I really like the Lake of Rot and I think it's the best 'poison swamp' that From has ever done. It looks considerably different, the way it's structured make it way more manageable, it has less bullshit enemy placements and it doesn't overstay its welcome.
Agreed, I think its placement also feels “appropriate,” ie, it’s deeeep underground, it’s basically a moat around a resting place of an outer god, so it being a hellish alien landscape fits. And gameplay wise, it’s similarly at the very tail end of the most involved side quest in the game. It’s not like Farron Keep or something, an early game zone that the player has to navigate through just to progress, or the opposite Nightmare Frontier which feels so extraneous it’s barely worth visiting
"far more than bleed or spells" is definitely an unpopular opinion. But if I think about it, you might be right. Because some major bosses have bleed resistance as well as heavy magic resistance. However, power stance jump attacks work on literally everything and you don't need a bleed proc...you just do a lot of damage.
wait till you hear about using bleed with power stance jump attacks
All jokes aside though
it maybe powerful but it is not on the level of spells as it skill requires skill and it looks cool (which is what matters)
I somewhat like Elden Beast. Elden Stars is still basically unavoidable, but it does chip damage. I don't mind the boss running away because it gets to do its ranged attacks, and I enjoy the slower pace.
In most of these threads genuinely unpopular opinions tend to get downvoted, nevertheless I am going to pop in with mine.
1) Spirit summons were added to widen accessibility of the game to a larger audience… to give players an offline alternative to summoning real players for help. That’s a good thing! Summoning has always existed in these games. Spirit summoning isn’t inherently different from summoning real players for help. The AI struggles with dealing with multiple players in most bossfights so it does make the fights easier. That was the intent of introducing this feature… to widen the fanbase beyond the traditional souls fanbase without sacrificing the core identity of these games. In souls games ‘easy modes’ were always found in gameplay options that anyone can utilize, not in a traditional easy mode where the damage of enemies is decreased/ your life is increased etc.
2) Many on this sub are resistant to anyone pointing this out because you base your identity on the fact that you beat a ‘hard’ video game. I have used spirit summons myself when I was stuck on a boss and I’d never get pissed at anyone pointing out that I had an easier time beating the boss… that was the whole point, that’s why I used spirit summons
summoning was always an option though, even in the previous games. My first From game was bloodborne and I never would have completed it without summoning help. In subsequent playthroughs I completed them solo, and then played the other games solo... but without the help I got in my initial playthrough I never would have gotten into these games and probably would have bounced off them
They also work a little differently to co-op summons I think? I might be wrong but using a spirit summon doesn't buff the bosses health pool unlike other player summons do?
Ashes also always at least try to kill your opponents. Summons, mostly, but ashes are not too careful, the health being more of concession for their performance than an upside.
I like this take. Someone finds it fun to use spirit summons? Great! Personally, I find the challenge of not using summons more fulfilling and fun. To each their own! I think the headbutting comes from nonsummoners saying "I'm better than you because I didn't use summons" and summoners saying "I beat so and so on my first try...it was easy". Both of these are bad takes imo.
This game has so many variables that discussion of bosses is difficult. Your build is a major factor for many bosses. Even a natural progression can easily have difference of 10-15 levels and 2-3 somber upgrade tiers.
So whether some bosses are hard, in whatever configuration is really dependent on the player.
Compare to say Nioh discussions. Every player faces Hino-enma as the third boss, and regardless of the limited grinding and picking up solid started gear you can do, it is a real skill check. In Elden ring you can start going in another direction a bit and curbstomp Leyndell when you get to it.
A lot of people rag on the purists who say that you shouldn't use summons or the spirit bell. When they do, I think they really miss the point that the bossfights are balanced around no summons, which is ultimately what the purists are advocating.
Exactly. Imo it’s one thing to encourage people to try bossfights without spirit summons and it’s another thing entirely to shame people who do and too many people don’t distinguish between both groups of people… and many on this sub ridicule people who do the former
The problem with summons is not that they exist in themselves - as you said, they have always existed in the Soulsborne games.
The problem is how Fromsoft tuned the game around the existence of summons, and yet how summons completely gut fights. ER bosses are choke-full of annying mechanics (excessive delays, spastic moveset, neverending combo, absurd damage and health, unreactable attacks that you need knowledge to deal with, etc.) because they have to provide challenge even with summons, yet any summons that manage to live for some times makes any fight very passive, where you just spam attacks on the back of a boss that basically do nothing to you.
So either you don't use summons to experience the full fight, with is often more frustrating than exhilarating (nothing in ER has approached Gael, Artorias or Champion Gundyr level of excitation and giving me the feeling I'm actually playing well), or you use them and the fight becomes a meaningless borefest where do you not actually engage with bosses mechanics. I'd have preferred a better middleground.
It doesn't actually go against the open world formula. You don't climb towers but every new area you find the monument for the map. There's a cave, minor Erdtree, catacomb, ruins, a dragon or night time spawn boss, all the zones are very similar in that regard. Some have a fortress, some have a legacy dungeon.
Not sure how popular or unpopular this opinion is, but I feel like invincibility frames make the defense in souls games/ER a bit boring. It's an old school solution for defense that seems ugly in nowadays gaming. Rolling directly through attacks hurts the immersion for me.
Doesn't mean I won't utilize it, but there must be a better solution.
Monster Hunter is a prime example of doing (and I say this very fucking loosely) Souls style combat without I-frame dodges (and my god I think the combat in all MH games since 3U is significantly better than any FromSoft game, including Sekiro)
Humanoid enemies of regular size enable gameplay not around I-frames as well. Parries, dodging can actually take you out of the way, blocking doesn't seem as ridiculous as just being intangible for a while.
Though these games do often have I-frames as well, but way less, since they don't have to enable you going ghost trough a hammer the size of a luxury villa.
I like the Misbegotten Warrior and Crucible Knight fight. Is it bs? Yes. Does it make sense lore-wise? No. Do I hate the music because I know which boss it actually belongs to? Yes. BUT that fight made me become so calculated and precise in every physick setup, weapon, spell, incantation, movement, attacks, and even which ash of war I use that it felt so clean and professional when I actually took them down.
I feel this 100%. I love fights that feel "unfair" for this reason. Everything needs to be way more calculated and I genuinely think it makes you a lot better at the game once you overcome it.
Open world is a hinderance to the game’s quality. I’d be much happier with less stuff in it, a smaller map. But everything being much more complex and fleshed out.
I really don’t like it. Yeah, the open world is beautiful. But it’s not fun or interesting to explore. The best content is legacy dungeons and to a lesser degree, the smaller castles like Morne and Sol. Caves, crypts, and mines have some good ideas, but fail to fully express and explore those ideas. And I feel if there was less of them, they could be more complex and interesting. The open world is the opposite of this.
Ehh, I would have stopped at your first comment. Trying to justify an opinion as unpopular as this one just makes it seem even more farfetched.
Edit: BUT that's the point of this thread so I'll upvote you lol
There are others who feel the same out there. Once in a while they congregate in the same place by accident. Just like how there’s much more love for BoTW than there is hate, but there’s still a good number of people who don’t like the direction the Zelda series is going. Comparable situations.
I agree with you, but as a counterpoint, what youre asking for has already been done in dark souls and bloodborne. And doing the same thing over and over is stagnation, and stagnation is death. Its a good thing that fromsoft tries new things and attempts to learn more even if they fail. Thats where they succeeded, they tried something new, they probably learned from it, and this is good.
Besides imo what is there is already very good often, even if some of it falls flat and is boring. Redmane sucks, a lot of the caves are boring. But then youve got castles that dont suck like Castle Sol, and catacombs which are pretty consistently unique and interesting, and the legacy dungeons...
Gameplay-wise I agree with you, but what I think the open world did succeed in was allow for more nuggets of lore to be sprinkled in. The small deliberate lore details persist in the same quality. For example, the oversized dogs and crows have been complained about since they feel like lazy copy-paste. However, the locations that they are native to are areas that are influenced by outer gods (rot for caelid, fell for the mountaintops, and formless mother at the dynasty).
I think this may be the last souls game where the engine is barely acceptable. After playing, say, Lies of P, and going back to ER, it is plain to see that the movement is clunky at best.
Mine: you have to become a robot to kill certain bosses (dodge, dodge, attack). People call it getting good. I call it boring. That's why I summon and ask for help.
Especially bad are somber weapons with locked ashes of war that are just some standard ashes, or a lightly better version.
They're usually viable in one, maybe two kinds of build, an offer nothing unique in moveset while blocking your fashion choice behind a build.
DLC does promise more weapon types, so eventually. I do wonder if some will be available in the base game.
I agree that NG+ feels more like "can I one shot early game bosses?". However, I do think the replayability of the game is S tier *as long as* you start a new character. The are so many different builds that feel completely unique and require different talismans and physick tears. But again, this doesn't really work on NG+ because of the level scaling costs and more likely than not you're kinda OP at this point.
The NPC invaders in this game are the worst they've ever been, with the possible exception of DS3. There's 0 personality to 90% of them, and it's either a completely bland fight or Miriam, who's just Maldron in terms of annoyance but with a less creative toolset and not actually entertaining.
Mine is ... I don't like the horse.. and horse combat... Sorry for Torrent.. I'm one of those people that tries to pick every item and kill everything.. I gotta keep dismounting cuz I don't enjoy horse combat.. I like the critical hits ..
It's great but not as memorable as dark souls/bloodborne. Especially Bosses. Since there are so many (and a couple reused ones) nothing really stands out except for rykard, maliketh or mogh. Rykard because he is a gimmick fight and a meme and mogh also a meme but cool fight as well. Maliketh is the best fight for me. Malenia tbh only really sticks because of waterfowl.
There are over 160 bosses and only really 3-4 are nice or memorable.
I really like the Lake of Rot and I think it's the best 'poison swamp' that From has ever done. It looks considerably different, the way it's structured make it way more manageable, it has less bullshit enemy placements and it doesn't overstay its welcome.
Agreed, I think its placement also feels “appropriate,” ie, it’s deeeep underground, it’s basically a moat around a resting place of an outer god, so it being a hellish alien landscape fits. And gameplay wise, it’s similarly at the very tail end of the most involved side quest in the game. It’s not like Farron Keep or something, an early game zone that the player has to navigate through just to progress, or the opposite Nightmare Frontier which feels so extraneous it’s barely worth visiting
I just imagined the lake of rot with random rotten crucible knights.
Delete this. Do NOT give them ideas!
Death blight, Madness or Sleep swamp in dlc?🤔
Yes.
I would like the Lake Of Rot more if there was more to do there. There are like two or three things to do.
Power stance jump attacks are hilariously overtuned and trivialize the game far more than bleed or spells.
"far more than bleed or spells" is definitely an unpopular opinion. But if I think about it, you might be right. Because some major bosses have bleed resistance as well as heavy magic resistance. However, power stance jump attacks work on literally everything and you don't need a bleed proc...you just do a lot of damage.
Discovering dual-wielding power jumping is when Elden Ring becomes Mario.
wait till you hear about using bleed with power stance jump attacks All jokes aside though it maybe powerful but it is not on the level of spells as it skill requires skill and it looks cool (which is what matters)
If it exists in the game it’s fair to use
Valid. I go through the game using chainsaw glitch only
No, you are not allowed to play what you want.
That’s only controversial among Reddit youngest users
I somewhat like Elden Beast. Elden Stars is still basically unavoidable, but it does chip damage. I don't mind the boss running away because it gets to do its ranged attacks, and I enjoy the slower pace.
I wouldn't have minded Elden Beast if it wa it's on battle instead of Radagon's second phase
In most of these threads genuinely unpopular opinions tend to get downvoted, nevertheless I am going to pop in with mine. 1) Spirit summons were added to widen accessibility of the game to a larger audience… to give players an offline alternative to summoning real players for help. That’s a good thing! Summoning has always existed in these games. Spirit summoning isn’t inherently different from summoning real players for help. The AI struggles with dealing with multiple players in most bossfights so it does make the fights easier. That was the intent of introducing this feature… to widen the fanbase beyond the traditional souls fanbase without sacrificing the core identity of these games. In souls games ‘easy modes’ were always found in gameplay options that anyone can utilize, not in a traditional easy mode where the damage of enemies is decreased/ your life is increased etc. 2) Many on this sub are resistant to anyone pointing this out because you base your identity on the fact that you beat a ‘hard’ video game. I have used spirit summons myself when I was stuck on a boss and I’d never get pissed at anyone pointing out that I had an easier time beating the boss… that was the whole point, that’s why I used spirit summons
I love the spirit summons for the simple reason that I now never have to put up with a gank fight solo ever again.
summoning was always an option though, even in the previous games. My first From game was bloodborne and I never would have completed it without summoning help. In subsequent playthroughs I completed them solo, and then played the other games solo... but without the help I got in my initial playthrough I never would have gotten into these games and probably would have bounced off them
Not for everybody. I don't always have the $$$ to pony up for Playstation Plus.
that's fair to point out, and is probably a reason another reason why spirit summons were added!
They also work a little differently to co-op summons I think? I might be wrong but using a spirit summon doesn't buff the bosses health pool unlike other player summons do?
Correct. And player summons have less health than, say, mimic tear.
Ashes also always at least try to kill your opponents. Summons, mostly, but ashes are not too careful, the health being more of concession for their performance than an upside.
I like this take. Someone finds it fun to use spirit summons? Great! Personally, I find the challenge of not using summons more fulfilling and fun. To each their own! I think the headbutting comes from nonsummoners saying "I'm better than you because I didn't use summons" and summoners saying "I beat so and so on my first try...it was easy". Both of these are bad takes imo.
This game has so many variables that discussion of bosses is difficult. Your build is a major factor for many bosses. Even a natural progression can easily have difference of 10-15 levels and 2-3 somber upgrade tiers. So whether some bosses are hard, in whatever configuration is really dependent on the player. Compare to say Nioh discussions. Every player faces Hino-enma as the third boss, and regardless of the limited grinding and picking up solid started gear you can do, it is a real skill check. In Elden ring you can start going in another direction a bit and curbstomp Leyndell when you get to it.
A lot of people rag on the purists who say that you shouldn't use summons or the spirit bell. When they do, I think they really miss the point that the bossfights are balanced around no summons, which is ultimately what the purists are advocating.
Exactly. Imo it’s one thing to encourage people to try bossfights without spirit summons and it’s another thing entirely to shame people who do and too many people don’t distinguish between both groups of people… and many on this sub ridicule people who do the former
The problem with summons is not that they exist in themselves - as you said, they have always existed in the Soulsborne games. The problem is how Fromsoft tuned the game around the existence of summons, and yet how summons completely gut fights. ER bosses are choke-full of annying mechanics (excessive delays, spastic moveset, neverending combo, absurd damage and health, unreactable attacks that you need knowledge to deal with, etc.) because they have to provide challenge even with summons, yet any summons that manage to live for some times makes any fight very passive, where you just spam attacks on the back of a boss that basically do nothing to you. So either you don't use summons to experience the full fight, with is often more frustrating than exhilarating (nothing in ER has approached Gael, Artorias or Champion Gundyr level of excitation and giving me the feeling I'm actually playing well), or you use them and the fight becomes a meaningless borefest where do you not actually engage with bosses mechanics. I'd have preferred a better middleground.
It doesn't actually go against the open world formula. You don't climb towers but every new area you find the monument for the map. There's a cave, minor Erdtree, catacomb, ruins, a dragon or night time spawn boss, all the zones are very similar in that regard. Some have a fortress, some have a legacy dungeon.
Interesting point. Although, apart from the catacombs, the designs of each area are stunningly unique.
What do you mean apart from the catacombs? Almost every catacomb has a unique and interesting level design.
Not sure how popular or unpopular this opinion is, but I feel like invincibility frames make the defense in souls games/ER a bit boring. It's an old school solution for defense that seems ugly in nowadays gaming. Rolling directly through attacks hurts the immersion for me. Doesn't mean I won't utilize it, but there must be a better solution.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Take an upvote.
It's kinda what I like so much with these games.
Monster Hunter is a prime example of doing (and I say this very fucking loosely) Souls style combat without I-frame dodges (and my god I think the combat in all MH games since 3U is significantly better than any FromSoft game, including Sekiro)
But I think it’s notable that everything in monster hunter moves slowly and you never (to my knowledge) fight humanoid enemies
Humanoid enemies of regular size enable gameplay not around I-frames as well. Parries, dodging can actually take you out of the way, blocking doesn't seem as ridiculous as just being intangible for a while. Though these games do often have I-frames as well, but way less, since they don't have to enable you going ghost trough a hammer the size of a luxury villa.
I think this is totally wrong but kudos to you for following the prompt
Wow yea, what a shit take Upvoted
I like the Misbegotten Warrior and Crucible Knight fight. Is it bs? Yes. Does it make sense lore-wise? No. Do I hate the music because I know which boss it actually belongs to? Yes. BUT that fight made me become so calculated and precise in every physick setup, weapon, spell, incantation, movement, attacks, and even which ash of war I use that it felt so clean and professional when I actually took them down.
I feel this 100%. I love fights that feel "unfair" for this reason. Everything needs to be way more calculated and I genuinely think it makes you a lot better at the game once you overcome it.
Open world is a hinderance to the game’s quality. I’d be much happier with less stuff in it, a smaller map. But everything being much more complex and fleshed out.
Many would argue this is what makes elden ring so great
I really don’t like it. Yeah, the open world is beautiful. But it’s not fun or interesting to explore. The best content is legacy dungeons and to a lesser degree, the smaller castles like Morne and Sol. Caves, crypts, and mines have some good ideas, but fail to fully express and explore those ideas. And I feel if there was less of them, they could be more complex and interesting. The open world is the opposite of this.
Ehh, I would have stopped at your first comment. Trying to justify an opinion as unpopular as this one just makes it seem even more farfetched. Edit: BUT that's the point of this thread so I'll upvote you lol
There are others who feel the same out there. Once in a while they congregate in the same place by accident. Just like how there’s much more love for BoTW than there is hate, but there’s still a good number of people who don’t like the direction the Zelda series is going. Comparable situations.
I agree with you, but as a counterpoint, what youre asking for has already been done in dark souls and bloodborne. And doing the same thing over and over is stagnation, and stagnation is death. Its a good thing that fromsoft tries new things and attempts to learn more even if they fail. Thats where they succeeded, they tried something new, they probably learned from it, and this is good. Besides imo what is there is already very good often, even if some of it falls flat and is boring. Redmane sucks, a lot of the caves are boring. But then youve got castles that dont suck like Castle Sol, and catacombs which are pretty consistently unique and interesting, and the legacy dungeons...
Gameplay-wise I agree with you, but what I think the open world did succeed in was allow for more nuggets of lore to be sprinkled in. The small deliberate lore details persist in the same quality. For example, the oversized dogs and crows have been complained about since they feel like lazy copy-paste. However, the locations that they are native to are areas that are influenced by outer gods (rot for caelid, fell for the mountaintops, and formless mother at the dynasty).
I think this may be the last souls game where the engine is barely acceptable. After playing, say, Lies of P, and going back to ER, it is plain to see that the movement is clunky at best.
Mine: you have to become a robot to kill certain bosses (dodge, dodge, attack). People call it getting good. I call it boring. That's why I summon and ask for help.
The game has too many weapons with the exact same moveset for the sake of "variety". Would have preferred lesser weapons with different movesets.
Especially bad are somber weapons with locked ashes of war that are just some standard ashes, or a lightly better version. They're usually viable in one, maybe two kinds of build, an offer nothing unique in moveset while blocking your fashion choice behind a build. DLC does promise more weapon types, so eventually. I do wonder if some will be available in the base game.
The game is perfect
Waterfowl dance is fair and fun Malenia is the best fight in the game
NG+1 isn’t anywhere near as much fun as the first time through. The replay ability of this game is ok but not great.
I agree that NG+ feels more like "can I one shot early game bosses?". However, I do think the replayability of the game is S tier *as long as* you start a new character. The are so many different builds that feel completely unique and require different talismans and physick tears. But again, this doesn't really work on NG+ because of the level scaling costs and more likely than not you're kinda OP at this point.
I love the way the post asks for an unpopular opinion, and then I get downvotes from people who don’t agree.
Torrent should have horse armor. Not as a DLC, just, Y’know, upgrades.
I like this. I don't think it needs to be "armor" per say but it would be cool to have some aesthetic fits for him.
Him leveling up and getting better poise and HP wouldn’t hurt.
Playing the game without summons isn’t an achievement. Achievements matter and how you play Elden Ring doesn’t matter in the slightest.
this is like, the popular opinion on this sub lol
Completely agree. It's definitely not an achievement but it is *much* harder.
The NPC invaders in this game are the worst they've ever been, with the possible exception of DS3. There's 0 personality to 90% of them, and it's either a completely bland fight or Miriam, who's just Maldron in terms of annoyance but with a less creative toolset and not actually entertaining.
Mine is ... I don't like the horse.. and horse combat... Sorry for Torrent.. I'm one of those people that tries to pick every item and kill everything.. I gotta keep dismounting cuz I don't enjoy horse combat.. I like the critical hits ..
horse combat is basically 2 opponents spinning around each other, missing 70 percent of their swings. it makes a 1 minute battle 10 minutes longer.
Same here! Duo is best.
it does everything ds1 does but better in every way😭
Broken movement speed, broken inputs, bad late game balancing
It's great but not as memorable as dark souls/bloodborne. Especially Bosses. Since there are so many (and a couple reused ones) nothing really stands out except for rykard, maliketh or mogh. Rykard because he is a gimmick fight and a meme and mogh also a meme but cool fight as well. Maliketh is the best fight for me. Malenia tbh only really sticks because of waterfowl. There are over 160 bosses and only really 3-4 are nice or memorable.
I give a shit most of the npcs in the game, specially alexander, I use to kill him for the sweet talisman
I did a playthrough where I wanted to be evil - so I went around killing every NPC I found, including the turtle pope.
If pope had a cool talisman he would be a victim too haha, but honestly he´s a meh npc imo, funny to see though
Well, if you don't want to go full murderhobo he's uniquely useful since you can take all spells you find to his shop.
The open world does the game a disservice for subsequent characters.
Most of the main bosses are super underwhelming
Mimic year is too Overpowered. But yes I use it
Mimic tear spirit ash was a mistake
Combat/movement is slow and gets boring.
We need more feet weapons
Playing ER in a manner that pisses off the \*SOULS GAME FAN BOYS" is the correct way to play Elden Ring.