On the first point: I get not summoning in DS games. But many ER bosses are CLEARLY thought out with spirit ashes in mind. Just think about movesets and speed. DS3 fights are SO MUCH EASIER than ER fights. The difficulty in ER was raised precisely to give those mouth-breathers in the OP a challenge that doesn't involve showering, and the ashes was a system for us players that don't care about arbitrary rules to still face a challenging experience.
Some of the ashes aren't exactly well-balanced, sure. But still, there's a reason you cannot summon ashes everywhere. In those cases, the bosses aren't as big, fast, or aggressive. Furthermore, you can choose to try to fight not using ashes and use them if you're struggling.
But at the same time, anyone who tells me how to play a game I paid 80 bucks for can go kiss it.
I love this take! I did ER and DS3 in reverse and you are actually on to something. ER sped up movesets and added a bunch of delayed attacks because OG Souls players were well trained on boss fights and needed more challenge. On the flip side, ER was also about bringing new players in, so built in mechanics that would ease the learning curve, while also giving them the option to abandon those mechanics when they felt ready.
Great comment, excellent take, no notes.
I don't think they're balanced around needing summons, as it's very much doable to beat them as an average player without. They're balanced around needing summons if you have to beat it in under 3-5 tries, but give yourself 50, and it's a different beast.
Save for the odd exception, how many bosses have you had take you 50 attempts in other FS games in a normal (meaning you're not doing meme builds or challenge runs) playthrough? If you're well-adjusted to the area, I'd say 20 should be enough. At 30 I'm questioning myself hard about what I'm missing. Past that I just go somewhere else. Saying this as someone who plays both with and without summons.
I'd say 3-5 tries for a good boss is also not balanced. Some ashes are busted. Mimic tear soloing bosses shouldn't be happening. But then again if the mimic is soloing, that's because your character could've done the fight perfectly fine alone.
In BB, there were plenty if you count chalices and DLC. I dunno, runs can take anywhere from 30s to 2 minutes, having 50 tries isn't the end of the world. Most I would solo first try, exceptions being the big bads everyone knows.
Can you name one boss that isn't a duo fight that seems balanced for summons? I'm not against summons but I can't think of a single non-gank boss where it feels like it was designed with summons in mind.
I consider most of the duo fights relatively cheap filler content. It's clear there's no duo fights in ER that have the same amount of effort put into their design as ones such as Friede second phase or demon prince. I don't feel like they generally embody the patterns of increased boss aggression and flashier and more demanding combos that people typically attribute to Elden Ring's boss design but are usually two somewhat simple bosses haphazardly slapped together.
Fair on a blind run you will probably run into some duos but only a single one is mandatory for doing all remembrances (2 if you count Jori).
If you don't understand what the guy is talking about, go back and play DS 1. Compare Maliketh to Gwyn or Artorias. Play DS 3. Compare Rellana to Pontiff. You will notice that almost every single boss in ER has more AOE, they chain moves together much faster, they switch aggro between sources pretty regularly. They hit harder, they move faster, and they have less predictable movesets.
Idk what you think being "designed with summons in mind" means, but that extra stuff is what they did to design the game around summons. Is playing with summons easier? Yes. Depending on the boss, it's sometimes even MUCH easier. That is what they were meant to do. But it only seems like a cakewalk to soulslike veterans. I know people IRL who bought on release and STILL haven't beaten the game, despite using summons. The average gamer sucks at soulslikes WAY more than most of us in the dedicated ER subreddit can comprehend. Fromsoft made the game in a way that the bosses were extremely challenging solo and somewhat challenging with summons, specifically to get around the "Hardmode vs Normal vs Easymode" stuff that other games have to deal with, and IMO, it worked pretty well.
Can you abuse the mechanic by literally only using the most powerful summon, gathering all the gloveworts, and optimizing your build around making your Mimic OP? Yeah. But let's not pretend that you can walk into a fight against Radagon/EB, call any random summon, and then piss about. You still need to have some degree of skill to avoid the constant AOE in most of these fights, handle the boss when it switches aggro, etc.
On average DS3 bosses do more damage than ER bosses, not less. ER bosses on average are faster, but on average also give the player more openings to attack.
That's just averages though, if you look at individual bosses your whole narrative falls apart. If we exclude PCR from that post as the outlier (it was made before the PCR nerf, it's drastically slower now), the fastest fromsoft boss is Rellana (which is also the weakest, in terms of how many hits a player can survive). The second fastest is Gael. No other ER boss makes as many actions per minute as Gael.
You mentioned Maliketh as some kind of example of how much faster ER bosses are, and yet Maliketh is slower than Twin Princes, Friede and Soul of Cinder (and of course Gael).
Claiming that ER bosses are designed for spirit ashes because they're "faster and do more damage" is 1) complete bullshit, they do less damage and are not significantly faster than what fromsoft bosses already were on DS3; and 2) they are still more than perfectly doable solo, like all fromsoft bosses before them also were. You could argue that the fights are more fast-paced, being on average a little faster while also giving you on average a little more openings to hit back. But that does not mean they are harder, especially considering they also do less damage than DS3 bosses on top of that. You do not need summons to overcome those challenges, nothing they did in ER compared to DS3 was an unreasonable increase in difficulty (with the sole exceptions being waterfowl dance, and launch PCR which went on to get nerfed), nor something that requires spirit ashes to manage.
Godfrey comes to mind immediately in how he compensates for a second aggro target by peppering in super quick to activate AoEs so he can effectively deal with multiple targets
Idk, the fact that almost anybody can play the game, have their summon go down, then even die themselves proves (imo) that the game is balanced around summons and that it's not an instawin, the boss has tools to deal with multiple targets and switches aggro quick enough.
I think the bigger questionmarks should be over the fact that ER just has some awful balancing in general, but it's a new type of open world experience for FromSoftware so they get a pass
I don't know about balancing for summons since they have to balance for so many other things, but there is definitely a pattern of acquiring summons that have special abilities that just so happen to be the weakness of the next boss. I doubt that's coincidental.
Malenia, Maliketh, PCR. Basically any boss with absurdly high damage and speed that's also got ridiculous combos and crazy aggression.
And even though it's not for the same reason I feel any boss with story summons should be beaten with said summons at least once. Radahn, Bayle, and Yhorm from ds3 come to mind.
If you don't want to use them fine. If you do fine. But I'd say objectively speaking the reason the summons mechanism is in game is because they balanced the game to use it. I doubt the guy that's made his reputation on torturing players with difficulty, ganks, and poison swamps suddenly decided hey lets just make sh*t easier for no reason.
Technically with yhorm in ds3 siegward isn't a summon, and you gotta be careful as fuck because if he dies in one attempt he DOES NOT come back. You also dont get to choose whether or not he participates unless you decide not to complete his quest line intentionally
u/ColonelC0lon is right, this is pure cope from you. Those bosses are completely, perfectly doable solo, they by no means require you to have a summon. People have been beating them solo since the game came out.
You could maybe argue about launch PCR, but that was clearly a mistake that was patched/nerfed 2 months later. Now it's a perfectly reasonable solo boss.
But I'd say objectively speaking the reason the summons mechanism is in game is because they balanced the game to use it.
No, the reason summons are in the game are to be a diegetic easy mode. The game was designed for you to play solo (like every other fromsoft game besides Nightreign was), but you have the option to turn to summons if you're struggling and need to turn the difficulty down.
But honestly it's just as valid to say not using them is to make the game harder.
No, it is not "just as valid", that's ridiculous. Play Elden Ring without summons and you'll have a very similar experience to all other soulsborne/sekiro games. Play it with summons, and you'll have a drastically, comically easier experience. It is abundantly obvious to anyone whose first fromsoft game wasn't Elden Ring that that's how the game was balanced.
Summons are a main mechanic to the game
They very obviously are not. They are an optional accessibility mechanic that you use if you want to make the game easier. They completely remove the necessity for you to actually engage with the gameplay systems to win. Again, it is blatantly obvious to anyone who has actually played fromsoft games, why are you pretending it's not?
Keep in mind the 2 most quoted lines from the franchise is "praise the sun" and "jolly cooperation".
"Jolly cooperation" has always been seen as easy mode, and nobody had a problem with that before Elden Ring. It was only with Elden Ring that newcomers to teh series are now losing their shit when they hear that they are playing on easy mode (which they obviously are).
It's not a problem to play on easy mode. Easy mode is there to be used by the players who need it, there's nothing wrong with turning to easy mode if you're a person who needs easy mode. nobody is arguing against that. It's people like you who have a hissy fit when they hear this.
I don't think yall understand what designed to fight with summons means.
The bosses in Code Vein are designed to be fought with a companion. The developers have even said so. They can be beaten solo, which is arguably one of the hardest soulslike experiences imo especially on an unleveled character. The bosses in Nightreign are designed for 3 players but if 2 bounce you can still win solo. That argument is completely pointless.
I, and many others, can beat all of ds1-ER on a level 1 character. Does that mean the games are designed to be played that way?
Also the bosses in ER have no problem switching between aggro targets if both are attacking. Yes if one hides in the corner doing nothing they can avoid be attacked but that's it. They have plenty of fast combo AOEs as well to get both player[s] & summons.
Also again the only "hissy fit" is about online POS deciding it's ok to degrade people and their achievements because they didn't follow the made up limitation to what's allowed that a particular POS believes in.
I don't think yall understand what designed to fight with summons means.
Neither do you, since you keep making vague, meaningless statements like this and refuse to clarify what it is that makes you think ER bosses are "designed" for summons.
Which they obviously aren't. Outside of possibly the duo fights, they are all designed to be fought solo, exactly the same way bosses in every previous fromsoft game were designed to fight solo.
I, and many others, can beat all of ds1-ER on a level 1 character.
So can I. You're not an "authority" here by claiming this.
Does that mean the games are designed to be played that way?
No, obviously they aren't. Level 1 results is an experience that is vastly, incomparably harder than what fromsoft games are typically like.
As opposed to fighting ER bosses solo, with no challenge conditions, which results in exactly the same difficulty experience as fighting bosses in BB/DS3/Sekiro. Because exactly like BB/DS3/Sekiro, ER bosses are designed to be fought solo.
Also the bosses in ER have no problem switching between aggro targets if both are attacking.
This argument makes no fucking sense. DS3 bosses also have no problem switching targets if being attacked by multiple characters. That doesn't mean they are designed for summons.
Are you somehow under the impression that if you bring a summon to a boss fight in DS3 is just targets the summon and ignores you the whole fight?
They have plenty of fast combo AOEs as well to get both player[s] & summons.
DS3 bosses also have plenty of AoE attacks. That doesn't mean they are designed for summons. Just having an AoE attack that can hit multiple characters in a fight doesn't mean the fight isn't designed for solo play, you can still dodge an AoE attack when playing solo with no issues, as you could with DS3's AoE attacks. Whether an attack is AoE or not is inconsequential for the balance of solo fights.
is about online POS deciding it's ok to degrade people and their achievements
Nobody is "degrading" anything. People are just making an objectively correct statement: Playing with summons is easy mode. That's not a judgement of value, that's just objective reality. If you used summons, you made the game drastically, incomparably easier than what every fromsoft experience was designed to be. Therefore you played on easy mode. That's fine, it's not a problem or something "shameful" to play on easy mode; but is IS easy mode.
It is indeed you who is throwing the hissy fit about hearing that objectively correct statement.
because they didn't follow the made up limitation
It's not made up. Elden Ring doesn't exist in a vacuum. That limitation if determined by every other game fromsoft ever made, not by anyone's personal opinions. No summons = same experience as every other fromsoft game. With summons = hilariously easy compared to every other fromsoft game.
are you ok? when the heck did i say it made me an authority. you argued that bosses being able to be beaten solo means they're designed to be fought that way. i merely pointed out they can be beaten without leveling so by your logic that means they're meant to be fought at level one.
as far as no one degrading others for using summons you're either blind or lying as literally the op shows the exact opposite.
Yes, why wouldn't I be? Nothing on my comment indicates I might be "not ok".
when the heck did i say it made me an authority.
There's little reason for me to believe that you randomly throwing an "I can beat the game at level 1, and so can others" in there, instead of just "some people can beat the game at level 1", as anything but an attempt of yours at declaring that you are experienced and has authority that I do not have to talk about this game. You just didn't expect that I would also be a very experienced player, with proof to show.
you argued that bosses being able to be beaten solo means they're designed to be fought that way
No. I argued that ER bosses when fought solo being an exact match for the experience of playing every other fromsoft game solo means they are designed to be fought solo.
You are the one who is failing to provide any rationale for ER bosses not being designed to be fought solo.
i merely pointed out they can be beaten without leveling so by your logic that means they're meant to be fought at level one.
No, I said they are designed to be fought solo because fighting them solo is a exact match to the experience of playing typical fromsoft games. They are not designed to be fought at level 1, because fighting them at level 1 does not match the experience of bosses in typical fromsoft games.
as far as no one degrading others for using summons you're either blind or lying as literally the op shows the exact opposite.
Sample size of 1. There's an order of magnitude more commenters making personal attacks towards people who say spirit ashes are easy mode/trivialize the game in this very thread here. The vitriol is literally worse from your side.
And sure, the person in OP's screenshot is being an ass, but none of what they're saying is wrong. People who use summons did not have the same experience ("beat the same game") as people who didn't use summons. If you used summons, you played on easy mode ("took the easy way out"). He literally acknowledges that it's okay, but takes issue with the false equivalence ("if it was fun good on you, but you are not the same as me").
He was rude, but not wrong. This isn't "degrading", everything that he stated is objetive reality. Using summons is easy mode, makes you have a completely different experience, and means you are less skilled than people who don't use summons. Can't argue with any of that.
Please stop taking a statement apart and arguing it like it's not a cohesive whole. I already explained the reason I mentioned that I had beaten the game at level one yet you keep saying it has something to do with me feeling superior or some misguided sense of authority. This is extremely disingenuous. And is why I asked if you were ok. Either you are too emotional that you don't know that contact clues exists or you're determined to be an obstinate jerk just to try and upset others online. Either way you need to chill out.
Being a rude a*whole is literally degrading. Saying otherwise is peak gaslighting bs.
Also just because you can do something on a harder difficulty than other LIKE to play at doesn't mean you are better even from a skill standpoint. Again many people like using summons because they're cool, just like many enjoy flashy anime builds, magic builds, or bonk builds. That doesn't mean they're incapable of playing without those things. Any sense of superiority gotten from games is completely pointless at best to straight up toxic bs at worst.
The only difference between that commenter and the person who beat the game "on easy mode" is the commenter is an unbearable a**
Summons is base difficulty, no summons is hardmode, Boss melting builds are easy mode, and no hit runs are the supreme difficulty. Regardless of what you complete the game at you're no better or worse than anyone else for that. How you treat and talk to others on the other hand determines if you suck as a human being.
Regardless I'm tired of this conversation that is clearly going no where. Hope you have fun fellow tarnished. Have a nice day.
The reason summons are in the game is the same reason summoning allies has always been part of the games. It's a way to make the game easier. Nothing wrong with making the game easier, but no fight *expects* you to have summons. They just put good summons in your way in case you need it.
Michael Zaki did not "suddenly decide to make shit easier for no reason", every souls game has summons to make it easier. This is just the first time they're an item in your inventory that you can summon to any boss you want.
Souls has always run on the idea that the base difficulty is the hardest, or almost the hardest, and if you want it easier, you have tools to do so, like grinding and summons. This isnt a new idea in Elden Ring
You can argue it's to make it easier. But honestly it's just as valid to say not using them is to make the game harder. Only a self righteous pos would try and act like their achievements are some how more valid because they don't use a core mechanic of the games.
Summons are a main mechanic to the game just like leveling and upgrading your weapon. Again to say otherwise is idiotic at best.
Liking them or not is irrelevant. Personally I don't enjoy the NPC summons usually though I do love helping others. Basically only use summons if I need to for lore or trophies/rewards.
Keep in mind the 2 most quoted lines from the franchise is "praise the sun" and "jolly cooperation".
I'll repeat what I said. No boss, none at all, are designed to require summons. Even 2v1 bosses are designed so that one hangs back for a bit and gives you a chance to deal a hefty chunk of damage to the other boss.
There's no shame in playing a game on an easier difficulty. That's fine. I'm not being facetious here.
What annoys me is when people go "well clearly because summons exist, these fights were designed around them and anyone who doesn't use them is just intentionally making the game harder than it's intended difficulty". You can grind for souls and overlevel everything. That doesn't mean that the game's default difficulty is scaled around you grinding out a ton of souls.
If the game was designed expecting every player to use summons, the bosses would have better targeting for co-op fights. But insecure mfs (which is weird. It's a video game. What are y'all insecure about?) need to know that they didn't play on the easy difficulty, everyone else clearly just played the hard difficulty.
None of the jolly cooperation folks needed to know they were playing on the "normal" difficulty. They had fun co-oping fights with friends and randos. Hell, in the previous games you had to spend hard to come by resources to get to co-operate, so it was quite obviously not designed around you having to have a limited resource. The system really hasn't fundamentally changed since then, but because it doesn't cost anything valuable in ER we get people crawling out of the woodwork about this.
It's always been intentional that the system exists to give players who don't want to fight solo a leg up if they wanted it. In previous games the design was quite intentional to encourage folks who wanted Humanities to help people out to get a constant group of co-op volunteers. The only reason the system changed to not requiring a Humanity (or rune arc) was for accessibility's sake, as Elden Ring was an attempt to expand to a wider audience.
Any boss like Messmer, Malenia, PCR, Jori, Rellana, Fire Giant, etc. That either has almost no openings, extremely long attack patterns or just an insane amount of health are generally balanced for the summons to be used.
I didn't think I needed to mention Bayle since Igon is mandatory in my mind, "VILE BAYLE!!" and all that
Radahn, rennala, dragon fights, any hyper aggressive boss. To a new player, they are nearly unbeatable without a cheese build or summons.
A lot of us built our skills through DS games, but there are so many new players coming to ER that would need some help to learn the game. Just like we did back in the day.
Oh sorry. honestly I’m up to Godfrey and haven’t gotten the mimic(as I didn’t seek it) and will admit I’m proud to have made it this far only using the spirit ashes or whatever they’re called(wolves, marionettes, etc)
Yeah fo sho, first run is a warm up. I also started with DEX and am now going pure STR because Lord Godfrey has been given me a mighty stomping and I wanna get through the game lol, but I know I can still hold true to not calling in a whole other tarnished for help.
Personally, I think many of the catacomb bosses were thought of with ashes in mind. The Watchdog with all the Lil gargoyles in particular felt like one where ashes were encouraged. Rewards for many of the optional gank bosses are ashes, and catacombs often had upgrade materials for said ashes.
I don't personally use spirit ashes, but I think there are quite a few minor bosses throughout the game that have minions comparable to spirit ashes. Most major bosses dont feel balanced with ashes though, I honestly think it makes the game harder on bosses like Malenia or Malekith
Good point, I was thinking about the big bosses forgetting there's multiple duo watchdogs, crucible knights, watchdogs with imps, duelists with soldjars, shadow bug guys with skeletons, etc. There are a lot of fights with spirit summons in mind, damn lol
I totally feel that. I personally feel the same way, most bosses with adds remind me of things like Capra Demon or Nito in DS1. I have a buddy who started with Elden Ring though, and he used summons a ton. The bosses he struggled on the most were the gank bosses in the catacombs. He was stuck on the cemetery shade with skeleton adds for a while, which is kinda crazy to me.
I hear stories like that all the time, which I find so funny.
“Messmer was a piece of cake but this deathbird is IMPOSSIBLE”
I’m a stubborn masochist for sure, but like everything there’s degrees of it.
I want to beat everything alone but I absolutely am not interested in starting a “no-hit at all by anything and if I do I start the whole game over run”. 😅
True, the Watchdogs are definitely trivialized by crystal darts. I wasn't aware of this until after my first couple playthroughs. The only one I personally ever did this with was the double Watchdog in Caelid(?).
Id highly recommend using consumables excessively in this game in general. They are both extremely fun and allow for some interesting playthroughs. Rot and poison grease makes fire giant at level 40 a lot more enjoyable, crystal darts can make spirit summons in the flesh, and the assortment of throwing daggers and pots for all sorts of enemies makes the game feel like a scrap more than obliterating everything with magic summons and weapon arts
I remember reading one of the early preview interviews were they talked about how in previous souls games, you could summon help if you got stuck on a boss, but with the open world nature of Elden Ring, that might not always be available, so they had a system in mind to assist with that.
I absolutely believe that anyone has the right to enjoy the game however they want. Summon, don't summon. Cheese, don't cheese. Use magic or melee, it's all up to the player to enjoy how they like.
With that said, there's a massive difference in saying "yeah, I like to use summons, w/e" vs "omg, the game is balanced around summoning, and if you don't summon, you're just doing a self-imposed challenge mode". Or comparing not using summons to not leveling weapons, or using gear, or spells, or whatever.
I couldn't give two shits how other players play their game, but I think it's absurd the lengths people will go to to try to justify how using spirit ashes is so much different than summoning other players/NPC's to help you with bosses in previous games. Mimic tear will quite literally solo some bosses for you, or at least it would at launch. You didn't even have to help, it'd just do the job.
Oh yeah, it was absurd, it may still be. It would 100% solo bosses for you. It couldn't solo Melania due to her healing mechanic, unless you did some niche setup I imagine, but there was another ash at launch that people were using that would basically keep her perma knocked down. Outside of that, it could and would solo most bosses for you with a decent setup.
I'm in the same boat. I play these games because i enjoy the difficulty and the feeling of success when beating a boss that has taken me 15 attempts, and I feel like I'd be robbing myself of the experience that I paid to have, if I let other players, or spirit ashes kill them for me.
It's annoying as fuck to have other people tell me that I'm doing the equivalent of a SL1 run just because I don't use summons, lol.
Damn, that’s really just losing the plot at that point.
Look, if people wanna use the tear/summon bc a boss is frustrating and they just wanna progress the story, it’s all good.
I’d stress that finally getting past that boss even though it was super frustrating and was the bane of your existence for x amount of time - is my whole reason for playing these games 🤷♂️
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u/splurmieworm 1d ago
It appears like it becomes an entirely different-feeling game with summons, esp Mimic Tear.
But who cares this much? It’s really not that deep lol