dude no game will be perfect coz people have different taste no matter how hard a video game company try but still Elden Ring still deserves to be called masterpiece despite its flaws. TL:DR Masterpiece is not equal to perfection,unless you want to devote your view in life just coz the dictionary says so.
Elden Ring is an amazing game. Honestly one of the most phenomenal games I've ever played. That doesn't make it immune from criticism. You can love something and still recognize it's flaws.
Thank the Lord. Like I'm genuinely having a good time with the game, despite hating all the other Souls games, but there are still elements here that make the game less fun than it can be. It's a great game but Souls fans really need to stop pretending that every inconvenience in the game is some divine pure amazing decision that can't be questioned because of its artistic integrity
@@r6scrubs126 Anyone that thinks From softs UI is intuitive is an idiot. This is by far my favourite game of all time but some people can't even get into it because the Menus and Tutorials are so bad that you need someone to explain everything to you that knows the Souls games. This didn't take away from my experience but boy do I remember my struggles with this garbage when I first got into Dark Souls.
The thing with Elden Ring is that it's balancing is purely handled by locational scaling. Each entity has a base HP and DMG values which you then slap an area scaling (plus NG+ area scaling, plus NG+ clear count scaling). There are a total of 21 different scaled zones at the game (29 if you count newly added unused ones probably for the DLC), from the Stranded Graveyard (which has actually no scaling at all), to the Haligtree Roots (which has a staggering 740% boost to enemy HP and almost 380% boost to enemy DMG) The world and enemies outscale your character massively, especially once you start reaching your soft- or hardcaps. Ultimately, it ends up creating a situation of pure artificial difficulty towards the later stages.
@@SinisterChud I didn't know the stats but that makes sense now. Which is why on my first playthrough about 75% of the way through I hit a wall, so I massively overleveled and then plowed through the final bosses without any trouble at all (with mimic ash, of course). Then I had to replay with a normal level character just to see what the final bosses did. I think the two major weaknesses are the difficulty spike and the vast areas of nothingness where exploring is not rewarded. But I still beat it four times too...
Spot on. As much as I love this game, the moment I first dodged under a boss' high jumping attack and watched him track 180 degrees to land the hit anyway, I knew I was going to be butting my head against some true BS.
@@minimiliano there's a difference between panic rolling and hitting the roll button 3 frames too early (you can only dodge during 1 frame btw) (btw this will instakill you) (btw this is the second phase of a boss who's nearest grace site is a brisk mile run length away)
JESUS KNOCKS ON YOUR HEART AND LONGS FOR YOU TO ANSWER! HE DOESN'T WANT TO SEE ANYONE PERISH INTO HELL. GOD LOVES YOU SO HE GIVES YOU FREE WILL AND A CHOICE TO ACCEPT HIM OR REJECT HIM. TO LOVE HIM OR TO LOVE SIN/THIS WORLD. CALL UPON JESUS & ASK HIM TO FORGIVE YOUR SINS! SURRENDER YOUR WILL & YOUR LIFE TO HIM AND HE WILL GIVE YOU ETERNAL LIFE IN HEAVEN! PICTURE YOUR BEST DAY ON EARTH TIMES A BILLION FOR ETERNITY, THAT'S HEAVEN! NOW PICTURE YOUR WORST DAY ON EARTH TIMES A BILLION FOR ETERNITY, THAT'S HELL! HE WILL GIVE YOU WHAT YOU WANT SO IF YOU REJECT HIM YOU WILL BE SEPARATED FROM HIM & HIS BLESSINGS (LOVE, PEACE, JOY, HOPE, REST, ETC). IN HELL YOU WILL BE ALONE WITHOUT GOD OR PEOPLE, YOU WILL BE HOPELESS, YOU WILL BE IN DESPAIR & AGONY FOREVER! GOD'S STANDARD FOR HEAVEN IS PERFECTION AND ONLY JESUS (THE SON OF GOD/GOD IN THE FLESH) LIVED THAT PERFECT LIFE! HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE & TOOK THE WRATH OF THE FATHER ON THE CROSS FOR YOUR SINS! GOD IS JUST SO HE MUST PUNISH SIN & HE IS HOLY SO NO SIN CAN ENTER HIS KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. IF YOU ARE IN CHRIST ON JUDGEMENT DAY GOD WILL SEE YOU AS HIS PERFECT SON (SINLESS SINCE YOUR SINS ARE COVERED BY JESUS' OFFERING). YOU CAN ALSO CHOOSE TO REJECT JESUS' GIFT/SACRIFICE & PAY FOR YOUR OWN SIN WITH DEATH (HELL) BUT THAT SEEMS PRETTY FOOLISH! GOD SEES & HEARS EVERYTHING YOU HAVE SAID & DONE. YOU WONT WIN AN ARGUMENT WITH HIM & YOU CANT DEFEND ANY OF YOUR SINS TO HIM. WE'RE ALL GUILTY WITHOUT ACCEPTING JESUS' SACRIFICE FOR OUR SINS! MUHAMMAD DIDN'T DIE FOR YOUR SINS, BUDDHA DIDN'T DIE FOR YOUR SINS, NO PASTOR/PRIEST/MARY OR SAINT DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO IDOLS OR FALSE GODS DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO ACTOR OR CELEBRITY DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO ATHLETE OR POLITICIAN DIED FOR YOUR SINS! JESUS CHRIST ALONE DIED FOR YOUR SINS & WAS RESURRECTED FROM THE GRAVE! HE IS ALIVE & COMING BACK VERY SOON (THESE ARE END TIMES) WITH JUDGEMENT! PREPARE YOURSELVES, TURN FROM SIN & RUN TO JESUS! IT STARTS WITH ASKING HIM TO FORGIVE YOUR SINS & INVITING HIM INTO YOUR HEART/LIFE, SURRENDER ALL TO HIM! IT'S ABOUT A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR CREATOR. HE KNOWS YOUR PAIN & TROUBLES, TALK TO HIM LIKE A BEST FRIEND! ASK HIM TO REVEAL HIMSELF TO YOU & HELP YOU TO BELIEVE IF YOU DOUBT! DON'T WAIT TO CRY OUT! NO ONE IS PROMISED TOMORROW! HE LONGS FOR YOU TO INVITE HIM IN, HE LOVES YOU MORE THAN ANY PERSON EVER COULD, HE CREATED YOU! Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."-John 14:6 "But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."-Matthew 10:33 “For the wages of sin is death (hell), but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”-Romans 6:23
I've beaten the game just about 7 times now with varying builds and I fully agree with enemies doing way too much damage, as well enemies (especially bosses) having a ridiculous amount of combos they can string together with very little time to retaliate with heavier weapons.
@@sitter2207 Even still, with the fact that later on the flask does heal you only to about half, the damage is overtuned. It's sad that you get punished for getting hit just once by an enemy you might never have seen before - or just because it's a new variant. And even then, even if you faced some enemies multiple times, they are still ridiculous bullshit with some moves, like the giant crows who are both fast and very damaging, of which the worst are the ones in Mohgwyn palace of course, which also have incredible amounts of hp. Yes, the game gives you tools to beat nearly every enemy easily. The issue is, I don't feel like switching between 20 consumables in my inventory between two graces just to make a treck through some _very_ unpleasant area a little more bearable. I think that's one of ER's biggest downsides; with many of the open world enemies in later stages being so punishing, it actively incentivizes just running past. In no DS game have I felt as compelled to just skip the area's enemies altogether after the first clear, just because I simply didn't enjoy fighting them because they felt way overtuned.
It's kinda funny, in the beginning I deliberately went into a glass cannon build cos I just wanted all the stats to use the weapons I wanted and mostly ignored vigor so I expected to get killed in 1 or 2 hits. Now, in late game, I brought my vigour up to 30-40 ish and nothing has changed.
No way, you tellin me having low stats at the early game, is like having average stats late game? Its almost like the game gets harder as you progress holy shit
i dont mean to be a dick, but alot of people dont get that the soft cap in this game changes for ever stat and generally caps between 60 and 80 so 40 vigor really isnt all that much especially in end game its like any fromsoftware game where if your vigor isnt close to the cap youll find bosses and hard enemies 1 hitting u
@@roxyinmotion 40 vigor is still a lot of levels dedicated to not dying for it to do barely anything. I've beaten the game solo (no spirit ashes) with 22 vigor, simply because what's the point of going higher? Are bosses going to one-shot me harder? I'm dead either way so who cares. I don't know about DS2 or DS1, but I've beaten DeS:R, Bloodborne and DS3 without putting a single point into vigor and even then I didn't get one shot as often as I get one shot in ER with 22 vigor. Hell, I even did cursed chalices in Bloodborne without putting a single point into vitality and I was still able to survive some of boss attacks. The ammount of levels you have to sink into vigor just to not get one-shot ruins build diversity
@@Starcrafter23 Vigor is the new ADP. Elden Ring has all the flaws of DS2 but magnified. "Level up vigor" is the new "level up ADP". Some bs hidden necessary stat you need to level up just to play the game with minimum bs.
Yeah Dunkey nailed what's probably my biggest issue with the game. The difficulty spikes are so bad sometimes it genuinely doesn't feel like you're improving. I remember feeling like I was somehow getting worse at the game going into the later areas but when I went back to the first area I was an unstoppable killing machine. I had actually improved a ton, but the game cranks enemy stats up so much in between locations that it felt like I was weaker than I had been when I first started! It's just not satisfying in the same way other fromsoft games I've played are, because unless you have the right builds that feeling of hard-earned progression is just... not there.
They did balance the damage from a lot of the bosses and more difficult enemies in the latest patch (1.03). Which only came out about a week ago, so it’s understandable that everyone had so much trouble with it. I did too. Edit from 2024: I lied to you all. They balanced the damage of Radahn. Every other boss is still broken and the DLC is no different. Also the damage wouldn’t be such an issue (for certain bosses) if they actually had good move sets. But the unpredictable timing and input reading of so many attacks makes them incredibly annoying to dodge. Unless you want to memorize the timing of every attack, which is not fun. Or use a summon, which is not fun.
3:28 "Having super aggressive enemies with crazy combos with unpredictable attacks is the fun kind of difficult. But making those moves hit for your entire health bar is fucking lame." This is the biggest problem by far, at least in the end game, that this game has. This game would feel far more fair if enemies and bosses still had the same crazy attacks but they didnt nuke your health bar. Even at 60 vigor some things can still 2 shot me. He's right about fixing it too, and luckily with stats and data and feedback hopefully fromsoft will balance the game better going forward (including the number of runes enemies give)
They patched the damage on a few bosses(Radahn notably), so hopefully they will continue to balance the enemy damage. I loved the game but had that same exact complaint every time I got to the Fire Giant, it just isn't balanced properly.
Based off of how people have talked about Radahn, boy can I absolutely not wait for the hordes of people to come out of the woodwork if anything's made easier in this game, demanding for the changes to be reverted, and also that they get their dick sucked for beating it when it was harder.
I agree, especially with new comers to the Souls series, getting 2 shotted with 50 Vigor and heavy armor shouldn't be the norm. Understandable if you're a squishy mage without a single point in Vigor with robes, but not so much for melee builds that have to get into the mess. Having incremental increases would help, in DS1 your natural/base armor would go up by 1 point. In DS2 your health would go up by 2-3 points even if the Stat wasn't Vigor.
Those attacks were probably meant to be dodged. The only reason you weren't one shotted was because you had 50 vig and armor. And you'll always have flasks to work with.
When exactly does the game get like that. I’m lvl 50 with 16 vigor and I don’t get one shotted by anything. I’ve fought (and lost to Radahn) as well as beaten the demigod in raya Lucaria and I just don’t take the damage this video shows.
Elden Ring falls into a specific category of "Why the fuck does armor have stats?". For like half the encounters that matter, it just makes no sense for me to have a lot of armor, because I'm going to get one shot anyway, while being weighed down by armor.
I know I'm late to the party but I just got Elden Ring and beat it. Only way I was able to beat Malenias waterfowl was to stack as much armor as possible and just fat roll through it. I also had dragon crest greatshield tali on as well. Prior to that I just could not survive it so it helped that way I guess lol
@@nahfam8794 Only Souls game where armor felt like it had a large impact for me was Dark Souls 2. Past that, I armored up for my Gwyn fight in Dark Souls 1, I put on Havel's armor for the purpose of having better poise (if I remember correctly), so I was just going for chonky.
I think the intended purpose is for you to first level up Health a whole lot, and then eventually find a really good armor set that has high damage protection. That way, you have a really high health pool, as well as increased damage reduction from the solid armor set.
@@jinniptions7596 I only really armored up for the handful of DS2 fights that did stupid amounts of fire damage (Dragon, Smelter Demon, Fume Knight, those pains). Aside from that, I felt like if I wasn't constantly running max armor stats, I'd fall to the ridiculous hordes of enemies constantly.
I remember the final boss of Dark Souls 1 had that combo that if you had a gigantic health bar and good defense it MIGHT not kill you, but that was one combo he had, it was telegraphed, gave ample opportunity to heal after and he didn't do it all the time, but in Elden Ring it feels like most enemies have that combo but it does double the damage, still loving it, I just want to love it even more
And it's not even like we can't bullshit back, by the time I reached the last couple bosses I was kind of burnt out so I tried out the rivers of blood katana, 1st try defeated every endgame boss including malenia with my mimic tear, the final boss did kill me once but it was mostly elden Beasts fault since I couldn't tell where his hit boxes were. It's not the only thing either, hoarfrost stomp, sword of Night and Flame, tons of magic, it's easy to break this game but its also way to easy for the game to break you
@@Omega77232 I think what he’s trying to say was that the older game rewarded you for mastering it (which includes any glitch’s, exploits, and bugs), whilst elden ring only rewards you for playing in a specific way with specific weapons and a specific build.
I've played this for over 50 hours so far and I think I'm only half way through. Definitely the best Pokemon game of all time, I can't wait until I find and upgrade all those legendaries.
He's not wrong, in some of the dungeons you have regular mobs that have more HP and are more of a threat than the actual boss. I died to those mobs several times then killed the boss on my first try without breaking a sweat.
I say this all the time, i spend more time getting to the boss fight than the actual bossfight itself, it’s fucking ridiculous, except haligtree, fuck that place and it’s boss
I love how he could say how good of a game it is but the moment he talks about how unbalanced it is you can already hear fromsoftware fans furiously typing
Its BECAUSE this game is so incredible that the balance issues are so highlighted. Could be a 10/10, but WOW is it just so cheap and dirty out of nowhere. When the random guy in the hall BEFORE the boss room can 2 hit you at level 150? But you just steamroll the boss behind him? ugh... Anyway, My mimic is the true Elden Lord.
Exactly the reason i gave up on the game. After an entire day of college/work you want to spend the few hours of gaming you have relaxing, and dying to the same things for days gets really frustrating. I see why people like it, but it’s just not my thing
I think it's a common soul mechanism to have a boss which is weak but has an op bodyguard I think it's a nice touch, breaks the traditional game boss fight experience
At the beginning, he said he played it through 4 times, at the end it became 4 and a half. It means that Dunkey played through half of the game by the time he finished the video. Such a legend
The other trick is to completely level up Health all the way to 99, wear the most powerful armor set in the game, and two-hand your fully upgraded weapon for maximum damage.
@@aryan7767 YEP. Also, like...the overall boss designs are just straight up cheap. I died most to Orphan before Elden Ring (23 tries). Margit, the first story boss took me 19 tries. It only got worse from there. And before any dipshits ask: yes my vigor was high and I was the right level.
Could agree some normal enemies deals too much damage but bosses are well balanced. Fighting someone that never lost a fight should be somewhat considered hard.
As Dunkey even said about the imabalance in the video, "It only encourages people to use these broken ass builds in the late game." It's not that the game is too hard at all, those broken builds he refers to can trivialize just about every boss fight. It's just too hard using conventional methods, and as a result, players turn to said builds, and end up having a less satisfying experience with their playthrough. I think commenters here are framing it purely as a "Game's too hard" argument, and thumping their chest saying "I beat it so it can't be imbalanced, just git gud!"
Dunkey isn't wrong on the damage balancing, even before I played the game myself I've heard veteran Souls players mention that Elden Ring was the hardest Souls game they've played, and I never understood why. But when I myself experienced getting one shotted over and over again I finally understood. I do like the aspect of it being a lot more unforgiving in the end, I'd still rate it as the best game I've played in years though.
@@tonyvega205 even at 45 vigor with some of the best armor in the game i was still getting one or two shot by some of the later game ENEMIES, not just bosses. i adore this game and am on my second playthrough as we speak, but there's def a point where the damage that enemies and bosses deal feels unreasonable. it feels bad to be dodging everything perfectly, get a boss down to low health, and then just die because you messed up your timing once.
I beat this game four times on the same character and got the platinum for it, I agree with Dunksman, there is a LOT of BS powerful oneshot attacks and cheap deaths, and it really makes me feel justified in saying that you should cheese this game's enemies as hard as you can and as much as you can. Go ahead, "overlevel" it's fine, do it, kill those sleepy frog boys for hours that's fine, because you know what's up the hill from them? a boss who death curses you if you didn't go get the magic anti-curse stone from an out-of-the-way church where an angry red npc invades you and tries to chop you up but she drops the stone and you didn't even know it existed until you beat her after stumbling into the encounter in the first place. Then you need to put that stone in your magic flask and drink it at the right time. Nothing in the game tells you any of this by the way. I had fun with it but it's balance is nonexistent and everything straight up cheats by having infinite mana/ammo/throwing pots they can use against you. So what can you do? Grind, Cheese, and use every dirty trick you can, exploit every weird wall or pillar, kick enemies off cliffs, poison and rot them and run away from their attacks, zap them with lightning from a place they can't reach, there is no honor to be found in the lands between, and the only thing you can trust is dog pope.
@@professortofupanda2308 Dunkey at 3:44 literally addresses this. Most items are just stumbled upon and item names are hardly ever named after their purpose.
I haven't played the DLC, but I've 100%ed the base game and coming off the back of completing darksouls 3 into elden ring, I couldn't believe people were complaining about difficulty. The game is much much easier than the previous games. To the point where comparisons are almost pointless. I had heard a huge amount of complaints about the rot queen melania or whatever her name is. Took me about 5 tries to get her and I was kind of blown away. She had this insane online community talking about her "unfair" levels of difficulty and then I hadn't even learnt her patterns properly yet and still beat her. Darksouls 3 opening 2 hours are harder than most of what is on offer in Elden ring. Dying to a boss in darksouls, you lose your ember buff, so your health is reduced, you drop your souls obviously, and you're put back 5+ minutes of actual fighting, or a 2 minute gauntlet run dodging attacks and arrows etc. Just to even attempt the boss again. Elden ring is just a boss wall with a spawn point directly outside. I feel this whole complaint about damage is crazy, I think it's by far the easiest game in the catalogue - a 70% damage reduction across the board like Dunkey is suggesting is... not it.
i mean if you drop down the hole in the first area there's a whole tutorial zone that holds your hand and teaches you all the core game mechanics. i skipped it, then 20 hours later learned how to two-hand weapons completely by chance, because i saw an NPC invader do it and just started pushing buttons
Yeah, while it's optional there's literally a tutorial dungeon where you fight Some Guy and it stops you every ten seconds with prompts. Not a bad thing, but it exists.
I have to say, I completely agree about the damage scaling in this game. The damage to health ratio is far more in favor of damage in this game than any previous souls game, and lots of players from those games have taken notice. To some extent, I don't think it is changing the difficulty of the game, as your character also does considerably more proportionate damage to enemies. However, it tends to fall into this "boom or bust" style of play where you either win handily or get killed almost instantaneously.
I feel like your character does more damage in this game and you take more damage. Bosses honestly die way to fast imo I used frost stomp on radagon and he just melted like butter.
I think another area of critique to hit was to many colossal bosses that have the ability to move instantly to the other side of a massive arena causing you to have to spend 30-60 seconds walking back over to them. A few of them dont give you horse access (looking at you space bug skeleton and elden beast) Makes a gorgeous fight into a total slog
Havn't even gotten that far and I was really annoyed trying to fight the Twin Gargoyles when the first one kept flying away. I was like- could you just stand still for five FUCKING seconds?!
I've not been addicted to a game like this in years. This is a proper escape, like a game should be. I thought I was growing up and less interested in gaming, maybe that isnt the case after all.
Dunkey is right, amazing games like this are few and far between, despite the flaws. It's probably my favorite game since the Mass Effect trilogy wrapped up in 2012.
Honestly one of the most immersive satisfying games I've ever played in my life. I don't think anything can truly top it, makes you wonder about how shitty and bare-bones the rest of the gaming industry is right now
Abso-fucking-lutely, I was honestly feeling so hopeless after so many trash releases and uninspiring games, that I was honestly afraid to get excited with Elden Ring, but goddamn, I feel like a kid, just waiting for the clock to strike the end of the day to race home and play OoT or MArio 64 or Banjo Kazooie, now I'm waiting till the end of the day to sink more hours exploring and getting my ass kicked in ER, it truly unmasks the sad state of gaming and how accustomed we've become to accepting trash with AAA games
There's also other problems with certain enemies that are just straight up annoying to fight. Some seem to endlessly combo without any real openings, others will literally teleport after you hit them once, some will just automatically dodge your attack and jump 15 feet away after you spent 5 minutes dodging their shit.
Only now that I finished the game for the first time (almost at the end of NG+ now), I realize that this review is 100% correct. An incredible game held back by poor balancing.
It sucks, bc it couldve been a masterpiece. The world, the graphics, the art design, the atmosphere, and the player's combat were all awesome. But the enemy scaling was so difficult and broken that youre too focused on not getting hit once to appreciate a lot of the little things. Oh yeah, and the endgame, starting once you reach the mountaintop, is straight up tedious, boring, and not fun.
@@billycostigan1247 it's crazy because even though the late game is unbalanced, it's still quite fun to me. which makes me wonder what could've been if they had balanced it correctly, i don't think i would've ever gone outside again
I don't even feel like it's a damage or health bar problem. Darkeater Midir has 2 shot potential and his healthbar made it a 15 minutes kill for me but was still super fun and rewarding, in Elden Ring most of the bosses abilities are not fun to play against. Like relentless super fast demolishing combos that you have no business in learning, with no tactic to be found except to randomly roll and pray. It does not make it worth it or fun to learn but encourages you to level up broken summons and weapons. The fights were either too easy or non rewarding bullshit. The only cool bosses i've encoutered so far (i've not done the couple of last areas in endgame yet) are the godskin apostle, elemer of the briar and that dragon at the end of Rannis questline. Margit was also quite cool to fight in the early game. But all the rest was done in 2 attempts roughly.
I don't buy it. The game gets way more fair and balanced if you use everything the game gives you. Each enemy and boss have different attacks and weaknesses. If you realize that your build needs to be dynamic (for each boss a different set of talismans, weapon grease, ashes), then it will get way more fair. When Dunkey streamed the game (after this video launched, so probably the 5th time he beat the game) he almost never looked into using this mechanics. He didn't even care about crafting, for example. So yeah, you can still beat it but of course it will be unbalanced: You are deliberately nerfing yourself by not using what the game provides. How would it not be difficult?
@@astropgn The problem that dunkey mentioned in the video is that the tools the game gives you are too rigid. People don't lean into item crafting because you only get a small amount of materials per drop. So if your strategy to taking down a boss revolves around using an item but you keep dying to the boss in the process of learning its move set then soon you'll either have to backtrack to grind more materials or beat the boss without the item anyways. So most people are gonna just git gud anyways instead of burning time to grind. Weapons usually drop at +0 level so you have to upgrade every new tool from scratch, even if it drops from a mid/late game area. Even then, there are only so many ancient dragon stones per playthrough, so you can only upgrade a handful of weapons to max anyways. Furthermore, you are only given 8 larval tears per playthrough, so if you want to respec your character to use a new weapon then you are taking a massive risk. Let me know if I'm wrong about any of these. But as I see it, for a game that leans into weapon variety and openness, Elden Ring's item limits really hurts the player's ability to experiment solutions to it's problems.
Finding the balance between genuine critical analysis and humour must be very difficult. But dunkey makes it look so effortless. He's been in the youtube game a long time and it shows. I just love it. Thank you dunkey.
FromSoft is famous for their enemy design and they are really bringing the heat, here, not only in sheer quantity but also in terms of moves and variety. Penguins is in this game
Dunkey's criticism is completely unwarranted. He says Elden Ring is too hard? Please allow me to list all the tools that turn the game into easy mode: - Co-op - Spirit ashes - NPC summons - Ranged attacks (ever tried Spiral Shard?) - Buffs - Debuffs - Consumables (e.g. Volcano pots) - Overtuned weapons (e.g. Moonveil) And if you say "but Godskin duo is too strong!" -> Try sleep (if summoning isn't strong enough already) This game is not hard at all unless you deliberately limit your options. Watch Asmongold's playthrough. He did it fairly easily without using 80% of the tools in the game. He beat Malenia after just two hours without looking up how to beat her. All he did was that he had the brilliant idea of using two halberds instead of only one. He practically broke the game, even GinoMachino acknowledged that.
I’m about 200 hours in and on my second character and this is so accurate. That late game difficulty spike feels like it comes from nowhere. Love the game, but the difficulty makes so many potential builds not even worth trying.
I honestly feel like they made the difficulty spike so big in the late game in order to make the game difficult for the sake of difficulty not for the sake of being challenge
@@nerdothn892 I doubt it, it was probably because as the game's release was getting closer many classic fans where complaining that the game was going to be tailored for casuals and be too easy, in the end, they overcompensated. Also, the game has an insane amout of build variety and some builds are really good while others not so much, the balancing must be very difficult to pull off in that respect.
That is so true. It's like they forgot to put an area between Morgott and the snow area or something. What's even worse is that since everything one shots you anyway, a bunch of mechanics and items in the game (like armor) become WAY less useful, which disencourages experimentation like in early game.
@@Yama-qg3il okay you got a point especially when it comes to making the game balanced for every build type is really hard especially considering how much viarity there js
@@nerdothn892 Yeah, the other day I watched someone fight malenia with a frost magic and bleed build while using hte mimic tear, Malenia got absolutely stomped on the first place, meanwhile I was struggling because my build was based on lightning and erdtree incantations, most of thse are useless against her, my damage was underwhelming too, even though I was level 138!
I definitely agree with the balance. I'm getting to (what I assume) is act 3 of the game and it feels like by this point the game is balanced like it expects you to be cheating with some stupid broken build. And don't get me wrong, I AM but it just feels like it's a race to do my stupid OP bullshit before the game does its stupid OP bullshit and it's gotten a lot less engaging because of it. First 30ish hours absolutely blew me away though.
Two years later and there's still a ton of sidequests I haven't done, weapons I haven't found, skillsets I haven't explored. This game dwarfs pretty much every golden age jRPG from the SNES and PS1.
I finished my first playthrough at over 160 hours, which is crazy. I thought it was fantastic, but heavily agree that some enemies were designed poorly in late game due to the high amount of damage they did and THEY NEVER GET TIRED. Like they just keep swinging at you without even giving you a chance to hit so you end up just using mimic whenever you can to at least aleviate that. I dont mind the mimic, I actually think it was a fantastic idea, especially for someone like me who does not want help with bosses from other players...except Melenia, because screw her!
Malenia can't be solo'd. I don't care that there is proof on TH-cam of beating her without taking any damage. Malenia can't be solo'd, and that's my truth.
@@Brawndo2008 lol im with you, I solo'd everything else (if you dont count ashes) Also, on the more serious of things, Im not a big fan of just looking up meta builds or anything, but heard theres a bloodloss build that makes it a whole lot easier. But I guess if I really wanted to I could of spent time on my own trying to find a good build as the game is very open to letting you respec plenty of times and trying different builds.
@@ghostisblack I think my downfall is that I DID do a broken build, but it's a sorc build and my spells were just to slow for her. Even with Blood Knife summon distracting her and dealing decent damage, I could barely get her to phase 2 and then get wrecked. I know the blood loss build you're referring to though, because I got lucky and summoned 2 bleed players in the same run and they destroyed her haha.
I’m praying they dont make it easier. The difficulty is what’s been keeping me going. Almost quit the game in the lakes area cause I thought they finally made an easy game and caved. I’m trying to beat the final bosses with no mimics or help and if they need the bosses and then I beat them. It’ll cheapen it for me and cause the experience I’ve craved to be stolen from me
Definately agree with the scarce upgrade materials. I think they coulda put the items that let you buy smithing stones/gloveworts waaaay earlier. Lots of variety, little opportunity to experiment. They did increase smithing stone availability in a patch, they may tweak it even more again.
That's a good point. If I'd had more smithing stones earlier, I probably would have experimented more. Now it feels too expensive to get new weapons to the same level as my main weapon.
@@silasmarrs1409 That was the patch they put in... also there is infinite stones in the game. I honestly have never had an issue switching weapons in this game... If anything I am upset with the lazy names.. Just adding a number to them.
The patch made it more likely for enemies to drop stones, added stones to merchants, and cut the cost of smithing stones by 2/3, so it has helped alleviate this problem a lot. By the mid-late game, you’ll be drowning in somber stones, the only limiting factor is the 8 ancient sombers per ng cycle. I do think it’s a little bogus that normal weapons need 12x more upgrade stones than special ones though.
True. There are a lot of cool looking armors I want to wear, but are weak. If I can only upgrade them so I can still wear them late game, that would be cool. No upgrade armors worked on DS1-3 because it's more balanced compared to ER.
People hated upgrading armoir, cuz it makes it harder to change your gear. Dunkey is right with the dmg scaling, fe getting oneshot in Bloodborne, if you don't lvl up your hp is hard, it sounds dumb, but it is. It is Rom's spiders and some hunters, that can oneshot you b4 you get to the last boss In this game the 1st boss that oneshots you is in Siofra/ Nokron, which is pretty much in the starting area
I mean I honestly don't see the point, armor is next to useless. I haven't tried in elden, but in ds3 I had a friend hit me while I was naked, and then while wearing full smough, and smoughs armor only took like 20 damage off
The thing I agree with most is that From Soft discourages experimentation with different equipment. They truly are stingy, and I couldn't believe they did what Dark Souls 3 did: placing a limit on the number of highest upgrade materials in a single playthrough. It's a huge open world game with so many fun and awesome weapons! And they even let you re-spec your stats so you can try different builds... But nope, you can't upgrade more weapons to max to complement more builds, if you've already used up your highest materials. Makes me miss DS1 and DS2, where you could farm for titanite slabs and have a fun variety of max weapons in your arsenal.
@Two Become One i like ds1 since it helped me play the other fromsoft games, but i cant see how you think ds1's better than the other games, aside from level design although that was also kind of a miss for me
Currently 90 hours into my first playthrough, I don't like to start criticizing a good game until I have beaten it, but Dunkey really hit the nail on the head with this one. The difficulty spike along with enemy damage is ridiculous and downright sometimes not fun at all to deal with.
Yeah the difficulty spike once you get beyond the capital is unfair. Even with 45+ vigor you get one shot. You either have to dodge every combo attack perfectly or run away and heal if you get hit once since their damage will do more than half of your health and there's about 3-5 attacks per combo. Early game the balance feels perfect, mid game is too easy and late game is too hard.
@@Gulvteppet General Radahns armor. "One shot" is a bit of a hyperbole, but most bosses do two, three shot me within a combo. And some bosses/normal enemies WILL one shot.
Gotta love how Dunkey makes the same point a lot of people have about the bosses and late stage enemies in this game but since it's him no one is sending him death threats.
I swear, dude it's so aggravating. I talked about playing Elden ring right after plowing through Sekiro and DS3 and how stark the contrast is in difficulty and I got crucified. Thanks to Dunkey for reminding people you can still criticize the things you love.
The souls community is genuinely steamy dogshit. The vast majority of these people are lowlife gatekeeping cucks who have nothing better to say that “get gud” every time I point out how annoying it is that malenia has this crazy undodgeable attack if you’re in the wrong position and blocking it with a shield gives her whole health bar back, or that every time you tap the heal button, godskin dude will input read and take that shit personally, or that gank fights aren’t fun. One of the most aggravating things I’ve encountered in my life
Yeah i guess i just hit late game t his weekend. 100 hours in and the game just out of nowhere decided all my weapons are useless and every single thing one shots you. What the fuck lol.
@@bradypetterson7003 About those input readings: in this game many of the enemies, not just bosses, even normal mobs will instantly attack if you try to chug in front of them. The crucible knight, both boss, miniboss and mobs are the best examples.
It's good to finally have someone actually say the damage bloat in the game is a problem. A lot of the people who do Souls content and gush over the game almost never mention this. Dark Souls 3 40 Vigor would have gotten you halfway through New Game+ easy. 40 VIG in Elden Ring? Pocket change.
It's almost like...they're different games and the softcaps are different. You're meant to end Elden Ring closer to levels 120-150 where DS3 you're ending the game closer to 80-100.
Yeah, I'll honestly agree. The damage level is impossibly stupid and the actual balance between bosses is completely incoherent. Oh, the Valiant Gargoyles, that locks you off an area, it...is significantly harder than every boss you fight after it in the area it blocks off, or before it, or around it. So once you get over the hump of it, everything after can be cheesed without effort. It doesn't feel rewarding. "Wait, so the legendary thing that's all over lore....is this dinky, but the thing vaguely guarding a tomb is actually ass kicking?' Or how Margit is frankly a wall of annoying pain with severe HP bloat, but then you go onwards, explore, and you get to Morgott and you're like, "OH NO, BITCH IT'S HIM BUT UPGRADED--" and he almost certainly will pop like a pinata if you've even half the content leading up to him, which you probably want to do because you really need the ability to upgrade your weapons and if you take the regular path, the mini boss in front of the door to Leyndall is legitimately harder than anything in Leyndall by a massive amount simply because it has a 'you die' button that will vaporize you across the map punishing you for trying to avoid its infinite stagger shield bash or use range.
It's because it's an issue many people haven't even encountered. I'm 90 hours in and have yet to run in to this. I believe people talking about it but I just haven't been to those areas yet, as there is so much to see and do in the game
It's frustrating that you rarely hear mention of the awful late game difficulty scaling because it gets drowned out in a sea of praise and "git gud" deflecting. Glad Dunkey brought it up. Looking forward to the DLC but I hope the devs can bring things back to earth a little bit
@@a.w_. FromSoft simply has a cult following built up from people who get a false sense of accomplishment. Even they know they games are fundamentally behind on basic aspects that were solved on the ps2 lol.
100% agree on damage scaling. Having the enemies and bosses have complicated sequences feels rewarding to overcome, but if the punishment for any lapse is functionally instant death… it’s just not great design. It stops being challenging and turns into patience testing. I’m taking my time and still enjoying myself, but I am barely eeeing a reason to invest in health, when I just get one shot by anything worth dodging anyway
Yeah the damage is kinda insane. Feels like every build is a glass canon, even if you pump vitality and wear heavy armor. I end up just running past enemies because fighting them isn't worth it. If they tweak the armor values, maybe making later armors much stronger or make cumulative levels give a higher armor value, the game would be perfect. Its fine for certain boss moves to be one shots if they are the bosses strongest move but it just feels like getting clipped by any hit is a death sentence. I think the crux of the issue is Elden Ring can't scale you high enough to beat those enemies because it will unbalance PVP, so in a way PVP is getting in the way of the game being even better and more fair.
PvP isnt in the way of anything. Your entire solution is a complicated and fundamental change of basic leveling mechanics when all they really have to do is just manually dial down damage on bosses. PvP remains unchanged and bosses dont one shot anymore when you get clipped by one of their attacks.
@@pigeonman4979 The problem is incremental. The next boss is suppose to hit a bit harder than the previous one and with the sheer amount of bosses it just naturally ends up being a number that's far too high. If you adjust the players stats PVP will be unbalanced, if you adjust the late game bosses there won't be much to differentiate them from earlier bosses. I think in this case the games length is what's breaking its balance.
@@jake57 Damn you can dodge every single move in the game without ever seeing it before? holy shit I hope you play the lottery, just dodge all the wrong numbers. Easy money.
The damage balance guy must be a legend. Bc he didn't show up to work for the entirety of Shadow of the Erdtree's development either and nobody seemed to notice 😭 Dlc still amazing tho
The thing is, BB and Sekiro had the same thing; long attack combos, and super aggressive bosses and enemies. The difference is that they gave you the tools to deal with them and it actually made the games more fun. BB had ranged parrying so you didn't have to stick your face in the blender to get a critical hit and Sekiro allowed you to deflect as fast as you could mash the button while taking no damage and chipping down your enemy's stamina guage. ER just doesn't give you the same tools and I think that's why it feels unfair. ER is life FromSoft's greatest hits record cranked up to 11. Problem is, I've always preferred concept albums at a reasonable volume...
Problem with BB though is it made parrying significantly easier. Imo, bosses like Orphan of Kos, Gasgoine, Maria & Gernahm are trivial due to how easy they are to parry. This is coming from someone who has only played through the game once (blind).
I agree with you. I think the problem is they reusing the dark souls formula. They already perfected it so any change to it will feel wrong like making the enemy more aggressive. In Sekiro and Bloodborne they have a drastic change to the formula so it can explore a lot of options.
What I felt was the case is that, because the enemies output a lot of damage and can do so in long sequences, you're forced into being incredibly patient. However, not only are the attack strings often long and very punishing, the time between attack strings is very short. This results in you watching the boss dance for 10 seconds, you landing a light attack or maybe a heavy jump attack and then spectate the boss going buckwild again. This strat will get you there... but it's gonna take a long ass time because many bosses also have significant HP pools. Should you fuck up somewhere along the way just once or twice, you're likely to die. I'm not sure if the fix is to lower the damage output or to lower the healthpools of the bosses. If we compare it, for instance, to Bloodborne: I never felt those fights were just slogs. Bloodborne had some crazy spammy and high damage bosses, but I also felt most of them went down quite quickly. Thinking of Bloodborne, there might be another solution: increase the drink speed of the Tears. Vials were quick to use and it fit the highly aggressive nature of many bosses. The AI in Elden Ring often aggresively tries to counter your drinking. That is paired with the short windows of downtime between attack strings. So even if you survived a long combo, got hit by the final hit and want to heal, the boss is already ready to charge at you and prevent you from drinking.
I completely agree. The main character feels too sluggish compared to these giant ballet dancers that defy gravity. And Bloodborne did it right indeed.
that is a very good suggestion actually, but we'll see i mean the game has only been out for a month or so also watching elden beast do most of its attacks kinda mesmerizes me , i kinda enjoy looking at it even tho its literally a 1 shot attack
What gets me is that for some reason the drink speed on your Physick is lower than on your Tears, even thought the tears are already too slow. (I also love this game but year it's got some weird minor problems.)
That is why this guy is honest and is not scared to criticize something while still enjoying the hell out of it Mad respect to you Dunk And the most important thing about Dunk is that he doesn't ride any postive or hate wave ...he stay true and say his opinion without giving a damn about what any one will say
I just beat this game for the first time after 120+ hours, and have since gone on to play and beat all three dark souls games (still working on dlcs). This game is a masterpiece with a serving of bad design mixed in that's too big to fully ignore but small enough to accept and not let it ruin the enjoyment of the game.
@@ChimericalCarl That works for the early and midgame. Late game it doesn't make a difference anymore. Bosses will deal Dark souls NG+7 lvl damage with their quick one off moves.
@@ChimericalCarl Isn’t the point of an RPG that you can specialise though? Why should everyone who wants to be able to make a single mistake in a 5 minute boss fight have to put all of their runes into Vigor. Aceing a fight until the end and then getting killed in single hit by a move that comes out so fast you can’t do anything about it is not fun nor fair.
You know, with the really good stuff the good reviewer will take the bad things out. It hurts, but it’s necessary and help us appreciate even more the good stuff the game has to offer
100% agree on the Runes... I've noticed that myself, you can have two different enemies, one crazy difficult, and one pretty easy, and they give similar Rune rewards. It just seems insane. I also agree that late game it feels like all your power is for naught... though I feel it was that way in previous games as well. Dark Souls 3, the first DLC, also has a lot of high health high damage enemies that don't care about how highly leveled you are.
I think everywhere is very challenging except for haligtree now that area and the blood area are absolute bull shot and need to be balanced but, I think everywhere else is pretty fair
Exactly. That’s by far my biggest problem with the game, I wouldn’t care that it’s so punishing if it felt like taking on that challenge was actually worth my time.
I’ve never played a Souls game before, and I didn’t even have Elden ring on my radar months after it release. I bought the game after watching this video and it is AMAZING! Thank you for introducing this game to me!
Nice :) you should try dark souls 3, ds1 is really fucking good (every area is interlocked and interconnected on top of each other) but it gets kinda shitty in the second half. Also Sekiro is amazing as well, but it focuses more on parrying rather than rolling/dodging. Sekiro is probably my favorite fromsoft game just because its combat is so finely tuned and awesome
I love Elden Ring, but my 2 biggest complaints are as follows: 1. If you are a pure melee build, the game feels way harder than it needs to at times. For example, some enemies/bosses have attack patterns with almost no openings for you to attack without trading damage. Combined with the infinite stamina that enemies have, it feels unrealistic and unfair fighting an enemy that has seemingly impossible openings in melee only. 2. The input reading on this game is so blatant that it doesn't feel realistic. I've done awkward tangos with bosses where we circle each other without attacking for 15 seconds, and the split second I use my flask, the boss gapcloses and chunks me. It doesn't feel like I am fighting a realistic opponent at all, just a bot. I've never felt this kind of blatant input reading in any of the soulsborne games.
The most abysmal input reading of any boss in Elden Ring are the godskins, if you try to back up and drink a flask, they’ll prime a fire ball and throw it at you with pinpoint accuracy to hit you Every. Single. Time, it’s obnoxious.
@@Qballiz2kool that one is mostly fine because you can bait it out first and then heal, but there's also bosses like Margit where you have to bait out an entire combo because he sometimes only throws the daggers when you heal.
Before Elden Ring came out, I realized the specific thing I liked about difficulty in games: it gives me problems to solve, but also AGENCY in HOW I SOLVED IT. Action-RPG's are amazing because you can make thousands of builds that are all able to beat everything the game has to offer. Not every "build" works, because some of them don't make sense - like having 99 strength but only casting Sorceries with 10 intelligence - but you can make anything work in one or two easy steps (like using a Strength weapon instead). If a game gets TOO hard, though, exactly what you're describing happens: your options become so limited that all of that freedom you have is wasted, becoming bait that you have to ignore in order to actually win. Elden Ring has created circumstances where it has broken through Dark Souls' "not actually that hard" designation into the "actually that hard" zone, and it's in Fromsoft's best interest to fix that. TL;DR elden ring could stand to give players a bit more wiggle room
I have told people time and time again that DS1 is actually, mechanically speaking, only middling difficulty, and that the actual difficulty is in how you approach it and learn it more than how you execute it. For fights, DS1 was 90% observation and deduction, 10% execution, Elden Ring is the opposite.
Yeah, that's also why I liked Breath of the Wild's durability system. Discouraging players from hacking and slashing with their best sword all the time meant I like many players spend more time engaging with physics tricks and unconventional weapons. It wasn't a very difficult game, but it had just enough difficulty to make it feel like I was solving problems in creative ways, because if it was too easy I wouldn't feel like there is a problem to be solved to begin with. But it's totally possible for a game to get "too hard" and suddenly there's only a couple viable options you have to beat the game, so the problem solving aspect is out the window and you are left trying to just learn a precise set of inputs and fine-tuning reaction time. PvP games often have near infinite difficulty because there's always a better player, meaning this same idea that a meta can become oppressive and unfun is most noticeable in those kind of games. Especially something like Overwatch, I recall very distinctly picking a hero and immediately some dude is in my ear cursing at me for picking the "wrong" hero. Dark Souls did have some cheap deaths, like dudes hiding in boxes, giant spears clipping through walls, terrible platforming physics, but despite that the actual fights felt like you had a lot of options despite it being challenging. And I think that's why Dark Souls will last a little longer in people's hearts than Elden Ring.
4:57 I cannot believe how accurate this is. I tried to beat the game without using any spirits, but once I got to the last three bosses, Maliketh, Godfrey, and Radagon/Elden Beast I just gave up and used the mimic tear. Not to mention that I was using a great sword, which is basically the games hard mode because it’s slow as shit and does basically the same amount of damage as a faster weapon like a katana.
I was able to beat the 3 mentioned without the tear but I got so fed up with malenia that I summoned the tear for phase one, and immediately dismissed it for phase 2 because I was getting tired of dealing with phase 1 over and over again
Heavy weapons can feel more difficult since you have to be more selective with when you attack, but you can also use moves like the jump attack, dodge roll, and lions claw ash of war to get a 2-3 hit combo in, if you know how to use those abilities to maneuver under or around or over an enemy attack. Oftentimes you only need to do that two or three times to get a critical hit on the boss. Plus you can just chuck daggers and bolts from a crossbow when they’re doing their bs moves
i found your channel by looking for a review of Elden ring that isn’t by IGN or Gameranx or whatever, but by a person with some passion to get me excited to play. And you delivered. thanks homie. subscribed.
Beat it twice, Love it to death, but fully agree, the post capital difficulty spike is wild even for from's usual standards, and I think its made more apparent because nothing in the entirety of the mountains/snow field are unique enemy variants or bosses (bar the fire giant) and they've just been scaled to a ridiculous point that it feel's incredibly unfair unless you have min maxed your build or have just overlevelled to power through. Bar those areas and some nitpicks though, I haven't been this engaged with a game in a hot minute
The mountaintops bosses are so bad lol. Death Rite Bird is a camera mess and he clips into the rocks all the time, Niall is a gank fight and he also takes like 80% of your health with a single hit if he ever chooses to infuse his peg with lightning, Fire Giant while cinematically amazing has a seemingly endless healthpool that makes dying to him frustrating as fuck
Everyone that's told me Elden Ring isn't that hard have all been doing the same Mimic Tear/Sorcery spam build. It's the same problem as early Diablo 3 Nightmare difficulty. It's not fun because the damage scales so hard that you're pretty much forced to go towards the exact same OP build. It's just worse in Elden Ring because this all happens within NG, not even NG+1. Saw people saying "Don't ruin the game by leveling past 125! It's too easy then!" Meanwhile I'm level 110 with my build that uses ZERO sorcery/Incantations and I'm getting absolutely demolished on a regular basis. Forget beating the game, I can't even kill the damn Draconic Knight to get into the Capitol!
@@MrPatrickbuit I don't know if you noticed, but one of the legs of the fire giant is injured and receives extra damage. I found out about that and the fight was way faster.
Definitely agree with the late game scaling. I had to leave Malenia to go level up, then I had to respec TWICE all over like 6 hours just because of how absolutely punishing her damage can be. Then I left and shit right on the final boss in my first go. Like what?
Legit Malenia is on of the most unbalanced boss fights, going both ways. Trying to honorably 1v1? Yikes 2v1 with mimic tear rocking a giant frost hammer and hoarfrost stomp? you can stunlock her so hard she can’t fight back until second phase starts, and then do it again if she doesn’t one shot you
@@SuperTurboPOP plus if you somehow survive her ridicilous damage output with 1 hp, she more than likely reverted all the progress you made to her hp bar, because someone woke up and decided a boss with a 15 move combo and status effects also needed lifesteal. Thank you dark souls
Supernova Eos or bloodhound steps. Fighting her with bloodhound step makes it feel balanced and fair, u can avoid all of her attacks easily with it. Cant say its a good design cox if you dont run it, u either stun lock and rush her, or just hope she doesn’t do that big move (u know which one😂)
I can't believe she absorbs health when hitting shields even if you don't take damage. One of my first thoughts was to use a greatshield with high stability and the talisman to boost it further but when every hit of the flurry attack hits, she heals like 5k health even if you don't take damage.
I think buffing player health could be great, as one of the main problem the pvp community has tight now, is that everything deals a shit ton of damage, so this could fix both pvp and the ingame difficulty curve
I disagree. The problem isn't consistent throughout the entire game, as such, improvements to player health would unbalance things in the other direction from players being too fragile at the end to being too tanky at the beginning. A blanket buff would discourage players from learning early as they have too much already to encourage increasing it themselves, while increasing the curve gradient would make anything that doesn't go pure health early-on inviable. Increasing player bleed resistance, however, would probably be a good start, though, of course, that wouldn't solve everything.
@@Perral There are ways to work around what you are pointing. Instead of just giving a free HP buff to everyone, just make so Vigor doesnt hardcap at 60. Make it go all the way to 80, just like the damage stats go. That way it wont touch the balance of the early game.
I think the prevalence of weapons like Rivers of Blood, Moonveil, Giant Crusher, etc has really psyched people out of using weapons that they like. I'm plowing through my second character exclusively using Serpent-Hunter (because it looks cool) and I'm having a blast. I do think the late game damage spike for enemies is really odd. My only explanation for it is that they balanced the enemy damage in accordance to late game optimized builds (like BleedArcane or MaxStrength). It would be cool if the enemies starting doing as much damage as you do to them, but that just isn't the case for a lot of players. That, in turn, leads to this weird dissonance. I think if the armors were to get any use beyond fashion and poise, they should be able to substantially mitigate certain enemy damage types. Don't like the dogs? Bam, anti-dog armor. Don't like the stupid hellfucker Perfumers? Boom, anti-perfume armor. At present, the armors are all pretty much cosmetic, beyond some random +3 to a stat or extra poise. I would like to see more put into that area of the game. Maybe Boc could do more than just cut off the cape of your armor and actually customize it to your needs? It would also be great if 40 vigor wasn't required to survive even one hit in late game. That really feels like some kind of oversight. Against Radagon, I had to put on Pearldrake +2, Haligtree +2, and Dragoncrest Shield talismans PLUS Lord's Divine Fortification for him to even feel like a normal boss. It was pretty ridiculous.
Some of the knight type enemies have a long ass combo that can follow you through direction changes like the one at -shaded castle- Castle Sol, the only way to stop the combo is parrying, doesn't help that the knight is a ghost that can teleport behind you and starts the combo before you can properly react. Some enemies are just asking to be cheesed.
Dont be sad if you have to cheese those fucking ghost knights. I hid behind a greatshield and just shield struck then heavy attacked repeatedly. Dual sword knight would beyblade and instakill me otherwise
That whole area was a kick in the head. Not to mention the area boss who summons the dual blade edgelord and the shield-bash spammer, all the while he is making snow tornadoes and throwing buffs out like confetti.
It's an incredible game, but I definitely agree with the issues he brings up. Another problem I have in terms of balance is weapon attack speed vs. enemy attack speed. Even with fairly fast weapons, many enemies (even the slower ones) can start and finish an attack between the start of your attack animation and when it would connect. It's like they're John Wick and I'm the goon. I don't know how people are making Colossal weapons work when a longsword's R1 can easily get interrupted by a huge number of enemies in the game.
as a user of a big smashy hammer in my new playthrough I can tell you its not easy, the delay between attacks because of the length of the animations can be hard to work around. I had to learn not to mash R1 because the attacks seem to qeue up and that so often got me killed
The game gives some options to avoid having to do a massive wind-up. Rolling attacks, jumping attacks, and guard counters are all super helpful tools for a large weapon user.
Unfortunately i have shitty "middle of nowhere" internet so i cant play co-op but i assume great sword users benefit from having summons to help distract the bosses while they come in with the big smash. I utilize mimic tear as a pretend co-op buddy but h spawns with the same build i have so i still end up using something quick like a twinblade or katana
@@blastinus3714 that is the thing though...as a heavy weapon user, you kind of spam jump attacks which doesn't feel good nore does it look good... especially malekith and malenia can sukkadick for that matter
As a user of dual colossal swords - just use jumping attack into dual swing and whatever youre dealing with is probably dead by that point. If not it doesn't matter because jumping attack is broken since the attack buffer happens outside the enemy range so you can be guaranteed to hit first and hit extremely hard. It becomes a bit of a problem against enemies that can't be staggered and can break your powerstancing but all you need vs them is patience really... and more jumping attacks
if you havent played this game with the seamless co op mod, please do. Ive played it with a party of 4 and it turns the game into the most incredibly funny and thrilling experience. While there are now 4+ players, the game scales in difficulty so some boss battles are nearly as hard, especially if you have some weaker links that die fast. It literally becomes this never ending incredible multiplayer journey complete with the best pvp that you can enable and disable whenever you want. Top tier gaming experience, this game has it all
I love when dunkey is so passionate about a game that he doesn't mention knack even once throughout the video
Or Gex/Balan Wonderland.
now *THAT'S* Dedication !
They couldn't afford donkey kong but he still played it four times over
no u
That's how you know it's a good game
That moment when you are wielding in each hand a colossal greatsword of black meteorite steel, etched with gravity defying magic runes, taken from the corpse of a warrior demi god who once had enough power to halt the very motion of stars, but you're getting slaughtered by rats because their teeth are apparently as strong as my swords
Or dogs. Literally just dogs.
You don't mess with the rats bro, have you seen those bastards? I fear them more than Elden Blub
I have this experience.. I'm running double faith scythes but play them agile like a greatsword. I fight rune bears when I see them just to kill them, and have first tried a few bosses (albeit possibly overleveled)... but rats and dogs I fear the most.
love that
giant guy who shoots arrows the size of pine trees at you? bout 170 damage
little red dog with some mange and bleed? that'll be about 4000 damage
You should not underestimate the power of the Elden Rat
Rather than turn enemy damage down, I think the player needs to be able to increase their damage mitigation actively, more. Leveling up your stats should have a greater effect on it as you scale later into the game, where the damage starts to actually become a problem.
I think they shoulda pulled a DS2 and had every level increase your max hp while still having the vigor stat to really boost it when you wanted. Better defensive scaling coud also help this too
Stats and armor. I feel like there is very little reward for bulking up in heavy armor.
Yes, and it would be nice if it felt like armour actually mattered.
Defence is hard tied to char level regardless of stats
or increase the bosses health and decrease their damage. ds3 mightve taken it too far with midir, but that dragon was challenging as shit to overcome but not because of bs damage numbers
The worst part of this game is that none of the bosses challenge you to a Space Jam-style basketball game.
Man when you fight Hoarah Loux, YOU ARE the basketball
I've been waiting for someone to say this since the game came out.
@@Chambooey You win elden ring comment section for today
lol Hoarah Loux gunna dunk you man
@@Chambooey which actually does happen to Michael Jordan in space jam
My man knew he had to beat this game 4 and 1/2 times just to be able to say, "It's too hard." I love it.
@@marshallhiggins4194 Bruh, you think out of this 4 and a half tries he didnt do the normal "knight with big sword" build?
I finished this game 3 days ago using the General Rick (TM) characterset with the grafted blade greatsword, and it has been as equally painfull at the endgame as boring. Tank god for beef Endurance beacuse fatrolling will never lets you win. Ever.
@@cin2110 game has a few too many multiple enemy boss fights for me to consider not cheesing.
@@AchedSphinx bad multiple enemy boss fights*, multiple boss fights can be good. ER's aren't
@@sopadefideos5636 yea I think they're designed specifically to use summons. Like double crucible knight etc. Batman players try to do it solo anyways even when it'll be unfair doing it solo. Godskin duo is a perfect example of a boss that was seocifically designed with spirit summons and multi-player in mind yet people hate it because they try to solo it
For me it's too hard and too easy at the same time. I think that's okay tho cos there's different ways that work best with different bosses and it makes the player think smart.
Cant believe Dunkey gave a spotlight to this small indie game even when they could afford 0 Donkey Kongs. He really is a nice guy
I heard he started a gofundme to raise bananas to buy a few Donkey Kongs for them
Donkey Kong is coming with the season 1 battlepass update. You unlock him by opening Rune Boxes
@@mkultra2456 🤨
Yeah, but then he also does reviews for games that don't need one like Knack 2, why would you do a review on that if everyone already knows it's a *mastapiece*
2.3k likes already with 5 replies? Definitely botted
Dunkey is so real, he beats the game 4 times and loves it but will still point out to you the biggest flaws with the game in the most entertaining way. The GOAT of game reviews.
Best part abt his reviews, tells it as it is
Actually i taught dunkey how to be good at these games so thankyou
You are nitpicking and biased I win bye bye
literally zero dislikes on this comment
I hate this bot
The health bar is a ruse. You have 3 hearts like in Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It's just that you're fighting an orbital space cannon powered by the disappointment of Christmas gifts you didn't get as a child.
underrated comment
I see where you're coming from, but it's still more like a 1 heart challenge. If it was three, you'd still be taking three hits to die most the time.
This is I Wanna Be The Dark Souls.
actual facts
very well put descriptive words
This game is 3 hearts but most enemies to 2 damage and some bosses do 3.
This man beat the game 4 times in the amount of time I've played half of this game.
right? I haven't even gone up the Dectus lift yet and i'm 130 hours in. So much to see and explore.
Same. I'm like 200 hours in and only just getting to the capital. Granted, I'm exploring every inch of every map and not leaving them until every rock is turned over.
He got it earlier I guess
I'm 95 hours in and just learned how to use the Great Runes... I'm a slow gamer
I mean .. thats what he does for a living
If he completed it 4 times that makes the dunkview a 40/10. Not a bad rating
When the thing has a thing the thing said the thing was thinging too thing but now the thing lives in the things life... that thing, the thing is, a thing.
Well well who do we have here ...the overlegends guy
pnuch
Still not enough times
RATS
I don’t think I’ve ever been more frustrated with a game ever in my life
10/10
What about Bloodborne?
@@ALFREDSTARK bloodborne is crazy but very few bosses have combos as long as most of the bosses in this game plus most of them have huge aoe’s that’ll one shot you both are great but bloodborne is a pretty decent amount easier and that’s coming from someone who considers blood borne their favorite game
@@cullenpinney2997 so Elden ring is like play Bloodborne in defiled chalices?
@@ALFREDSTARK yeah it’s probably on par with that for the most part defiled chalices are lunacy
Beeg/beeg
The guy in charge of damage balance didn't show up to work again.
miyazaki probably fired him
Try blocking
he's about to get a write up for that
good
He did it's dat they made a new mechanic to do it with scadutree fragments.
I mostly agree on the balancing....its the fact that it swings wildly between too easy and too hard is the real problem. I am constantly changing from feeling overlevelled to underlevelled, often in the same area.
The mountaintop of the giants comes to mind. I one-shot all the normal enemies and then do 1/100th of Borealis's health with an r2
I kind of hope they go back to more linear Souls-Like-Games in the future or figure something out for their open world. Cuz in a linear game you would not have that problem, in the original Dark Souls you are almost always as strong or weak as they want you to be in that moment, and if an area is unbeatable hard, you are not supposed to be there. In Elden Ring, I could not tell if I am right or wrong all the time.
@@M3cronom Yeah this is kinda the confusion, it's like am I dying over and over to this guy cause I suck or I'm supposed to go grind more first?
I actually think the areas are reasonably consistent within themselves for the most part, it's mainly bleed I have a problem with. Other than that just build Vigor you'll be ok.
@@williamhall9271 I agree with this, There are definitely instances where you can accidentally stumble upon an area that's too high level (like going from Limgrave to Caelid for instance), but to the player, spending even a good 5 minutes in these areas should tell yourself "Oh I shouldn't be here yet". But overall I never really experienced this too much, because the game incentivizes you to explore everything, rather then trying to go from area to area as quickly as possible... in fact you'll get punished more often then not if you play like that. Most of the time, I was quite on par for every new area I entered because of that fact, albeit maybe even a little OVER-leveled.
I also think people severely underestimate how important vigor is. I've seen people who are like level 80 and only have like 20ish vigor which in most areas around that level will have enemies that borderline one shot you.
Health isn't a problem in this game, clearly dunkey forgot to level himself to 300 and put all of those points into Vigor only
The build where you beat the game with a club because don't have the str for anything else
Holy fuck this was my freinds the whole time when i was playing, i had 35 vigor and they were still like "omg you have too little health no wonder you are getting 1 shot"
@@BlueeCatss
I found health much more important in this game, since it spikes massively past a certain point. From 30-40 you basically double your health.
@@BlueeCatss 35 vigor more than enough i believe, gives you around 1500 hp which is only 400 less than what you would get for 60 and 600 less than what you get for 99.
It's true, I thought 35 vigor was enough until I got to real end game areas like the Haligtree, where the ants cum shot beam will one shot you at like 50 vigor.
"You don't understand, this game is EASY. Jusy switch to a bleed arcana mage long distance mimic tear build"
-People who says this is balanced
Pre that first patch my mimic and I hit mohg so hard we skipped the second phase, never even did the nihil attack
@@thomaskobylas1268 I think that there’s so many broken builds and weapons that they just increased end game damage to balance it out xD More seriously no the game doesn’t seem unbalanced, if you have the level and the experience you can roll over each boss, even without a broken build or mimic tear. For exemple, many people say that Orstein n Smough, Artorias and Manus are some of the toughest boss in Souls game and I beat them first try no sweat with a mere Zweihander. On the other hand Sullyvan pounded me so hard, I still have ptsd on new games + xD so go figure.
@@thomaskobylas1268 what the fuck is this supposed to mean, the fact that the game as objectively better strategy does not have nothing to do with me, and especially does not have anything to do with your little "the guy who did this"
@@enzomondet lol, say hello for me to the blood doggies, they are soooo balanced
I still think its the easiest one out of the bunch, yea some bosses are hard as hell but the game never forces you to play one way, theres so many different variables and options to get around things that i never found myself getting too frustrated
"This is an evil game made by an evil man..." hahahaha nailed it
If Lucifer and Hitler did the fusion dance they would create Hidetaka Miyazaki
@@jermbonotrombone so you are implying that hidetaka miyazaki is a nazi?
@@Kar1s3n no, only that he is more evil than Hortler
After beating Starscourge Radahn two times, one with claymore and light load, and the other with daggers and medium load. I couldn't agree more.
yeah.... you think elden ring is hard? try sekiro@@facundovera3227
When he said “this game big”, I felt that.
it's beeeg
@@AxxLAfriku what the fuck
@@AxxLAfriku nah you should be a pimp
Beeg* learn to spell nerd
yeah im going through phases like i need to check out this whole area then its i need to go and check out the next one because theres soooo much veriety in landscapes that is so captivating, like it was jaw dropping the first time i wenty underground, and that not just because of the archers with giant bows who headshot you from a mile away lol
Got to agree on the point that Kiling a knight that has insane moves give pathetic runes compared to killing easy foes.
I hope you also agree about the damage scaling.
Crucible knights are over-tuned and give you nothing for beating them, truly unfortunate
I think they probably hand-picked several minibosses and toned down the souls you get to prevent you from becoming overlevelled as you explore, not sure it was the best way to handle it but I think it works
(yes I said souls, fight me)
But don't you get items from crucible knight?
yea the rune scaling feels absurd at some parts of the game.
My favorite part was watching the bosses do a 30 hit combo, dodging it perfectly then failing to get a counterhit because they landed too far away. Great game nonetheless
Maliketh moment
@@WorKSimi fr
Lol u a legend
**rolls through attack**
Alright, time for my roll counter attack
**whiffs entirely**
;-;
Yeah the mobility is the biggest issue. Damage can be dodged, but mobility to jump away from return damage, and never-ending combos that leave tiny windows in which to do that return damage, are the main issues with lategame bosses.
It's sad to think how many bosses would be infinitely improved if their damage wasn't so badly over-tuned. Getting your ass kicked around the arena by a tough boss can be heaps of fun, but getting nuked so fast you learn nothing about their attack patterns, then spending the next five minutes staring at loading screens and running back to the fog door is incredibly dull and frustrating.
Well said.
Yeah honestly one of the worst parts of dying for me was watching my character scream out in pain, the "You Died" text appearing, and having to look at a loading screen in silence for a whole minute just so that I could walk back to the boss to fight them again. I wouldn't mind failing so much if you could just quickly continue fighting the boss.
skill issue
wth is this whole minute loading screen stuff? I never had it
@@victorprati7908 That is called age. They are to young to have experienced real long loading screens.
I've put 200 hours into this game and the rune scaling for enemies frustrates me the most. Dunk put it perfectly here - you get basically no runes from normal enemies and even minibosses, so you're incentivized to run past things you've beat once and grab items on the way, and either use sleepy boys' farming ledge or rush main bosses so you can actually level up
This series has always had this quirk.
@@SpoonyBard88 True, but the main boss chain is a fair bit longer in this game, so it becomes more noticeable. It would be nice to see at least a little rune reward rebalancing for some of the later zones.
If you have that many hours then you should know runes dropped by regular mobs are irrelevant. You get so many souls from bosses and so many loot souls like hero's rune and lord's rune. Any one of the last few bosses drop over a hundred thousand runes if you hop over to do co op.
@@SotC402 100k runes are irrelevant if the sleepy boys give you that much in 15secounds
And I'm not even over exaggerating any decent aoe ash of war or skill will kill all of them in 1 or 2 attacks on a good upgrade level, which you'll have anyways in the endgame.
And one run nets you upward of 40k without the item that temporarily boost rune gain.
Heck you can kill that bird for like 14k at level 1, no need to do any real damage to him either and you can redo that about every 20s or so aswell
Boss runes just feel unrewarding. And before the update 100k runes are not even enought to boost a unique to +9 if you had to buy some stones
Sleepy bois always the way to go.
Elden ring has some of the best examples from any fromsoft game of why I don't feel bad about cheesing fromsoft games. Enemies have absolutely no problem stunlocking you, hyper-armoring through everything you do, one-shotting you, or doing really whatever they feel like to make you drop your runes. You best believe I'm going to come back at that shit with every tool under my belt idc if I gotta lure em off a cliff or snipe them from on top of rock lmao fuck them
I'd say I agree with this especially for Elden Ring, some Dark/Demon Souls and some Bloodborne bosses . Sekiro though because you're supposed to play a certain way is hard but fair and just require to memorize every boss move until you anticipate each of them. And Sekiro being a solo experience first it's pointless to cheese your way to the game. That said I'm in the Souls game (including Elden Ring) for the PVP so my goal now is just to quickly get 2 or 3 builds to meta level and you can bet I'm not going to try and beat every boss fair and square haha
@@TheBGYeti I wouldn't describe Monster Hunter as the pinnacle of balancing. Some bosses are straight copy and paste with artificial difficulty slapped on, while some bosses just put giant AoEs of debuffs everywhere that force you to roll 20 times just to be hit by another one. I get the complaint tho.
The rule of thumb I used was if it was a unique design or a main story boss to beat it myself - but if it’s a boss I’ve already fought in a previous area or a bullshit double fight then the cheese tactics come out
@@raimett lunastra ptsd?
@@GuitarSlayer136 to be fair some of elden rings bosses are the best in the series since sekiro. Margit/Morgott for instance are amazing and can be fought super clean, same goes for Godfrey, Radagon, etc. When elden ring wants to have a fair fight it's usually pretty good.
I’m so glad he mentioned how the respawning giant guys that can’t turn and have 1 attack are worth almost as much as a non responding mini boss in the same area that’s much more difficult. When I killed him I thought there was some glitch because he wasn’t worth the effort for that little at all.
When I first killed one of those guys, I thought I might have accidentally gotten myself way overlvled for the current zone. I didn't have to travel much further to realize that was definitely NOT the case.
I just found out that guy and he almost became my favorite farming spot for upper-midgame
It's even worse in Ashen Capital. There are some miniboss encounters there that could probably slap some of the earlier Shardbearer bosses to death that only give like 18k souls when you beat them. Soul crushing. Mohg alone gave me 500k and a Great Rune while a more difficult miniboss encounter at endgame gave me like 18k and nothing else.
Oh that's because you have to figure out a way around their annoying breath attack, the few thousand souls is your reward for doing so.
The Crucible dudes are more out of the way and you have to more or less seek them out.
Can’t agree more
"Pre-morgott" and "post-morgott" genuinely feel like 2 different games. I enjoy making a new character build just so I can play "pre-morgott" elden ring some more.
Exactly. You either farm forever to boost your stats so you can have a semblance of fun in the Mountaintop, or you go to the Mountaintops and run for your life. But wait! Did you decide not to farm for 10s of hours? Well then good luck fighting the 45,000 HP Fire Giant, you will 1 shot you with any of his moves.
I am of the group of people who straight up dislike post-Morgott. Not a fun game after that. Haligtree is cool i guess
@@billycostigan1247 Haligtree looks nice, but it just being a tiny zone with relentless enemy spam of reused mobs is lame. Fighting swaths of enemies at once is a breeze for certain builds and a borderline impossibility for others without kiting or cheesing. The couple of zones like that in Ds2 got an incredible amount of criticism but people just refuse to criticize elden ring no matter how much it deserves it for lazy reused enemy spam.
@@billycostigan1247 I have bought the game 2 weeks ago, I have 120 hours in the game and I just can't fucking kill the fire giant at level 110. Its like a wall I can't pass
@@beastmasterbg Thats the worst part! You are supposed to be lvl 120 for the fn Giant. I dont know how you are sopposed to get that without farming halligtree Soldiers or farming auranics in moghs palace. I finished the game with a lvl 160 Character recommended is 150.
Thats my complaint that i dont ever read around here: Runes are super hard to come organically by after lvl 50-60. Without extensive Farming you are always underlevelled.
@@christopherschneider2968 yeah , I finished the game at level 147. Once I did a new build on faith. It was easier to kill them but I had to cheese it with lvl10 mimic spirit
Honestly while I wasn't super aware of it as I played, Dunkey's final point really hit home. I dumped heavily into vigor, having an insanely big health bar, combined with a greater rune to give me even more health, still get one shot. How did I beat the last few bosses? A super cheesy double giant-crusher build and my mimic. Cause if I got wrecked by Malenia's jumping flurry attack one more time I was going to lose it.
I hope Fromsoft does adjust the damage values on some enemies, because it would help with more build variety.
I'll be honest, I've been running around with 40 vig and really light-weight armor and it feels like plenty. Malenia's full flurry can still kill you, but you can safely tank one or two parts of it.
Or you couldve learned to dodge the flurry. I agree with the overall sentiment though.
@@dylanschmeichel2008 I did learn to dodge it. I'm saying you CAN tank it without dying from full hp. Not that you should lol
@yoda gaming Exactly and its not that you have to dodge everything. With the right build you just need to identify 4 categories. Dodge, tank with shield and guard counter, trade, completely free to wreck their shit. I played power stance great swords in the beginning. Went full weeb with moonveil and meteoric ore blade after Rennala. Went back to great sword power stance after getting radhans weapon plus meteoric ore blade and shield or meteoric ore blade and wakizashi depending on the situation or how I feel.
@yoda gaming ah, the usual "git good" reply instead of an actual useful comment. Maybe it would be nice if failing to dodge one hit didn't end the entire fight.
Spot on with this. The scaling is insane and you can do a whole dungeon and get 3k runes after a boss that will make you its bitch but you can shoot a bird 4 times for 10 times the amount.
wow early game gives less runes than endgame?? aint no way boy DDDDD:
the point still stands even in the late game lol. a late game optional dungeon can take you an hour and give you 50k runes, and you can get 50k from fighting common enemies in a neighbor area for 2 minutes
tbf im at the kfc farm like 5 hours into a character
well you don't need to abuse anything, have fun and when you're ready just do challenge runs 👌
@@AfterAttackTV 50k? Leading to the boss if you kill everything. You'll walk out with close to or above 200k for actual late game dungeons.
The damage near endgame is indeed a problem. Leveling your vigor to softcap is supposed to give you more chances to recover from fucking up. It's not supposed to be a minimum requirement to prevent a single mistake from killing you.
You shouldn't have to level your vigor to softcap to prevent the game from feeling like you're doing a SL1 challenge run. When I want that experience I'll choose it by keeping my vigor low.
The fact that you can get 1-shot with 40+ vigor and 33%DR in NG is absurd, but merely one extreme of the issue. Pack leader mobs can 2-shot you with attacks that are as swift as an R1 from a straight sword. Mobs can turn a single hit into a guaranteed second hit that will 2-shot you.
During my first playthough, I pumped my vigor from 27 to 40+ because I wanted some leeway. I was using dual daggers, favoring ripostes with the critical hit hp recovery talisman. I wanted that HP leeway so that when I took a hit from a trash mob, or got clipped by a swift boss attack, or missed a parry by a few frames, I wouldn't HAVE to top off to prevent one more mistake from killing me. If I could get a critical hit without fucking up again I could recover from the initial mistake.
But near endgame that leeway disappeared. I stopped using the critical heal talisman because I could no longer use it safely. I stopped trying to learn parry timing because a single small mistake, a single misread of enemies with timing mixups, could easily kill me. Often you lose so much HP from a single mistake that a single flask can't even put you back to safety. It's not like this was a single boss my build was poor against. It's entire areas: bosses, mini-bosses, tough mobs, and even trash mobs included; Multiple areas even!
Welcome to the souls series, you can recieve your free snack pack after defeating godskin quartet
@@Massakre8492nd Bish plz. I've played souls games since before they were a series.
@@Deadgye and you are still not used to the bs?
@@Massakre8492nd 'Getting used to the BS' is tolerating ass game design that you're forgetting you're paying actual money for, often hours worth of actual time for. It's worth thinking about, and not even with this specific game.
I mean, you're right, after all. It is a souls game. Nobody was under the impression it'd be easy.
@@theinstitute1324 it's not about tolerating it, it's about bracing yourself before it hits, this game it's vigor that is essential until it's not, bleed and lack of balance, you can expect that from a man with crippling poison swamp addiction. Overall brace for bs, You know it's there, nobody says it's good but that's the hand we're dealt
Wholeheartedly agree with Dunkey here, the damage output of enemies is astronomically high. There are so many instances where you can go from full HP to dead in less than a second with you not being able to do anything about it that it just gets exhausting and once you do win, it's less of a satisfying "Hell yeah, got their ass" and more of an exasperated "Thank God that's finally done, I hope the reward is actually worth it". It's artificial difficulty, whether others will accept that or not. I feel I was truly beaten when I got out played by someone/something out-maneuvering, not when the game just says "lol you got grabbed and insta-killed/you didn't react in time to that auto kill combo that gives you 1 frame to react". This game is fun and I enjoy playing it, but the balancing stops existing at some point and it hurts the game.
Anyone who actually plays Elden Ring long enough to beat it has Severe OCD no exceptions. hell anyone who plays any fromsoft souls like titles has OCD if they can stick with it, it's a more reliable way to diagnose OCD than anything else we have.
Also one of the things that makes having OCD at least worth something. I Say this as someone who has severe OCD as proven by the fact I play these games a lot.
@@zeehero7280 Never become a psychiatrist.
@@BornFlunky 😂😂
I mean, what you said was funny and all. But he could technically correct his theory by simply educating himself. If he were to put forth all his effort, and apply diligence and determination to learning everything there is regarding psychology and psychiatry, he would have a very high chance of being a good psychiatrist. I know what you said was a passive-aggressive joke, but I’m just being technical. Idk why 😂
@@dsweet5859his ass is never becoming a psychiatrist man
It's quite funny you said this. I have struggled with OCD my entire life. I'm 28 years old and my family still calls me "wings," because when i was a little boy, I would pull my velcro on my shoes so ridiculously hard that the sides of my shoes would have large velcro overhangs on them, resembling wings. My feet were sore, blood cut off severely, and I still insisted on doing it. My point here is, I still have bad problems with it, and I am the biggest souls junkie Fromsoft loser on earth. I have put a minimum of 500 hours into every one of their games (not saying this proudly btw) and I cite their games as one of my biggest inspirations in life in general. To get to the point, I have only gotten so good at souls games and beaten all the bosses and games because of the fact that I have OCD. Now, this does include other games as well, as I have never not finished a game even if I despise it because of my disorder, but it rears its ugly head the worst when it comes to soulsborne. I will bang my head against the wall for days just to be able to tell myself that I completed the game one hundred percent and beat every boss, even tho no one except for me will ever know. Anyway, maybe souls likes really do cater to the folks with OCD the most. Who knows. @@zeehero7280
I completely agree. I've beat the game 7 times now (don't judge too hard) and I love it. But the amount of damage enemies do breaks the RPG elements and basically forces you to waste countless levels on HP just so you can not get instakilled. Even with the best armor in the game and almost 2000hp, you can get 2 shot from full health by some enemies. That is garbage. That's not skill based difficulty, that's wasting my time. Still love the game but the balancing for some stuff is truly abhorrent. Luckily they changed some balancing in the latest patch so maybe they will continue tweaking things in the future
the vigor system is there so that there are different options, high damage and low health, high health and low damaged or a balance or both. Don't get me wrong there are a few enemies that do an absolute bull shit amount of damage but I fell it is taken way out of proportion here, I found most enemies doing a fine amount of damage with only a select few that were slightly bull shit.
Couldnt have said it better myself
7 times? You don't have a job right?
I started a new character a couple hours ago and put his vigor at 42 right off the bat
Yeah, that’s enough to make me skip out on a game. I don’t need to waste time on something that makes me feel like I’m actually wasting my time.
I honestly have to respect Dunkey for giving Elden Ring a chance even though it’s not a strand-type game. Obviously it’s not going to be on the same level as brilliant titles like Death Stranding or Knack 2, but it is a decent little game for what it is.
Dunkey usually takes some time to give the spotlight to indie studios like FromSoftware, even though this is not his type of game. Dunkey is the realest 💯👊😎
I heard Dunkey’s copy of Elden Ring was personally delivered by Reggie himself.
Dunkey is always giving small indie titles like this good reviews. What a good guy
But Elden ring literally is a strand type game. Honestly dark souls had 'strand type' elements for a while
This needs to be pinned 🤣🤣🤣
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who had that reaction to the map constantly getting bigger. I feel like the developers knew exactly what they were doing with expanding the size of the blank map beyond its borders, instead of it all being visible immediately (like in Horizon and BoTW)
for sure man that was ecstatic
BotW actually does this as well. Initially the map is an unlabeled void and areas only pop in as you progress and reach markers.
horizon does that too
@@jasonwandererssimplesystem675 not really, it does the filling in part but not the expanding part
@@jasonwandererssimplesystem675 Yeah but you can see how big the map is by virtue of the size of the screen. In ER, you don't know how big the game world is until you teleport to Caelid, and then to the Royal Capital. And even then it still catches you off guard with underground biomes which aren't on the map at first, and other weird crap (like the Crumbling Lands)
I feel like a major issue with a lot of bosses especially in the late game is the lack of a meaningful punish window. Think of Pontiff in DS3, dude was very fast and incredibly aggressive he had this one move that felt like a 15 hit combo, but if you were able to successfully dodge that combo you were able to get 3-4 hits in. You were rewarded for playing well.
Elden Ring they just launch into another combo or hit you with an attack that’s so fast you barely have time to read it. Just seems like you don’t really get rewarded for playing well most of the time. Still love the game tho I just think they kinda fumbled there
honestly this is my only issue with the game, cos I can level up from exploring if a boss is too tough. But a lot of fights feel like "roll, hit, roll away, dodge, hit, roll away". Take crucible knight. He has a total of ONE moves that can be punished with more than one attack, and it's at the end of an at least 3-hit combo. In his defense, he's a bit of a parry check and I found his fight a lot more fun once I equipped a buckler, but when commander O'' neil uses a gigantic 3 hit aoe rot attack, he has to recover for several seconds, while malenia can use one of the most broken moves ever created by fromsoft and instantly recover as if it was a tuesday, it's ridiculous.
i think most of the enemies have an invisible stamina bar and mana bar you can't see, and their moves consume that, which is why they might go bullshit move into bullshit move very quickly but then take a 6 second breather after a relatively weak move, but that may just be me coping
I’ve heard horror stories of Pontiff. By some random stroke of luck I managed to beat him on my first try. I guess I got extremely lucky with RNG and he didn’t do any sort of wacky combos. I stayed behind him pretty much the entire fight and just made him go around and around in a circle.
Well, a lot of bosses in this game are simply designed to confuse you with their moves. Morgott, for example, has like 4 different variants of a certain move of his (the one where he raises his sword/staff high, then after a delay slams it down hard), which look similar, especially at the start of the animation, but have considerably different speed and most importantly different follow-ups. If you succeed in dodging the slowest variant, you are rewarded with a meaningful punish window, which is as big as Pontiff's after his long-ass combo. The faster ones, however, aren't very punishable, since after those he immediately does a really fast follow-up attack and, what's even worse (or better, if you enjoy getting fucked), the combos they're part of can potentially loop
What I'm getting at is that the game's bosses (yes, even Malenia) give you a lot more punish windows than you think. Identifying them, however, can be difficult
this, its not even the big damage thats a problem. with proper talismans and enough hp (not even the recommended 60 vigor), you still dont get 1 shot by the VAST majority of things, or even 2 shot.
The problem is when certain bosses do an 80 hit combo and you dodge a lot of it, then youre out of stamina and need to heal and they do a follow up 80 hit combo. (looking at you horah loux).
I love the game, beat it several times. But dunkey is off with the damage problem, its a punish window problem.
Absolutely agree with this take. The scaling is absurd and the bosses seem to have infinite stamina, leading to you running desperately away from endless combos. My late game boss victorys dont feel earned, instead feeling like i had to beat my head against the boss until the one attempt where they didn’t decide to one shot me
Nailed it! You have to try and try and try again and HOPE they don't pull off "that" move. So, it makes you find a cheap way to beat them, just to get past them, instead of enjoying the battle.
That’s how I felt w malania lmao
@@LunaWithaTopHat Same, just waiting for the one and only move you can run up and get a single hit after before running away again for five minutes.
@@vsm303 me when I just take my hand off the controller when malenia decided to use her weapon art. It wasn't worth the hassle of maybe dodging it and losing like half my estus. Just go next and hope she doesn't use it.
You must've been underleveled if you felt like the endgame bosses were overpowered, once you actually pay attention to their attack patterns they become fairly trivial. And there's tools the game gives you to make bosses easier like Elden beast/haligdrake talisman+2, Mohg/purifying crystal tear and shackle, maliketh has the pillars to block his projectiles easily, even with Godfrey you can literally jump over all his AOE attacks lol
Just like all masterpieces this game is flawed, and Dunkey is not scared to highlight all the negatives even when clearly loving it. A true critic.
I just saw you’re comment on the “Macadelic 10” video. A man of taste with that and now Dunkey lol
@@CallMeTeci chill dude no game will be perfect coz people have different taste no matter how hard a video game company try but still Elden Ring still deserves to be called masterpiece despite its flaws.
TL:DR Masterpiece is not equal to perfection,unless you want to devote your view in life just coz the dictionary says so.
@@CallMeTeci A masterpiece isn't something that's flawless. If that was the case nothing in this world would be a masterpiece.
@@jackhousen8445 that's cause classic Nintendo IPs have a charm about them that can't be matched
@@CallMeTeci absolutely no game is flawless, so at least we can call a game that is close to being one a "masterpiece"
Elden Ring is an amazing game. Honestly one of the most phenomenal games I've ever played. That doesn't make it immune from criticism. You can love something and still recognize it's flaws.
Thank goodness Dunkey point out it’s flaws. With all of the praise going around I swear it was the second coming of Christ.
Seriously. Nothing is perfect, and people really want to believe that this game truly is perfect, but it's not. Doesn't mean it isn't amazing though.
tell that to all the people on reddit that got mad at me for saying some of the UI is pretty unintuitive and poorly designed
Thank the Lord. Like I'm genuinely having a good time with the game, despite hating all the other Souls games, but there are still elements here that make the game less fun than it can be. It's a great game but Souls fans really need to stop pretending that every inconvenience in the game is some divine pure amazing decision that can't be questioned because of its artistic integrity
@@r6scrubs126 Anyone that thinks From softs UI is intuitive is an idiot. This is by far my favourite game of all time but some people can't even get into it because the Menus and Tutorials are so bad that you need someone to explain everything to you that knows the Souls games. This didn't take away from my experience but boy do I remember my struggles with this garbage when I first got into Dark Souls.
The thing with Elden Ring is that it's balancing is purely handled by locational scaling. Each entity has a base HP and DMG values which you then slap an area scaling (plus NG+ area scaling, plus NG+ clear count scaling).
There are a total of 21 different scaled zones at the game (29 if you count newly added unused ones probably for the DLC), from the Stranded Graveyard (which has actually no scaling at all), to the Haligtree Roots (which has a staggering 740% boost to enemy HP and almost 380% boost to enemy DMG)
The world and enemies outscale your character massively, especially once you start reaching your soft- or hardcaps. Ultimately, it ends up creating a situation of pure artificial difficulty towards the later stages.
how do you know all these? Do you somehow able to extract the game's code?
@@budiisnadi There's a handy piece of software called Yapped Rune Bear that allows you to explore the game's contents
This is just ridiculous! What the fuck!
@@SinisterChud I didn't know the stats but that makes sense now. Which is why on my first playthrough about 75% of the way through I hit a wall, so I massively overleveled and then plowed through the final bosses without any trouble at all (with mimic ash, of course). Then I had to replay with a normal level character just to see what the final bosses did. I think the two major weaknesses are the difficulty spike and the vast areas of nothingness where exploring is not rewarded. But I still beat it four times too...
Spot on. As much as I love this game, the moment I first dodged under a boss' high jumping attack and watched him track 180 degrees to land the hit anyway, I knew I was going to be butting my head against some true BS.
yeah the "I hold my weapon up in the air and autoaim the attack right onto your face unless you hit dodge just before it" attacks fucking suck ass
That’s a punish for panic rolling.
@@minimiliano aimbot seems like a lazy way to do it...
@@minimiliano there's a difference between panic rolling and hitting the roll button 3 frames too early (you can only dodge during 1 frame btw) (btw this will instakill you) (btw this is the second phase of a boss who's nearest grace site is a brisk mile run length away)
JESUS KNOCKS ON YOUR HEART AND LONGS FOR YOU TO ANSWER! HE DOESN'T WANT
TO SEE ANYONE PERISH INTO HELL. GOD LOVES YOU SO HE GIVES YOU FREE
WILL AND A CHOICE TO ACCEPT HIM OR REJECT HIM. TO LOVE HIM OR TO LOVE
SIN/THIS WORLD. CALL UPON JESUS & ASK HIM TO FORGIVE YOUR SINS!
SURRENDER YOUR WILL & YOUR LIFE TO HIM AND HE WILL GIVE YOU ETERNAL
LIFE IN HEAVEN! PICTURE YOUR BEST DAY ON EARTH TIMES A BILLION FOR
ETERNITY, THAT'S HEAVEN! NOW PICTURE YOUR WORST DAY ON EARTH TIMES A
BILLION FOR ETERNITY, THAT'S HELL! HE WILL GIVE YOU WHAT YOU WANT SO IF
YOU REJECT HIM YOU WILL BE SEPARATED FROM HIM & HIS BLESSINGS
(LOVE, PEACE, JOY, HOPE, REST, ETC). IN HELL YOU WILL BE ALONE WITHOUT
GOD OR PEOPLE, YOU WILL BE HOPELESS, YOU WILL BE IN DESPAIR & AGONY
FOREVER!
GOD'S STANDARD FOR HEAVEN IS PERFECTION AND ONLY JESUS
(THE SON OF GOD/GOD IN THE FLESH) LIVED THAT PERFECT LIFE! HE LAID
DOWN HIS LIFE & TOOK THE WRATH OF THE FATHER ON THE CROSS FOR YOUR
SINS! GOD IS JUST SO HE MUST PUNISH SIN & HE IS HOLY SO NO SIN CAN
ENTER HIS KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. IF YOU ARE IN CHRIST ON JUDGEMENT DAY GOD
WILL SEE YOU AS HIS PERFECT SON (SINLESS SINCE YOUR SINS ARE COVERED BY
JESUS' OFFERING). YOU CAN ALSO CHOOSE TO REJECT JESUS' GIFT/SACRIFICE
& PAY FOR YOUR OWN SIN WITH DEATH (HELL) BUT THAT SEEMS PRETTY
FOOLISH! GOD SEES & HEARS EVERYTHING YOU HAVE SAID & DONE. YOU
WONT WIN AN ARGUMENT WITH HIM & YOU CANT DEFEND ANY OF YOUR SINS TO
HIM. WE'RE ALL GUILTY WITHOUT ACCEPTING JESUS' SACRIFICE FOR OUR SINS!
MUHAMMAD DIDN'T DIE FOR YOUR SINS, BUDDHA DIDN'T DIE FOR
YOUR SINS, NO PASTOR/PRIEST/MARY OR SAINT DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO IDOLS
OR FALSE GODS DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO ACTOR OR CELEBRITY DIED FOR YOUR
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JESUS CHRIST ALONE DIED FOR YOUR SINS & WAS RESURRECTED FROM THE GRAVE! HE IS
ALIVE & COMING BACK VERY SOON (THESE ARE END TIMES) WITH JUDGEMENT!
PREPARE YOURSELVES, TURN FROM SIN & RUN TO JESUS! IT STARTS WITH
ASKING HIM TO FORGIVE YOUR SINS & INVITING HIM INTO YOUR HEART/LIFE,
SURRENDER ALL TO HIM! IT'S ABOUT A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR CREATOR. HE
KNOWS YOUR PAIN & TROUBLES, TALK TO HIM LIKE A BEST FRIEND! ASK
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DON'T WAIT TO CRY OUT! NO ONE IS PROMISED TOMORROW! HE LONGS FOR YOU TO
INVITE HIM IN, HE LOVES YOU MORE THAN ANY PERSON EVER COULD, HE CREATED YOU!
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."-John 14:6
"But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."-Matthew 10:33
“For the wages of sin is death (hell), but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”-Romans 6:23
I've beaten the game just about 7 times now with varying builds and I fully agree with enemies doing way too much damage, as well enemies (especially bosses) having a ridiculous amount of combos they can string together with very little time to retaliate with heavier weapons.
Whats the best/easiest build to start out with?
@@dalgusmaximus4557 not playing
@@dalgusmaximus4557 curved greatswords like bloodhounds fang are reeally soild. or magic
There's a talisman that reduces incoming damage by 30% when ur at full hp. Basically prevents every oneshot from happening in the game.
@@sitter2207 Even still, with the fact that later on the flask does heal you only to about half, the damage is overtuned. It's sad that you get punished for getting hit just once by an enemy you might never have seen before - or just because it's a new variant. And even then, even if you faced some enemies multiple times, they are still ridiculous bullshit with some moves, like the giant crows who are both fast and very damaging, of which the worst are the ones in Mohgwyn palace of course, which also have incredible amounts of hp. Yes, the game gives you tools to beat nearly every enemy easily. The issue is, I don't feel like switching between 20 consumables in my inventory between two graces just to make a treck through some _very_ unpleasant area a little more bearable. I think that's one of ER's biggest downsides; with many of the open world enemies in later stages being so punishing, it actively incentivizes just running past. In no DS game have I felt as compelled to just skip the area's enemies altogether after the first clear, just because I simply didn't enjoy fighting them because they felt way overtuned.
It's kinda funny, in the beginning I deliberately went into a glass cannon build cos I just wanted all the stats to use the weapons I wanted and mostly ignored vigor so I expected to get killed in 1 or 2 hits.
Now, in late game, I brought my vigour up to 30-40 ish and nothing has changed.
No way, you tellin me having low stats at the early game, is like having average stats late game? Its almost like the game gets harder as you progress holy shit
@@jlimmy1569 Idk, I just assumed having the the recommended average HP instead of being below the recommended HP would make a difference
i dont mean to be a dick, but alot of people dont get that the soft cap in this game changes for ever stat and generally caps between 60 and 80 so 40 vigor really isnt all that much especially in end game its like any fromsoftware game where if your vigor isnt close to the cap youll find bosses and hard enemies 1 hitting u
@@roxyinmotion 40 vigor is still a lot of levels dedicated to not dying for it to do barely anything. I've beaten the game solo (no spirit ashes) with 22 vigor, simply because what's the point of going higher? Are bosses going to one-shot me harder? I'm dead either way so who cares.
I don't know about DS2 or DS1, but I've beaten DeS:R, Bloodborne and DS3 without putting a single point into vigor and even then I didn't get one shot as often as I get one shot in ER with 22 vigor. Hell, I even did cursed chalices in Bloodborne without putting a single point into vitality and I was still able to survive some of boss attacks.
The ammount of levels you have to sink into vigor just to not get one-shot ruins build diversity
@@Starcrafter23 Vigor is the new ADP. Elden Ring has all the flaws of DS2 but magnified. "Level up vigor" is the new "level up ADP". Some bs hidden necessary stat you need to level up just to play the game with minimum bs.
Yeah Dunkey nailed what's probably my biggest issue with the game. The difficulty spikes are so bad sometimes it genuinely doesn't feel like you're improving. I remember feeling like I was somehow getting worse at the game going into the later areas but when I went back to the first area I was an unstoppable killing machine. I had actually improved a ton, but the game cranks enemy stats up so much in between locations that it felt like I was weaker than I had been when I first started! It's just not satisfying in the same way other fromsoft games I've played are, because unless you have the right builds that feeling of hard-earned progression is just... not there.
WEAK
@@berisiq silence, anime pfp
@@berisiq SILENCE COOMER
@@WiresDawson funnily enough, fromsoftware rips off a lot of concepts from a manga called Berserk
I guess they expect you to do every side stuff before going into the next area
They did balance the damage from a lot of the bosses and more difficult enemies in the latest patch (1.03). Which only came out about a week ago, so it’s understandable that everyone had so much trouble with it. I did too.
Edit from 2024: I lied to you all. They balanced the damage of Radahn. Every other boss is still broken and the DLC is no different.
Also the damage wouldn’t be such an issue (for certain bosses) if they actually had good move sets. But the unpredictable timing and input reading of so many attacks makes them incredibly annoying to dodge. Unless you want to memorize the timing of every attack, which is not fun. Or use a summon, which is not fun.
This. Between boss balances and the arcane buff, I was able to beat a couple of bosses I've been stuck on.
I thought they only balanced one boss? Or was there more?
.they also nerfed a lot of good stuff, some of it deserved to be, just not as much as they did
So I guess I'll wait another year or so before attempting to play this game. By then they'll probably be done with the balancing.
The radahn nerfs were absolutely bullshit, he's a pushover now
3:28 "Having super aggressive enemies with crazy combos with unpredictable attacks is the fun kind of difficult. But making those moves hit for your entire health bar is fucking lame." This is the biggest problem by far, at least in the end game, that this game has. This game would feel far more fair if enemies and bosses still had the same crazy attacks but they didnt nuke your health bar. Even at 60 vigor some things can still 2 shot me. He's right about fixing it too, and luckily with stats and data and feedback hopefully fromsoft will balance the game better going forward (including the number of runes enemies give)
There’s a good chance they will. They decreased Radahn’s damage and the range of his hit box
They patched the damage on a few bosses(Radahn notably), so hopefully they will continue to balance the enemy damage. I loved the game but had that same exact complaint every time I got to the Fire Giant, it just isn't balanced properly.
Based off of how people have talked about Radahn, boy can I absolutely not wait for the hordes of people to come out of the woodwork if anything's made easier in this game, demanding for the changes to be reverted, and also that they get their dick sucked for beating it when it was harder.
@@Leap623 there's already people bragging saying "I beat pre nerf radahn" like anyone gives a fuck
Nah bro, you were evidently under leveled for the endgame; Elder Ring is open world game, not Dork Souls!!!
I agree, especially with new comers to the Souls series, getting 2 shotted with 50 Vigor and heavy armor shouldn't be the norm. Understandable if you're a squishy mage without a single point in Vigor with robes, but not so much for melee builds that have to get into the mess. Having incremental increases would help, in DS1 your natural/base armor would go up by 1 point. In DS2 your health would go up by 2-3 points even if the Stat wasn't Vigor.
Really don’t get why they didn’t bring that back lmao
I can't find anything conclusive or authoritative, but it sounds like scaling in general is a major issue with the game.
Those attacks were probably meant to be dodged. The only reason you weren't one shotted was because you had 50 vig and armor. And you'll always have flasks to work with.
When exactly does the game get like that. I’m lvl 50 with 16 vigor and I don’t get one shotted by anything. I’ve fought (and lost to Radahn) as well as beaten the demigod in raya Lucaria and I just don’t take the damage this video shows.
Im level 50 and have like 20 points in vigor should I even waste all the levels just to go from getting one shot to getting 2 shot lol
Elden Ring falls into a specific category of "Why the fuck does armor have stats?". For like half the encounters that matter, it just makes no sense for me to have a lot of armor, because I'm going to get one shot anyway, while being weighed down by armor.
I know I'm late to the party but I just got Elden Ring and beat it. Only way I was able to beat Malenias waterfowl was to stack as much armor as possible and just fat roll through it. I also had dragon crest greatshield tali on as well. Prior to that I just could not survive it so it helped that way I guess lol
@@nahfam8794 Only Souls game where armor felt like it had a large impact for me was Dark Souls 2. Past that, I armored up for my Gwyn fight in Dark Souls 1, I put on Havel's armor for the purpose of having better poise (if I remember correctly), so I was just going for chonky.
@@BabylonGames798thats kind of interesting because armor has nearly no effect in ds2, probably matters the least compared to all the games
I think the intended purpose is for you to first level up Health a whole lot, and then eventually find a really good armor set that has high damage protection. That way, you have a really high health pool, as well as increased damage reduction from the solid armor set.
@@jinniptions7596 I only really armored up for the handful of DS2 fights that did stupid amounts of fire damage (Dragon, Smelter Demon, Fume Knight, those pains). Aside from that, I felt like if I wasn't constantly running max armor stats, I'd fall to the ridiculous hordes of enemies constantly.
I remember the final boss of Dark Souls 1 had that combo that if you had a gigantic health bar and good defense it MIGHT not kill you, but that was one combo he had, it was telegraphed, gave ample opportunity to heal after and he didn't do it all the time, but in Elden Ring it feels like most enemies have that combo but it does double the damage, still loving it, I just want to love it even more
And it's not even like we can't bullshit back, by the time I reached the last couple bosses I was kind of burnt out so I tried out the rivers of blood katana, 1st try defeated every endgame boss including malenia with my mimic tear, the final boss did kill me once but it was mostly elden Beasts fault since I couldn't tell where his hit boxes were.
It's not the only thing either, hoarfrost stomp, sword of Night and Flame, tons of magic, it's easy to break this game but its also way to easy for the game to break you
"Loving it, I just want to love it even more." Could have expressed how I feel about Elden Ring any better.
Nah you love ds1 combat coz you just want to exploit circle strafing till the boss dead strat and now they fix it entirely now it's bad lol
@@Omega77232 I think what he’s trying to say was that the older game rewarded you for mastering it (which includes any glitch’s, exploits, and bugs), whilst elden ring only rewards you for playing in a specific way with specific weapons and a specific build.
You mean ds3? I dont remember gwyn having a combo. Or maybe you're refering to manus?
I've played this for over 50 hours so far and I think I'm only half way through. Definitely the best Pokemon game of all time, I can't wait until I find and upgrade all those legendaries.
You haven't hit the wall yet ;)
I think it is closer to Bowser's Big Bean Burrito
I'm 80 hours in and I thought I was half way.
I am slow.
120 hours...Still haven't beaten godrick....
I was thinking that the same around 50 hours, however, after another 50 hours, I realized, only now I am at 1/3 of the game xDDD
He's not wrong, in some of the dungeons you have regular mobs that have more HP and are more of a threat than the actual boss. I died to those mobs several times then killed the boss on my first try without breaking a sweat.
Gilmers Hero Grave or whatever
Those fuckin cats man
I say this all the time, i spend more time getting to the boss fight than the actual bossfight itself, it’s fucking ridiculous, except haligtree, fuck that place and it’s boss
dragonbarrow runebear
@@dexms4 the one in the cave ? yeah fuck that one
I love how he could say how good of a game it is but the moment he talks about how unbalanced it is you can already hear fromsoftware fans furiously typing
Okay where are they?
being a ginormous fromsoft fanboy i agree with him
@@alihasanabdullah7586 getting a lil serious for a joke comment
@goggles789 taking a joke comment a little too serious I see
@goggles789 calm down don’t get so upset over a comment
Its BECAUSE this game is so incredible that the balance issues are so highlighted. Could be a 10/10, but WOW is it just so cheap and dirty out of nowhere. When the random guy in the hall BEFORE the boss room can 2 hit you at level 150? But you just steamroll the boss behind him? ugh... Anyway, My mimic is the true Elden Lord.
but Dunkey fan? That's the Easy part!
now play this game on NG+7.
Exactly the reason i gave up on the game. After an entire day of college/work you want to spend the few hours of gaming you have relaxing, and dying to the same things for days gets really frustrating. I see why people like it, but it’s just not my thing
ur lucky ur mimic is still good after the stupid fucking nerf 😪😪😪😪
I think it's a common soul mechanism to have a boss which is weak but has an op bodyguard
I think it's a nice touch, breaks the traditional game boss fight experience
Never used it. beat the game just fine.
this game really makes you feel like maidenless
......yeah ..............
Don't need a game to make me feel like that
No maiden's? 🥺
Don't hate me ninja coz I'm noob ninja
Honey I was maidenless before I bought it
At the beginning, he said he played it through 4 times, at the end it became 4 and a half. It means that Dunkey played through half of the game by the time he finished the video. Such a legend
The trick to beating a highly aggressive boss that can two shot you is to do cocaine
The other trick is to completely level up Health all the way to 99, wear the most powerful armor set in the game, and two-hand your fully upgraded weapon for maximum damage.
A game can be beatable and still not well balanced. People tend to forget that for the sake of blind defense of their favorites. Great video.
Yeah and the way they justify it is by playing obscene number of hours. Like Bruh other people got lives outside of this game lol
@@aryan7767 YEP. Also, like...the overall boss designs are just straight up cheap. I died most to Orphan before Elden Ring (23 tries). Margit, the first story boss took me 19 tries. It only got worse from there. And before any dipshits ask: yes my vigor was high and I was the right level.
Could agree some normal enemies deals too much damage but bosses are well balanced. Fighting someone that never lost a fight should be somewhat considered hard.
@@adventpsyop
only 23? orphan took me at least 100..
As Dunkey even said about the imabalance in the video, "It only encourages people to use these broken ass builds in the late game." It's not that the game is too hard at all, those broken builds he refers to can trivialize just about every boss fight. It's just too hard using conventional methods, and as a result, players turn to said builds, and end up having a less satisfying experience with their playthrough. I think commenters here are framing it purely as a "Game's too hard" argument, and thumping their chest saying "I beat it so it can't be imbalanced, just git gud!"
Dunkey isn't wrong on the damage balancing, even before I played the game myself I've heard veteran Souls players mention that Elden Ring was the hardest Souls game they've played, and I never understood why. But when I myself experienced getting one shotted over and over again I finally understood. I do like the aspect of it being a lot more unforgiving in the end, I'd still rate it as the best game I've played in years though.
Level vigor to at least 35 while upgrading other stats, doing damage is easy as hell even low level, it’s just enemies do damage
Noticed that you're finally verified, congrats
Joe is a pretty good summon throughout the game you should try him hehe
@@tonyvega205 even at 45 vigor with some of the best armor in the game i was still getting one or two shot by some of the later game ENEMIES, not just bosses. i adore this game and am on my second playthrough as we speak, but there's def a point where the damage that enemies and bosses deal feels unreasonable. it feels bad to be dodging everything perfectly, get a boss down to low health, and then just die because you messed up your timing once.
It’s pretty easy to never actually get one shot ppl just don’t heal all the way
I beat this game four times on the same character and got the platinum for it, I agree with Dunksman, there is a LOT of BS powerful oneshot attacks and cheap deaths, and it really makes me feel justified in saying that you should cheese this game's enemies as hard as you can and as much as you can. Go ahead, "overlevel" it's fine, do it, kill those sleepy frog boys for hours that's fine, because you know what's up the hill from them? a boss who death curses you if you didn't go get the magic anti-curse stone from an out-of-the-way church where an angry red npc invades you and tries to chop you up but she drops the stone and you didn't even know it existed until you beat her after stumbling into the encounter in the first place. Then you need to put that stone in your magic flask and drink it at the right time. Nothing in the game tells you any of this by the way.
I had fun with it but it's balance is nonexistent and everything straight up cheats by having infinite mana/ammo/throwing pots they can use against you. So what can you do? Grind, Cheese, and use every dirty trick you can, exploit every weird wall or pillar, kick enemies off cliffs, poison and rot them and run away from their attacks, zap them with lightning from a place they can't reach, there is no honor to be found in the lands between, and the only thing you can trust is dog pope.
The Crystal Tear tells you exactly what it does in the item description...
@@professortofupanda2308 He meant the important part, the fact that it even exists.
@@professortofupanda2308 Dunkey at 3:44 literally addresses this. Most items are just stumbled upon and item names are hardly ever named after their purpose.
Dog pope😆
Thats for NG+
With the new dlc the damage complaint just got even worse in my opinion.
I haven't played the DLC, but I've 100%ed the base game and coming off the back of completing darksouls 3 into elden ring, I couldn't believe people were complaining about difficulty. The game is much much easier than the previous games. To the point where comparisons are almost pointless. I had heard a huge amount of complaints about the rot queen melania or whatever her name is. Took me about 5 tries to get her and I was kind of blown away. She had this insane online community talking about her "unfair" levels of difficulty and then I hadn't even learnt her patterns properly yet and still beat her. Darksouls 3 opening 2 hours are harder than most of what is on offer in Elden ring. Dying to a boss in darksouls, you lose your ember buff, so your health is reduced, you drop your souls obviously, and you're put back 5+ minutes of actual fighting, or a 2 minute gauntlet run dodging attacks and arrows etc. Just to even attempt the boss again. Elden ring is just a boss wall with a spawn point directly outside. I feel this whole complaint about damage is crazy, I think it's by far the easiest game in the catalogue - a 70% damage reduction across the board like Dunkey is suggesting is... not it.
I love how it doesn’t introduce you with some dungeon. Just tells you to become elden lord, and sends you off. It’s great
i mean if you drop down the hole in the first area there's a whole tutorial zone that holds your hand and teaches you all the core game mechanics. i skipped it, then 20 hours later learned how to two-hand weapons completely by chance, because i saw an NPC invader do it and just started pushing buttons
Yeah, while it's optional there's literally a tutorial dungeon where you fight Some Guy and it stops you every ten seconds with prompts. Not a bad thing, but it exists.
If this game is not game of the year, i will dislike the game awards
Don't forget the first guy you talk to tells you that you got no bitches
@@blipblop1112 game awards stopped being reputable years ago
I have to say, I completely agree about the damage scaling in this game. The damage to health ratio is far more in favor of damage in this game than any previous souls game, and lots of players from those games have taken notice. To some extent, I don't think it is changing the difficulty of the game, as your character also does considerably more proportionate damage to enemies. However, it tends to fall into this "boom or bust" style of play where you either win handily or get killed almost instantaneously.
I feel like your character does more damage in this game and you take more damage. Bosses honestly die way to fast imo I used frost stomp on radagon and he just melted like butter.
I half agree, most of the time it does really just come down to luck
@@degarri7995 dog, I get what you’re saying, but hoarfrost stomp is not a good example because it’s busted af
The game gives you the option to increase your health though, I found at around only 45-55 vigor there is pretty much nothing that can 1 shot.
@@degarri7995 Frost Stomp was busted, but they nerfed it a fair amount from my understanding.
I think another area of critique to hit was to many colossal bosses that have the ability to move instantly to the other side of a massive arena causing you to have to spend 30-60 seconds walking back over to them. A few of them dont give you horse access (looking at you space bug skeleton and elden beast)
Makes a gorgeous fight into a total slog
Havn't even gotten that far and I was really annoyed trying to fight the Twin Gargoyles when the first one kept flying away. I was like- could you just stand still for five FUCKING seconds?!
Plus, with some of the bigger fights, you can't see what the boss is doing and what your doing at the same time.
u are right but there is no boss that takes even 20 seconds to walk back over to if that
Actually that's when you use the mounts, mounts are great for those kind of fights but yeah I agree with ya
@@BervikGameShorts The point is the ones he's talking about dont allow you to use mounts.
"This is an evil game made by an evil man." That should be on the box-art for whatever ultimate edition is released down the line. Love this game. 🥰🥰
Well, the original Dark Souls from 2011 had "Prepare To Die" as its official tagline, so that's been going on for a long time.
I've not been addicted to a game like this in years. This is a proper escape, like a game should be. I thought I was growing up and less interested in gaming, maybe that isnt the case after all.
Dunkey is right, amazing games like this are few and far between, despite the flaws. It's probably my favorite game since the Mass Effect trilogy wrapped up in 2012.
Honestly one of the most immersive satisfying games I've ever played in my life. I don't think anything can truly top it, makes you wonder about how shitty and bare-bones the rest of the gaming industry is right now
Still prefer super mario bros 2 for game of the year 2022
Abso-fucking-lutely, I was honestly feeling so hopeless after so many trash releases and uninspiring games, that I was honestly afraid to get excited with Elden Ring, but goddamn, I feel like a kid, just waiting for the clock to strike the end of the day to race home and play OoT or MArio 64 or Banjo Kazooie, now I'm waiting till the end of the day to sink more hours exploring and getting my ass kicked in ER, it truly unmasks the sad state of gaming and how accustomed we've become to accepting trash with AAA games
I basically uninstalled all of my live service games because of Elden Ring.
This game really makes you *feeeeel* like sean bean.
egg moment
Greatness
I read Sean Bean as Seen Bean
Checkmark accounts are the virgins of YT
One does not simply die.
There's also other problems with certain enemies that are just straight up annoying to fight. Some seem to endlessly combo without any real openings, others will literally teleport after you hit them once, some will just automatically dodge your attack and jump 15 feet away after you spent 5 minutes dodging their shit.
skill issue
@@F1nicky It really do be like that
Maybe use heal, some enemies take real damage from heal, especially those guys with the many arms.
I really really hate saying this but this is just a “git gud” moment
No problem with that
Only now that I finished the game for the first time (almost at the end of NG+ now), I realize that this review is 100% correct. An incredible game held back by poor balancing.
It sucks, bc it couldve been a masterpiece. The world, the graphics, the art design, the atmosphere, and the player's combat were all awesome. But the enemy scaling was so difficult and broken that youre too focused on not getting hit once to appreciate a lot of the little things. Oh yeah, and the endgame, starting once you reach the mountaintop, is straight up tedious, boring, and not fun.
@@billycostigan1247 it's crazy because even though the late game is unbalanced, it's still quite fun to me. which makes me wonder what could've been if they had balanced it correctly, i don't think i would've ever gone outside again
I don't even feel like it's a damage or health bar problem. Darkeater Midir has 2 shot potential and his healthbar made it a 15 minutes kill for me but was still super fun and rewarding, in Elden Ring most of the bosses abilities are not fun to play against. Like relentless super fast demolishing combos that you have no business in learning, with no tactic to be found except to randomly roll and pray. It does not make it worth it or fun to learn but encourages you to level up broken summons and weapons. The fights were either too easy or non rewarding bullshit. The only cool bosses i've encoutered so far (i've not done the couple of last areas in endgame yet) are the godskin apostle, elemer of the briar and that dragon at the end of Rannis questline. Margit was also quite cool to fight in the early game. But all the rest was done in 2 attempts roughly.
I don't buy it. The game gets way more fair and balanced if you use everything the game gives you. Each enemy and boss have different attacks and weaknesses. If you realize that your build needs to be dynamic (for each boss a different set of talismans, weapon grease, ashes), then it will get way more fair. When Dunkey streamed the game (after this video launched, so probably the 5th time he beat the game) he almost never looked into using this mechanics. He didn't even care about crafting, for example. So yeah, you can still beat it but of course it will be unbalanced: You are deliberately nerfing yourself by not using what the game provides. How would it not be difficult?
@@astropgn The problem that dunkey mentioned in the video is that the tools the game gives you are too rigid. People don't lean into item crafting because you only get a small amount of materials per drop. So if your strategy to taking down a boss revolves around using an item but you keep dying to the boss in the process of learning its move set then soon you'll either have to backtrack to grind more materials or beat the boss without the item anyways. So most people are gonna just git gud anyways instead of burning time to grind. Weapons usually drop at +0 level so you have to upgrade every new tool from scratch, even if it drops from a mid/late game area. Even then, there are only so many ancient dragon stones per playthrough, so you can only upgrade a handful of weapons to max anyways. Furthermore, you are only given 8 larval tears per playthrough, so if you want to respec your character to use a new weapon then you are taking a massive risk. Let me know if I'm wrong about any of these. But as I see it, for a game that leans into weapon variety and openness, Elden Ring's item limits really hurts the player's ability to experiment solutions to it's problems.
Finding the balance between genuine critical analysis and humour must be very difficult. But dunkey makes it look so effortless. He's been in the youtube game a long time and it shows. I just love it. Thank you dunkey.
Das ist die BESTE elden ring review
FromSoft is famous for their enemy design and they are really bringing the heat, here, not only in sheer quantity but also in terms of moves and variety.
Penguins is in this game
Dunkey's criticism is completely unwarranted. He says Elden Ring is too hard?
Please allow me to list all the tools that turn the game into easy mode:
- Co-op
- Spirit ashes
- NPC summons
- Ranged attacks (ever tried Spiral Shard?)
- Buffs
- Debuffs
- Consumables (e.g. Volcano pots)
- Overtuned weapons (e.g. Moonveil)
And if you say "but Godskin duo is too strong!" -> Try sleep (if summoning isn't strong enough already)
This game is not hard at all unless you deliberately limit your options. Watch Asmongold's playthrough. He did it fairly easily without using 80% of the tools in the game. He beat Malenia after just two hours without looking up how to beat her. All he did was that he had the brilliant idea of using two halberds instead of only one. He practically broke the game, even GinoMachino acknowledged that.
@@ETBrooD OK
I’m about 200 hours in and on my second character and this is so accurate. That late game difficulty spike feels like it comes from nowhere. Love the game, but the difficulty makes so many potential builds not even worth trying.
I honestly feel like they made the difficulty spike so big in the late game in order to make the game difficult for the sake of difficulty not for the sake of being challenge
@@nerdothn892 I doubt it, it was probably because as the game's release was getting closer many classic fans where complaining that the game was going to be tailored for casuals and be too easy, in the end, they overcompensated. Also, the game has an insane amout of build variety and some builds are really good while others not so much, the balancing must be very difficult to pull off in that respect.
That is so true. It's like they forgot to put an area between Morgott and the snow area or something. What's even worse is that since everything one shots you anyway, a bunch of mechanics and items in the game (like armor) become WAY less useful, which disencourages experimentation like in early game.
@@Yama-qg3il okay you got a point especially when it comes to making the game balanced for every build type is really hard especially considering how much viarity there js
@@nerdothn892 Yeah, the other day I watched someone fight malenia with a frost magic and bleed build while using hte mimic tear, Malenia got absolutely stomped on the first place, meanwhile I was struggling because my build was based on lightning and erdtree incantations, most of thse are useless against her, my damage was underwhelming too, even though I was level 138!
I definitely agree with the balance. I'm getting to (what I assume) is act 3 of the game and it feels like by this point the game is balanced like it expects you to be cheating with some stupid broken build. And don't get me wrong, I AM but it just feels like it's a race to do my stupid OP bullshit before the game does its stupid OP bullshit and it's gotten a lot less engaging because of it. First 30ish hours absolutely blew me away though.
Need more lyle anger in this lmao
Lyle is a sexual maniac
30hrs seems like act 3 if you’re thinking there’s 5 acts
I have just had to look up the meta bleed build because Malenia is too much for me and my regular weapon. The game is way too hard at the end.
Exactly
Two years later and there's still a ton of sidequests I haven't done, weapons I haven't found, skillsets I haven't explored. This game dwarfs pretty much every golden age jRPG from the SNES and PS1.
I finished my first playthrough at over 160 hours, which is crazy. I thought it was fantastic, but heavily agree that some enemies were designed poorly in late game due to the high amount of damage they did and THEY NEVER GET TIRED. Like they just keep swinging at you without even giving you a chance to hit so you end up just using mimic whenever you can to at least aleviate that. I dont mind the mimic, I actually think it was a fantastic idea, especially for someone like me who does not want help with bosses from other players...except Melenia, because screw her!
Malenia can't be solo'd. I don't care that there is proof on TH-cam of beating her without taking any damage. Malenia can't be solo'd, and that's my truth.
@@Brawndo2008 lol im with you, I solo'd everything else (if you dont count ashes)
Also, on the more serious of things, Im not a big fan of just looking up meta builds or anything, but heard theres a bloodloss build that makes it a whole lot easier. But I guess if I really wanted to I could of spent time on my own trying to find a good build as the game is very open to letting you respec plenty of times and trying different builds.
@@ghostisblack I think my downfall is that I DID do a broken build, but it's a sorc build and my spells were just to slow for her. Even with Blood Knife summon distracting her and dealing decent damage, I could barely get her to phase 2 and then get wrecked. I know the blood loss build you're referring to though, because I got lucky and summoned 2 bleed players in the same run and they destroyed her haha.
I’m praying they dont make it easier. The difficulty is what’s been keeping me going. Almost quit the game in the lakes area cause I thought they finally made an easy game and caved. I’m trying to beat the final bosses with no mimics or help and if they need the bosses and then I beat them. It’ll cheapen it for me and cause the experience I’ve craved to be stolen from me
@@richardkarig1099 I just laugh when people say the game is too hard. “First time?” Is what comes to mind lol
Definately agree with the scarce upgrade materials. I think they coulda put the items that let you buy smithing stones/gloveworts waaaay earlier. Lots of variety, little opportunity to experiment. They did increase smithing stone availability in a patch, they may tweak it even more again.
That's a good point. If I'd had more smithing stones earlier, I probably would have experimented more. Now it feels too expensive to get new weapons to the same level as my main weapon.
@@silasmarrs1409 That was the patch they put in... also there is infinite stones in the game. I honestly have never had an issue switching weapons in this game... If anything I am upset with the lazy names.. Just adding a number to them.
you can buy them lmao
@@binnieb173 sure, but you need to get to Lyndell to get the smithing stone +4
The patch made it more likely for enemies to drop stones, added stones to merchants, and cut the cost of smithing stones by 2/3, so it has helped alleviate this problem a lot.
By the mid-late game, you’ll be drowning in somber stones, the only limiting factor is the 8 ancient sombers per ng cycle.
I do think it’s a little bogus that normal weapons need 12x more upgrade stones than special ones though.
I do find it weird that since Bloodborne, they removed the option to upgrade armor. Maybe they should bring it back to compliment defensive scaling.
@@AxxLAfriku Roblox girlfriend x3 😎
True. There are a lot of cool looking armors I want to wear, but are weak. If I can only upgrade them so I can still wear them late game, that would be cool.
No upgrade armors worked on DS1-3 because it's more balanced compared to ER.
People hated upgrading armoir, cuz it makes it harder to change your gear.
Dunkey is right with the dmg scaling, fe getting oneshot in Bloodborne, if you don't lvl up your hp is hard, it sounds dumb, but it is. It is Rom's spiders and some hunters, that can oneshot you b4 you get to the last boss
In this game the 1st boss that oneshots you is in Siofra/ Nokron, which is pretty much in the starting area
This is better, in earlier games it was hard to tell if what dropped was better than what you had since new armor was always unupgraded.
I mean I honestly don't see the point, armor is next to useless. I haven't tried in elden, but in ds3 I had a friend hit me while I was naked, and then while wearing full smough, and smoughs armor only took like 20 damage off
The thing I agree with most is that From Soft discourages experimentation with different equipment. They truly are stingy, and I couldn't believe they did what Dark Souls 3 did: placing a limit on the number of highest upgrade materials in a single playthrough. It's a huge open world game with so many fun and awesome weapons! And they even let you re-spec your stats so you can try different builds... But nope, you can't upgrade more weapons to max to complement more builds, if you've already used up your highest materials.
Makes me miss DS1 and DS2, where you could farm for titanite slabs and have a fun variety of max weapons in your arsenal.
@Two Become One no
bloodborne >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
@Two Become One DS1 is pretty dated.
But the leveldesign and first half is godlike. Definitely not my favourite FromSoftgame, but its great.
@Two Become One i like ds1 since it helped me play the other fromsoft games, but i cant see how you think ds1's better than the other games, aside from level design although that was also kind of a miss for me
you can get bell bearings for smithing stones so you can purchase them infinitely
@Two Become One i can assure you it is not nostalgia indeed, i played it for the first time 2years ago, pretty much fell in love with it instantly
Currently 90 hours into my first playthrough, I don't like to start criticizing a good game until I have beaten it, but Dunkey really hit the nail on the head with this one. The difficulty spike along with enemy damage is ridiculous and downright sometimes not fun at all to deal with.
Yeah the difficulty spike once you get beyond the capital is unfair. Even with 45+ vigor you get one shot. You either have to dodge every combo attack perfectly or run away and heal if you get hit once since their damage will do more than half of your health and there's about 3-5 attacks per combo. Early game the balance feels perfect, mid game is too easy and late game is too hard.
@@Sneezus420 What type of armor do you use? I used the crucible armor, and completed the game with 30 vigor i think
@@Gulvteppet General Radahns armor. "One shot" is a bit of a hyperbole, but most bosses do two, three shot me within a combo. And some bosses/normal enemies WILL one shot.
@@Sneezus420 but to be fair, in souls games you never really should be able to take more than 3 hits in my honest opinion
@@czproductions sure you’re not using a dmg taken increased talisman? I cant recognize this dmg you’re talking about
Gotta love how Dunkey makes the same point a lot of people have about the bosses and late stage enemies in this game but since it's him no one is sending him death threats.
I swear, dude it's so aggravating. I talked about playing Elden ring right after plowing through Sekiro and DS3 and how stark the contrast is in difficulty and I got crucified. Thanks to Dunkey for reminding people you can still criticize the things you love.
The souls community is genuinely steamy dogshit. The vast majority of these people are lowlife gatekeeping cucks who have nothing better to say that “get gud” every time I point out how annoying it is that malenia has this crazy undodgeable attack if you’re in the wrong position and blocking it with a shield gives her whole health bar back, or that every time you tap the heal button, godskin dude will input read and take that shit personally, or that gank fights aren’t fun. One of the most aggravating things I’ve encountered in my life
Yeah i guess i just hit late game t his weekend.
100 hours in and the game just out of nowhere decided all my weapons are useless and every single thing one shots you. What the fuck lol.
@@gothicluxury8329 thanks dunkey for reminding us people are nitpicky and biased
Like literally
@@bradypetterson7003 About those input readings: in this game many of the enemies, not just bosses, even normal mobs will instantly attack if you try to chug in front of them. The crucible knight, both boss, miniboss and mobs are the best examples.
It's good to finally have someone actually say the damage bloat in the game is a problem. A lot of the people who do Souls content and gush over the game almost never mention this. Dark Souls 3 40 Vigor would have gotten you halfway through New Game+ easy. 40 VIG in Elden Ring? Pocket change.
It's almost like...they're different games and the softcaps are different. You're meant to end Elden Ring closer to levels 120-150 where DS3 you're ending the game closer to 80-100.
Yeah, I'll honestly agree. The damage level is impossibly stupid and the actual balance between bosses is completely incoherent. Oh, the Valiant Gargoyles, that locks you off an area, it...is significantly harder than every boss you fight after it in the area it blocks off, or before it, or around it. So once you get over the hump of it, everything after can be cheesed without effort. It doesn't feel rewarding. "Wait, so the legendary thing that's all over lore....is this dinky, but the thing vaguely guarding a tomb is actually ass kicking?'
Or how Margit is frankly a wall of annoying pain with severe HP bloat, but then you go onwards, explore, and you get to Morgott and you're like, "OH NO, BITCH IT'S HIM BUT UPGRADED--" and he almost certainly will pop like a pinata if you've even half the content leading up to him, which you probably want to do because you really need the ability to upgrade your weapons and if you take the regular path, the mini boss in front of the door to Leyndall is legitimately harder than anything in Leyndall by a massive amount simply because it has a 'you die' button that will vaporize you across the map punishing you for trying to avoid its infinite stagger shield bash or use range.
It's because it's an issue many people haven't even encountered. I'm 90 hours in and have yet to run in to this. I believe people talking about it but I just haven't been to those areas yet, as there is so much to see and do in the game
To whomever is reading this - wishing you the best morning/night - remember, what we think, we become 🧠💰
@@imscotturnotx1 Balance is just bad.
It's frustrating that you rarely hear mention of the awful late game difficulty scaling because it gets drowned out in a sea of praise and "git gud" deflecting. Glad Dunkey brought it up. Looking forward to the DLC but I hope the devs can bring things back to earth a little bit
It is happening again
If any other dev made a game with the same bs fromsoft makes, they'd be burned alive. Fromsoft is definitely a cult.
@@TheKing-vb2bw so?
@@a.w_. FromSoft simply has a cult following built up from people who get a false sense of accomplishment. Even they know they games are fundamentally behind on basic aspects that were solved on the ps2 lol.
@@TheKing-vb2bw you seem super invested in a game you don’t seem to like very much
100% agree on damage scaling. Having the enemies and bosses have complicated sequences feels rewarding to overcome, but if the punishment for any lapse is functionally instant death… it’s just not great design. It stops being challenging and turns into patience testing. I’m taking my time and still enjoying myself, but I am barely eeeing a reason to invest in health, when I just get one shot by anything worth dodging anyway
@@Grarlic the fact it says some in full defensive gear says alot.
Yeah the damage is kinda insane. Feels like every build is a glass canon, even if you pump vitality and wear heavy armor. I end up just running past enemies because fighting them isn't worth it. If they tweak the armor values, maybe making later armors much stronger or make cumulative levels give a higher armor value, the game would be perfect. Its fine for certain boss moves to be one shots if they are the bosses strongest move but it just feels like getting clipped by any hit is a death sentence.
I think the crux of the issue is Elden Ring can't scale you high enough to beat those enemies because it will unbalance PVP, so in a way PVP is getting in the way of the game being even better and more fair.
PvP isnt in the way of anything. Your entire solution is a complicated and fundamental change of basic leveling mechanics when all they really have to do is just manually dial down damage on bosses. PvP remains unchanged and bosses dont one shot anymore when you get clipped by one of their attacks.
@@pigeonman4979 The problem is incremental. The next boss is suppose to hit a bit harder than the previous one and with the sheer amount of bosses it just naturally ends up being a number that's far too high. If you adjust the players stats PVP will be unbalanced, if you adjust the late game bosses there won't be much to differentiate them from earlier bosses. I think in this case the games length is what's breaking its balance.
oh damn i guess i just cant relate to any of the damage issues since i never get hit.
@@jake57 Damn you can dodge every single move in the game without ever seeing it before? holy shit I hope you play the lottery, just dodge all the wrong numbers. Easy money.
I also run by enemies because the odd soul reward amounts. Some of the hardest enemies drop just 2k souls. Not worth spending the time.
I always look forward to Dunkey's game reviews. Honestly this made my day so much better
same
Even when I disagree with him, I really enjoy the reviews. He has a...knack for this kind of thing.
@@toaster4975 KNACK 2 BABYYYYYY
The damage balance guy must be a legend.
Bc he didn't show up to work for the entirety of Shadow of the Erdtree's development either and nobody seemed to notice 😭
Dlc still amazing tho
The thing is, BB and Sekiro had the same thing; long attack combos, and super aggressive bosses and enemies. The difference is that they gave you the tools to deal with them and it actually made the games more fun. BB had ranged parrying so you didn't have to stick your face in the blender to get a critical hit and Sekiro allowed you to deflect as fast as you could mash the button while taking no damage and chipping down your enemy's stamina guage. ER just doesn't give you the same tools and I think that's why it feels unfair.
ER is life FromSoft's greatest hits record cranked up to 11. Problem is, I've always preferred concept albums at a reasonable volume...
Problem with BB though is it made parrying significantly easier. Imo, bosses like Orphan of Kos, Gasgoine, Maria & Gernahm are trivial due to how easy they are to parry. This is coming from someone who has only played through the game once (blind).
bloodborne its just too easy, everything was too forgiving in that game
I agree with you. I think the problem is they reusing the dark souls formula. They already perfected it so any change to it will feel wrong like making the enemy more aggressive. In Sekiro and Bloodborne they have a drastic change to the formula so it can explore a lot of options.
@@hanyu_dada Thats not what 99% of players would say. Your opinion is irrelevant.
"Concept Albums at a Reasonable Volume" would be a pretty cool band name...
What I felt was the case is that, because the enemies output a lot of damage and can do so in long sequences, you're forced into being incredibly patient. However, not only are the attack strings often long and very punishing, the time between attack strings is very short. This results in you watching the boss dance for 10 seconds, you landing a light attack or maybe a heavy jump attack and then spectate the boss going buckwild again.
This strat will get you there... but it's gonna take a long ass time because many bosses also have significant HP pools. Should you fuck up somewhere along the way just once or twice, you're likely to die.
I'm not sure if the fix is to lower the damage output or to lower the healthpools of the bosses. If we compare it, for instance, to Bloodborne: I never felt those fights were just slogs. Bloodborne had some crazy spammy and high damage bosses, but I also felt most of them went down quite quickly.
Thinking of Bloodborne, there might be another solution: increase the drink speed of the Tears. Vials were quick to use and it fit the highly aggressive nature of many bosses. The AI in Elden Ring often aggresively tries to counter your drinking. That is paired with the short windows of downtime between attack strings. So even if you survived a long combo, got hit by the final hit and want to heal, the boss is already ready to charge at you and prevent you from drinking.
I completely agree. The main character feels too sluggish compared to these giant ballet dancers that defy gravity. And Bloodborne did it right indeed.
that is a very good suggestion actually, but we'll see i mean the game has only been out for a month or so
also watching elden beast do most of its attacks kinda mesmerizes me , i kinda enjoy looking at it even tho its literally a 1 shot attack
Totally agree.
Glass cannon bosses would be 👍
What gets me is that for some reason the drink speed on your Physick is lower than on your Tears, even thought the tears are already too slow. (I also love this game but year it's got some weird minor problems.)
That is why this guy is honest and is not scared to criticize something while still enjoying the hell out of it
Mad respect to you Dunk
And the most important thing about Dunk is that he doesn't ride any postive or hate wave ...he stay true and say his opinion without giving a damn about what any one will say
@@mkultra2456 he's black
I just beat this game for the first time after 120+ hours, and have since gone on to play and beat all three dark souls games (still working on dlcs). This game is a masterpiece with a serving of bad design mixed in that's too big to fully ignore but small enough to accept and not let it ruin the enjoyment of the game.
When you need to be perfect over 20 times in a row to beat a boss and they only need to hit you once then you know the balance is off.
That or level vigor
@@ChimericalCarl Dont worry im here to tell you that even at 60 vigor you can still easily get 1 shot in the late game.
@@ChimericalCarl That works for the early and midgame. Late game it doesn't make a difference anymore. Bosses will deal Dark souls NG+7 lvl damage with their quick one off moves.
@@ChimericalCarl Isn’t the point of an RPG that you can specialise though? Why should everyone who wants to be able to make a single mistake in a 5 minute boss fight have to put all of their runes into Vigor. Aceing a fight until the end and then getting killed in single hit by a move that comes out so fast you can’t do anything about it is not fun nor fair.
Radagon: dodge 100 times to be able to attack him once
Finally a big reviewer takes Elden Rings flaws seriously. It's not perfect, but it's still amazing!
You know, with the really good stuff the good reviewer will take the bad things out. It hurts, but it’s necessary and help us appreciate even more the good stuff the game has to offer
@@t3nngu Yes! It's a great way to provide some constructive criticism too ^^
100% agree on the Runes... I've noticed that myself, you can have two different enemies, one crazy difficult, and one pretty easy, and they give similar Rune rewards. It just seems insane. I also agree that late game it feels like all your power is for naught... though I feel it was that way in previous games as well. Dark Souls 3, the first DLC, also has a lot of high health high damage enemies that don't care about how highly leveled you are.
I think everywhere is very challenging except for haligtree now that area and the blood area are absolute bull shot and need to be balanced but, I think everywhere else is pretty fair
That's how Dark Souls has always been. Everyone complaining either hasn't played them or just forgot lol
@@Overkill_halocollector doesn't mean its good lol
@@reeidly Doesn't mean it's bad either. Just means it's hard.
Exactly. That’s by far my biggest problem with the game, I wouldn’t care that it’s so punishing if it felt like taking on that challenge was actually worth my time.
I’ve never played a Souls game before, and I didn’t even have Elden ring on my radar months after it release. I bought the game after watching this video and it is AMAZING! Thank you for introducing this game to me!
Do you live under a rock?
Nice :) you should try dark souls 3, ds1 is really fucking good (every area is interlocked and interconnected on top of each other) but it gets kinda shitty in the second half. Also Sekiro is amazing as well, but it focuses more on parrying rather than rolling/dodging. Sekiro is probably my favorite fromsoft game just because its combat is so finely tuned and awesome
I love Elden Ring, but my 2 biggest complaints are as follows:
1. If you are a pure melee build, the game feels way harder than it needs to at times. For example, some enemies/bosses have attack patterns with almost no openings for you to attack without trading damage. Combined with the infinite stamina that enemies have, it feels unrealistic and unfair fighting an enemy that has seemingly impossible openings in melee only.
2. The input reading on this game is so blatant that it doesn't feel realistic. I've done awkward tangos with bosses where we circle each other without attacking for 15 seconds, and the split second I use my flask, the boss gapcloses and chunks me. It doesn't feel like I am fighting a realistic opponent at all, just a bot. I've never felt this kind of blatant input reading in any of the soulsborne games.
The input reading is crazy, the moment you dodge backwards here comes the 40 yard dash/jump/stab move you better ready for
@@mmsL125 …or the combo extension/punish you never knew existed…
The most abysmal input reading of any boss in Elden Ring are the godskins, if you try to back up and drink a flask, they’ll prime a fire ball and throw it at you with pinpoint accuracy to hit you Every. Single. Time, it’s obnoxious.
I'm doing pure melee and I'm currently trying to 1v1 Malenia, with Bloodhound Fang. It's a fucking nightmare.
@@Qballiz2kool that one is mostly fine because you can bait it out first and then heal, but there's also bosses like Margit where you have to bait out an entire combo because he sometimes only throws the daggers when you heal.
Before Elden Ring came out, I realized the specific thing I liked about difficulty in games: it gives me problems to solve, but also AGENCY in HOW I SOLVED IT. Action-RPG's are amazing because you can make thousands of builds that are all able to beat everything the game has to offer. Not every "build" works, because some of them don't make sense - like having 99 strength but only casting Sorceries with 10 intelligence - but you can make anything work in one or two easy steps (like using a Strength weapon instead).
If a game gets TOO hard, though, exactly what you're describing happens: your options become so limited that all of that freedom you have is wasted, becoming bait that you have to ignore in order to actually win.
Elden Ring has created circumstances where it has broken through Dark Souls' "not actually that hard" designation into the "actually that hard" zone, and it's in Fromsoft's best interest to fix that.
TL;DR elden ring could stand to give players a bit more wiggle room
I have told people time and time again that DS1 is actually, mechanically speaking, only middling difficulty, and that the actual difficulty is in how you approach it and learn it more than how you execute it. For fights, DS1 was 90% observation and deduction, 10% execution, Elden Ring is the opposite.
damnn
Yeah, that's also why I liked Breath of the Wild's durability system. Discouraging players from hacking and slashing with their best sword all the time meant I like many players spend more time engaging with physics tricks and unconventional weapons. It wasn't a very difficult game, but it had just enough difficulty to make it feel like I was solving problems in creative ways, because if it was too easy I wouldn't feel like there is a problem to be solved to begin with. But it's totally possible for a game to get "too hard" and suddenly there's only a couple viable options you have to beat the game, so the problem solving aspect is out the window and you are left trying to just learn a precise set of inputs and fine-tuning reaction time.
PvP games often have near infinite difficulty because there's always a better player, meaning this same idea that a meta can become oppressive and unfun is most noticeable in those kind of games. Especially something like Overwatch, I recall very distinctly picking a hero and immediately some dude is in my ear cursing at me for picking the "wrong" hero.
Dark Souls did have some cheap deaths, like dudes hiding in boxes, giant spears clipping through walls, terrible platforming physics, but despite that the actual fights felt like you had a lot of options despite it being challenging. And I think that's why Dark Souls will last a little longer in people's hearts than Elden Ring.
Now its just a roll simulator with your damage of choice. Completely different than traditional souls difficulty. Now its just random bullshit.
@@xaby996 Every souls game is a roll simulator, what?
4:57 I cannot believe how accurate this is. I tried to beat the game without using any spirits, but once I got to the last three bosses, Maliketh, Godfrey, and Radagon/Elden Beast I just gave up and used the mimic tear. Not to mention that I was using a great sword, which is basically the games hard mode because it’s slow as shit and does basically the same amount of damage as a faster weapon like a katana.
I was able to beat the 3 mentioned without the tear but I got so fed up with malenia that I summoned the tear for phase one, and immediately dismissed it for phase 2 because I was getting tired of dealing with phase 1 over and over again
Godfrey was actually a really great boss made tedious because he was placed immediately after Maliketh
*Cries in Berserk*
Heavy weapons can feel more difficult since you have to be more selective with when you attack, but you can also use moves like the jump attack, dodge roll, and lions claw ash of war to get a 2-3 hit combo in, if you know how to use those abilities to maneuver under or around or over an enemy attack. Oftentimes you only need to do that two or three times to get a critical hit on the boss. Plus you can just chuck daggers and bolts from a crossbow when they’re doing their bs moves
Bruh I have the same idealogy. But instead of using Mimic, I grinded to a certain level.
i found your channel by looking for a review of Elden ring that isn’t by IGN or Gameranx or whatever, but by a person with some passion to get me excited to play. And you delivered. thanks homie. subscribed.
Beat it twice, Love it to death, but fully agree, the post capital difficulty spike is wild even for from's usual standards, and I think its made more apparent because nothing in the entirety of the mountains/snow field are unique enemy variants or bosses (bar the fire giant) and they've just been scaled to a ridiculous point that it feel's incredibly unfair unless you have min maxed your build or have just overlevelled to power through. Bar those areas and some nitpicks though, I haven't been this engaged with a game in a hot minute
The mountaintops bosses are so bad lol. Death Rite Bird is a camera mess and he clips into the rocks all the time, Niall is a gank fight and he also takes like 80% of your health with a single hit if he ever chooses to infuse his peg with lightning, Fire Giant while cinematically amazing has a seemingly endless healthpool that makes dying to him frustrating as fuck
Everyone that's told me Elden Ring isn't that hard have all been doing the same Mimic Tear/Sorcery spam build. It's the same problem as early Diablo 3 Nightmare difficulty. It's not fun because the damage scales so hard that you're pretty much forced to go towards the exact same OP build. It's just worse in Elden Ring because this all happens within NG, not even NG+1.
Saw people saying "Don't ruin the game by leveling past 125! It's too easy then!" Meanwhile I'm level 110 with my build that uses ZERO sorcery/Incantations and I'm getting absolutely demolished on a regular basis. Forget beating the game, I can't even kill the damn Draconic Knight to get into the Capitol!
@@veliustactics9133 I hate to say it but you just gotta learn the timings and dodge the moves.
@@MrPatrickbuit I don't know if you noticed, but one of the legs of the fire giant is injured and receives extra damage. I found out about that and the fight was way faster.
@@arceuse1999 except on the 2nd phase where the leg is gone and the weakpoint is in his chest
Definitely agree with the late game scaling. I had to leave Malenia to go level up, then I had to respec TWICE all over like 6 hours just because of how absolutely punishing her damage can be. Then I left and shit right on the final boss in my first go. Like what?
Legit Malenia is on of the most unbalanced boss fights, going both ways. Trying to honorably 1v1? Yikes
2v1 with mimic tear rocking a giant frost hammer and hoarfrost stomp? you can stunlock her so hard she can’t fight back until second phase starts, and then do it again if she doesn’t one shot you
@@SuperTurboPOP plus if you somehow survive her ridicilous damage output with 1 hp, she more than likely reverted all the progress you made to her hp bar, because someone woke up and decided a boss with a 15 move combo and status effects also needed lifesteal. Thank you dark souls
Supernova Eos or bloodhound steps. Fighting her with bloodhound step makes it feel balanced and fair, u can avoid all of her attacks easily with it. Cant say its a good design cox if you dont run it, u either stun lock and rush her, or just hope she doesn’t do that big move (u know which one😂)
I can't believe she absorbs health when hitting shields even if you don't take damage. One of my first thoughts was to use a greatshield with high stability and the talisman to boost it further but when every hit of the flurry attack hits, she heals like 5k health even if you don't take damage.
They probably took the FF approach to secret/optional bosses, this is nothing weird tbh
I think buffing player health could be great, as one of the main problem the pvp community has tight now, is that everything deals a shit ton of damage, so this could fix both pvp and the ingame difficulty curve
I disagree. The problem isn't consistent throughout the entire game, as such, improvements to player health would unbalance things in the other direction from players being too fragile at the end to being too tanky at the beginning. A blanket buff would discourage players from learning early as they have too much already to encourage increasing it themselves, while increasing the curve gradient would make anything that doesn't go pure health early-on inviable.
Increasing player bleed resistance, however, would probably be a good start, though, of course, that wouldn't solve everything.
@@Perral There are ways to work around what you are pointing. Instead of just giving a free HP buff to everyone, just make so Vigor doesnt hardcap at 60. Make it go all the way to 80, just like the damage stats go. That way it wont touch the balance of the early game.
i agree so hard with this, you should get a bare minimum of 1 hp per level when you level up.
Or just make armor worth a damn.
@@PureHoney_ASMR there’s a weird quirk in this game, if you only level vigor you can only ever use the first three weapons you find
I think the prevalence of weapons like Rivers of Blood, Moonveil, Giant Crusher, etc has really psyched people out of using weapons that they like. I'm plowing through my second character exclusively using Serpent-Hunter (because it looks cool) and I'm having a blast. I do think the late game damage spike for enemies is really odd. My only explanation for it is that they balanced the enemy damage in accordance to late game optimized builds (like BleedArcane or MaxStrength). It would be cool if the enemies starting doing as much damage as you do to them, but that just isn't the case for a lot of players. That, in turn, leads to this weird dissonance.
I think if the armors were to get any use beyond fashion and poise, they should be able to substantially mitigate certain enemy damage types. Don't like the dogs? Bam, anti-dog armor. Don't like the stupid hellfucker Perfumers? Boom, anti-perfume armor. At present, the armors are all pretty much cosmetic, beyond some random +3 to a stat or extra poise. I would like to see more put into that area of the game. Maybe Boc could do more than just cut off the cape of your armor and actually customize it to your needs?
It would also be great if 40 vigor wasn't required to survive even one hit in late game. That really feels like some kind of oversight. Against Radagon, I had to put on Pearldrake +2, Haligtree +2, and Dragoncrest Shield talismans PLUS Lord's Divine Fortification for him to even feel like a normal boss. It was pretty ridiculous.
i really tried to use magic estoc like i did in DS1, but after trying moonviel there is just no way to switch back
Some of the knight type enemies have a long ass combo that can follow you through direction changes like the one at -shaded castle- Castle Sol, the only way to stop the combo is parrying, doesn't help that the knight is a ghost that can teleport behind you and starts the combo before you can properly react. Some enemies are just asking to be cheesed.
Dont be sad if you have to cheese those fucking ghost knights. I hid behind a greatshield and just shield struck then heavy attacked repeatedly. Dual sword knight would beyblade and instakill me otherwise
The directional change mid attack is the biggest bag of horse ever. It makes me so fucking mad.
That whole area was a kick in the head. Not to mention the area boss who summons the dual blade edgelord and the shield-bash spammer, all the while he is making snow tornadoes and throwing buffs out like confetti.
Does no one feel that the fact you have to cheese some bosses, is trash
@@jesselukes3956 hell yeah I don't even think that counts as cheesing to me it's just playing smart.
It's an incredible game, but I definitely agree with the issues he brings up. Another problem I have in terms of balance is weapon attack speed vs. enemy attack speed. Even with fairly fast weapons, many enemies (even the slower ones) can start and finish an attack between the start of your attack animation and when it would connect. It's like they're John Wick and I'm the goon. I don't know how people are making Colossal weapons work when a longsword's R1 can easily get interrupted by a huge number of enemies in the game.
as a user of a big smashy hammer in my new playthrough I can tell you its not easy, the delay between attacks because of the length of the animations can be hard to work around. I had to learn not to mash R1 because the attacks seem to qeue up and that so often got me killed
The game gives some options to avoid having to do a massive wind-up. Rolling attacks, jumping attacks, and guard counters are all super helpful tools for a large weapon user.
Unfortunately i have shitty "middle of nowhere" internet so i cant play co-op but i assume great sword users benefit from having summons to help distract the bosses while they come in with the big smash. I utilize mimic tear as a pretend co-op buddy but h spawns with the same build i have so i still end up using something quick like a twinblade or katana
@@blastinus3714 that is the thing though...as a heavy weapon user, you kind of spam jump attacks which doesn't feel good nore does it look good... especially malekith and malenia can sukkadick for that matter
As a user of dual colossal swords - just use jumping attack into dual swing and whatever youre dealing with is probably dead by that point. If not it doesn't matter because jumping attack is broken since the attack buffer happens outside the enemy range so you can be guaranteed to hit first and hit extremely hard. It becomes a bit of a problem against enemies that can't be staggered and can break your powerstancing but all you need vs them is patience really... and more jumping attacks
Dunkey has a unique way of putting my 50 minutes of rambling thoughts into a digestible, 5 minute take on a game. I wish I had that talent.
Yeah, but I'm probably sure he spent about 50 minutes of his time writing the script of this video. You're as awesome as him man !
if you havent played this game with the seamless co op mod, please do. Ive played it with a party of 4 and it turns the game into the most incredibly funny and thrilling experience. While there are now 4+ players, the game scales in difficulty so some boss battles are nearly as hard, especially if you have some weaker links that die fast. It literally becomes this never ending incredible multiplayer journey complete with the best pvp that you can enable and disable whenever you want. Top tier gaming experience, this game has it all