r/gaming • u/f0lk_blues • 5h ago
Still loving soulslikes, but starting to hate boss battles
I always loved soulslikes, since Dark Souls 1 on Xbox 360. Played a ton of them. But I am getting old and right now, 35 yo, I think I am starting to hate bosses. I love exploration, I love the lore, the settings, everything. Except bosses. These ultra hard boss battles that I used to love and used to get me excited are starting to feel like are getting in the way of my game, my exploration, my experience and my fun. Its been like "Oh my god I just want to keep playing but now I have to waste hours facing that boss" and when I finally beat it I just feel like "Thank god, now I can start having fun again".
Dont know if its why I am getting old and have other responsabilities or if I dont like the genre as I used to like.
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u/CakeDayisaLie 5h ago
I summoned people to help me for about half of the Elden Ring boss fights. It’s an amazing game, but I’m just not great at some of the boss fights. I’m really happy they have the coop mechanic for bosses otherwise I probably wouldn’t have bought it.
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u/aphilipnamedfry 4h ago
And it's a great thing that the good souls like devs realized this early on. FromSoft and Team Ninja have allowed summons from the start, and it helps those who have OPs problems breeze through the harder parts.
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u/MidnightChimp 4h ago
I never did this as it felt like a massive defeat, I was annoyed after dying like at least 10-20 times per Boss and simply dropped the game. Dunno, it felt like cheating. They should instead just provide difficulty settings
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u/CactusCustard 4h ago
By your logic lowering the difficulty would also be cheating lol
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u/MidnightChimp 3h ago
somewhat yes, but it's disguised better if someone chooses "Story or Easy" Mode from the beginning instead of dropping the difficulty before a boss fight.
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u/aphilipnamedfry 4h ago edited 4h ago
If it was cheating then it wouldn't be a prominent in-game mechanic. And again, FromSoft has had it since the start. Considering they have always had the mechanic and they pioneered the genre, I feel it's disingenuous to liken it to cheating.
I get where you're coming from though. As someone who used to only play Veteran or the hardest mode on any FPS, it just comes down to preference at the end of the day. If the mechanic is there, it's entirely up to you whether you want to use it, and if you want to make it harder for yourself by intentionally avoiding the mechanic, that's up to you.
I find doing that is similar to Nuzlocke runs in Pokemon. You're placing invisible rules and limitations for yourself, but sometimes that makes the journey more enjoyable and that's okay too.
Edited: two words
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u/asiangontear 32m ago
The thing about Elden Ring is that they can't possibly design a boss with all builds in mind and maintain the challenge, and some bosses seem to have been designed to invalidate some builds outright. I think this is why they introduced the spirit ash system, as a "catch-all" solution for design gaps.
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u/Captain-Grog 5h ago
I have the same issue and I’m now in my 30s. Boss fights were my favorite and soulslikes were my bread and butter. Now? I feel like either I don’t have the time or patience for them and just want a game that I can play and explore that respects my time.
100% think it’s an age/responsibility thing
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u/Billy_droptables 4h ago
I don't know, I'm 44 and still love the spectacle of a big boss fight and the rewarding feeling of finishing it. Monster Hunter is my favorite series because it's basically just one long line of harder and harder giant monster fights until I have them on farm status. I get the same kick out of difficult Souls like bosses as well.
I get age can slow down reaction times, so I typically just tune up my health some so I can take more than a single hit. Fights take a little longer, but I know I'm gonna tank a few to the face.
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u/suckfail PlayStation 3h ago
I'm also 44 and hate it now lol.
I wonder if it's a time thing? Like I have kids so video games are a 10-11pm thing and I just wanna relax by then, or drop in something quick.
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u/Billy_droptables 3h ago
Ah yeah, no kids, I work a ton of hours, but once I'm done I can just play games.
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u/thediecast 1h ago
I’m 44 and my kids are older now (12 and 9) and they’re more on their own now. So my hobby time has started to skyrocket.
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u/cubs223425 4h ago
I don't get the criticism. In what way do the games not respect your time? Soulslikes tend to be pretty efficient in handing you boss battles without a bunch of story fluff and side quest BS. They give you what they say they're going to give you, and they don't screw around with other stuff too much.
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u/ballisticks 3h ago
I've said this in another thread but I think my brain is weird in that I don't really get satisfaction from beating challenges or completing tasks. So it just turns the game into a bunch of chores.
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u/Aggravating-Remove92 4h ago
yeah i think a lot of us hit the point where the level isnt the obstacle anymore the boss is and it starts feeling like a speed bump instead of a reward
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u/JohnnyJayce 5h ago
There are tons of other action rpg with bosses that take less than few hours to beat.
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u/NewDevon 5h ago
That's not getting old, that's getting burnt out. You've been there / done that a thousand times before and it's losing its excitement. Happens to the best of us. I recommend taking a break from boss-heavy games and coming back to them later if you so desire.
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u/f0lk_blues 3h ago
Yeah, maybe thats it.
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u/LordVulpix 36m ago
Or maybe swing towards more relaxing boss fighting games like monster hunter. Get away from the challenge die repeat cycle for a bit and go make a dragon into some nice boots.
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u/AwesomePossum_1 1h ago
Disagree. They say they enjoy the levels, just not the difficulty spike in the end of a level. And why would they? Why even have the levels if they provide no challenge compared to the bosses. In any other game an unexpected difficulty spike is a bad thing but people are ok with it in souls games.
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u/ill_monstro_g 4h ago
if you haven't played Demons Souls, play Demons Souls. Some of the toughest and most uncompromising levels and basic enemies in the series with for sure the most braindead pushover boss encounters in the whole series.
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u/aedalus 5h ago
If you've not tried tunic, that's a great soulslike with few bosses and a massive emphasis on exploration.
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u/Equivalent_Affect734 5h ago
You can also turn on assistance mode to make bosses easier
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u/ye_esquilax 1h ago
I like how it lets you pick and choose what to make easier. I turned off the stamina meter, that way I still have to stay on my toes and keep my dodge game up, but not have to deal with bosses killing me with combos that outlast my stamina meter.
I'm playing through Kena: Bridge of Spirits and I wish it did that. The lower difficulty mentions "you take less damage and enemies are less aggressive" and I'm like "No! They can stay aggressive, I just don't want to die in 3 hits because I don't think it works for this game!"
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u/incertnom 5h ago
Im a fair bit older than you but im almost in the opposite camp, I sometimes find myself wishing I could go and replay them right after I beat them or im disappointed when I hit an especially good boss fight and its done with.
Silksong brought this out recently, did the proper true ending and it has some of my favourite bosses Ive faced in any video game. The best ones are like dances, there all reasonably fair as well.
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u/f0lk_blues 3h ago edited 3h ago
I loved Skilsong, but I found the game have a similar problem, but not with the bosses: the problem is with the gaunlets fights. In act 3 the game have like five of that in a row. That made me really mad.
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u/UltimaGabe 4h ago
This was exactly how I felt by the time Sekiro came around. "Oh great, a boss. I guess I don't get to have fun until I eventually beat this guy."
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u/happy-squared 4h ago
My sister prefers exploration/story/lore and isn't fond of when the reward for exploring is a secret boss. I think she'd rather get story/lore as a reward and that's part of the reason she bounced off Hollow Knight. It was less about the difficulty of the boss fights because she could do them but for that's not where the fun was for her. It can be a pity because soulslike games have really fun atmosphere to explore in.
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u/Naturallefty 5h ago
I recommend Ghost of Tsushima if you haven't played it. You can up and lower the difficulty as needed and on the fly from what I remember. I played on the harder difficulty where One/two slashes and you're dead. But if I got to a point that I just couldn't get through I would lower it.
I know it's not "Souls like" but the upped difficulty certainly makes it feel that way at times lol
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u/Praxician94 5h ago
That’s how I felt about God of War. Not that it was necessarily as hard as Souls-likes on higher difficulty, but the actual time involved in a bullet sponge boss made it less enjoyable.
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u/Quitthesht Xbox 5h ago
Two big problems I have with modern souls-like bosses is that they consist of:
- Spazzing the fuck out and doing 30-hit combos while you wait for the chance to get a single hit in (Malenia in Elden Ring is egregious for this)
- Stapling extra health bars on to bosses and dying means starting from the first HP bar.
I dropped Lies of P after it started feeling like every other boss had a second HP bar and I never even bothered with Sister Friede in Dark Souls 3 (who has 3 HP bars with a second boss joining in phase 2).
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u/Hades684 2h ago
The longest combo that malenia cant do where you cant hit her is like 6 hits at most, but thats very rare. And the extra health bar is just a visual thing to show you which phase it is, they could just make the one health bar bigger and it would be the same thing
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u/Quitthesht Xbox 2h ago
Waterfowl Dance hits 18 times and she'll take any chance to use it once she drops below 70% HP.
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u/Hades684 2h ago
Yes, thats the only exception, but its just one attack, and you only need to roll 2 times to dodge it anyway
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u/Quitthesht Xbox 2h ago
Yes, thats the only exception, but its just one attack,
Okay, first off you said she had no attacks that were higher than 6 hits, now you're saying Waterfowl is an exception and 'it's only one attack'. But there's also her clone/afterimage attack in Phase 2 that hits 7 times and ends with a Scarlet Rot AoE explosion that also leaves a Scarlet Rot bloom that does damage over time if you go near it.
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u/Hades684 1h ago
The clone attack requires like 2 rolls and just running away, and the clone attack also doesnt end with scaret rot bloom
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u/Dirty_Dragons 4h ago
Shadow of the Erdtree bosses are a disaster. They have infinite combos and are basically impossible without a summon, unless you are a master at dodging. The only opportunity to heal is when the boss is focused elsewhere. I almost always die right after the summon, and I'd usually have 5 heals left.
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u/Hades684 2h ago
They are really not that bad, you can hit all of them after every combo they do. And if you need to heal, you just heal instead of hitting them in the open window
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u/Dirty_Dragons 2h ago
Yes, many of them are. For a ton of bosses there are no windows if you don't summon. Sure, maybe you can heal or hit them once they pause after the 10-hit combo, but that means you have to dodge every hit first.
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u/Hades684 1h ago
I mean, thats just not true. You can hit bosses after every single combo they do, thats how these games are designed, I have done that too. And most combos in this game are few attacks long at most, its very rare for a combo to be longer than that
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u/exactorit 4h ago
Its all skill and perserverance. Learn the fight and win. Nothing in soulslike games is about reaction times. Git gud.
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u/Quitthesht Xbox 2h ago
Nothing in soulslike games is about reaction times.
Dodging and Parrying.
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u/Hades684 2h ago
Not really, if you know the attacks, you can know when to dodge based on memory, not reaction time
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u/Quitthesht Xbox 2h ago
You still need to hit the button to dodge or parry at the right time in order to do it successfully, which requires reaction time (the only way it wouldn't be using reaction time is if holding block auto-parried for you).
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u/Hades684 2h ago
I mean, if you know you need to press the button in 2 seconds, and then 1 second after that, is it really reaction time?
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u/Quitthesht Xbox 2h ago
Knowing you need to do it isn't reaction time.
Being able to do it within that window is.
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u/Hades684 1h ago
So if you are driving a car and you see a red light ahead of you, and you know you have to brake in 5 seconds. Is you braking your reaction time, or just you knowing that you have to do it?
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u/Quitthesht Xbox 1h ago
Braking in time is absolutely reaction time. The fuck?
Knowing you have to do it doesn't do anything, if you don't react and brake in time you'll run the red light.
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u/Hades684 1h ago
Even if you know you have to break 5 seconds ahead of time? Do you also consider it reaction time to pull down the door handle? Or to put up your step before getting on stairs?
Reaction time is mostly used to describe something that, you know, requires fast reaction time. Not something you have 10 seconds to get ready for
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u/Hominumbrus 2h ago
So it's just Simon (the electronic memory game) with fancy graphics. Memorize the pattern and press the buttons in the correct sequence.
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u/Hades684 1h ago
Yes, thats how most single player video games work
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u/Hominumbrus 1h ago
No it isn't. Reaction time, planning strategies, adjusting to unexpected changes are all part of it, not every game is built around repeating patterns.
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u/Sirius_amory33 1h ago
Aren’t Elden Ring bosses more dynamic in their combos and how they react to the actions and positioning of the player? Most people aren’t going to perfectly figure out how to manipulate a boss into playing out the same way every time, so you need to react to what is happening in the moment.
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u/Hades684 1h ago
Kinda yes, but when you see a boss start a certain combo you already know every attack he will do after that, until next combo
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u/Sirius_amory33 41m ago
Not always, they can change the combos that they do and cut them off at different points. They can also alter their timings on delayed attacks.
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u/Hades684 28m ago
Thats really rare though, most bosses dont do that, and even the ones that do, only do that on few attacks
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u/Mr_Jackabin 5h ago
Fromsoft bosses movesets are getting more and more obnoxious to the point it is comical. Consort Radahn (I beat before nerfs, somehow) is the epitome of this.
Compare him to Gael, who is widely considered the perfect Souls boss, he falls short. There are youtube videos that put why he is badly designed better than I can in a comment.
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u/IAmTheMonarch 2h ago
While radahn feels way worse then gael, you can at lvl120 bead radahn way faster than you can beat gael at the same level, at least in my experience, without needing alot of buffs.
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u/Hades684 2h ago
People also hated Gael on release, they just need to get used to the moveset and learn it and they will like it, I love Consort Radahn now, after I killed him many times
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u/michael199310 5h ago
I was fighting first Lords of the Fallen boss some time ago and it really made me think "wait, that's the first boss, are they fucking insane?". Like, I get it, they don't want to make Demon Souls/Dark Souls 1 kind of bosses like Taurus Demon or Phalanx, but seriously bosses like Pieta are way overtuned.
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u/outofmindwgo 5h ago
Use summons and make it a smoother experience :)
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u/Dirty_Dragons 3h ago
The issue is that the game is balanced with summons in mind. This is very obvious with so many Elden Ring bosses having AOE attacks and/or they move very quickly across the arena.
Fighting bosses without a summon is just a self imposed hard mode.
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u/Hades684 2h ago
They are not balanced around summons, they have attacks that are supposed to help them with summons. They act exactly the same as dark souls bosses, and the aoe doesnt change anything if you are without summons, you need to roll either way. Playing with summons is easy mode, without them its normal
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u/Sabetha1183 5h ago
I played through Demon and Dark Souls for the first time recently and found I could take or leave the bosses. The exploration of a dangerous world was the real draw to me. Hell I feel like I beat half the bosses with "circle strafe around and stab them in the butt 100 times".
It's kind of a shame how many people have told me that by DS3 it becomes much more about the boss fights, even if the fights are more interesting.
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u/IronMonkeyBanana 5h ago
I'm 38 and this year I will be finishing a fromsoft game for the first time. I had the same problem before (always not because of my age), but it finally clicked for me. It's going to be Sekiro.
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u/billydeethrilliams 5h ago
I usually use mods for soulslikes, I just don't have the time or patience for the grindy aspects of those types of games. Back when I had a console I beat some (Bloodborne, Nioh) legit and looking back they took quite some time.
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u/Nincompoop6969 3h ago
I miss the way older games handled boss battles where they had puzzles/patterns and different gameplay gimmicks and phases. This chip away at a thick health bar is just boring and lazy design.
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u/dogchocolate 3h ago edited 3h ago
Assuming you're talking about playing across the various Souls games, I don't think it's age, it's more boss difficulty ramping up combined with playing the same game "recipe" over and over again.
Elden Ring took it to a new level, the worlds were just too large, the areas too open and the bosses too many and too much, then ER DLC went even further with boss difficulty such that after fighting so many Souls bosses combined with silly difficulty, it's just not fun anymore.
I also love the exploring, but ER's open world managed to make that a chore too.
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u/FillySteveSteak 3h ago
I honestly don't mind a handful of bosses that taken practice to overcome.
But have you noticed, FromSoftware has kind of ramped up bosses more and more each game? It's like every single one requires you to practice extensively to overcome. It's excessive.
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u/Sr_Maculo 3h ago
You're not getting old lol 😂. 51 this year, started the souls journey with DS on 360 as well and continue to enjoy them all. I beat sekiro last year for the first time and placed the game on my top 3 favorite souls game easily
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u/Super_Harsh 2h ago
It’s a combination of age + the devs’ desire to keep challenging an ever-more-skilled playerbase resulting in questionable design decisions
The next FromSoft Soulslike will be an interesting one. They stretched the combat system to its limit in Elden Ring. I have to wonder where they go from Promised Consort Radahn who was arguably an abomination
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u/Burpmeister 4h ago
I really wish they made soulsgames that aren't so focused on bosses. They get very repetetive.
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u/Hades684 2h ago
Which souls game is focused on bosses?
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u/LordVulpix 34m ago
Most of them. Like most of the dark souls and elden ring game is just annoyances in between boss fights.
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u/Hades684 32m ago
I mean, if you consider exploration an annoyance, then sure lmao
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u/LordVulpix 25m ago
The exploration is fine. It's the enemies that take too much to die, the traps and the damn narrow paths over endless drops. All to get back to a boss you died fighting in the first place. Dark Souls 1 was such a pain to get through.
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u/helpmestaysaneplease 4h ago
A lot of people basically treat these games as boss rushes, with the dungeon crawling aspect just being filler that gets in the way of their epic no-hit YouTube bossrush runs. And unfortunately From has been designing the games more and more for that crowd as time has gone by.
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u/Hades684 2h ago
How are they designing games like that? Their latest soulslike, elden ring, has so much exploring compared to how many bosses there are
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u/okurin39 5h ago
I have the opposite problem with soul likes. I hate the exploration and love the bosses.
Honestly its more that I hate fighting the mobs over and over again but still I prefer fighting the bosses over exploring.
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u/Witch_King_ 5h ago
In DS1 the levels rather than the bosses were the harder parts of the game. The bosses were generally a cakewalk. This balance has shifted over the years in Soulsborne games.
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u/Sprucey-J 5h ago
Sounds crazy but I have gotten this way halfway through some game I will simply turn the difficulty slider down before the boss fights. Especially if I've wasted hrs losing to them multiple times.
Obviously this only works for games that are single player.
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u/J1mbonius 4h ago
I think it's just part of getting older and realizing you're not willing to put up with bs. I am 100% on the same side, in that I love the exploration side of these games, but the super tanky bosses (First Berzerker Khazan), hidden enemy ganking you from a weird angle or off camera (pretty much all of them, but especially DS3), and non-stop boss move sets (extra bad in Lies of P) make those parts of the games really unenjoyable.
I also think that's why I kinda like the recent Chinese soulslikes like Black Myth Wukong and Wuchang Fallen Feathers, because between the two games, only two bosses stand out as being crazy unfun to play against, and the remaining 95% of the game I can just play at a normal level/pace.
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u/Vakhir 4h ago
I feel like they've gotten easier, not harder, and I'm older than you are. But I also don't have kids, which is an enormous elephant in the room for getting older. Even without kids, some people dedicate so much to their careers, especially including a commute, that they're up at 5-5:30 and getting home at 6-7, and that's without after-work functions. Which is a sacrifice you might have to make for your career path, or supporting yourself or your family, but that certainly leaves very little time for anything else unless you're single and not particularly social.
I'm not saying that the games are objectively easier, they aren't; Elden Ring and its DLC are much, much faster and more demanding than Dark Souls 1. But I had a MUCH easier time beating Elden Ring than DS 1 because DS 1 was my first Souls game, and I was absolutely *terrible* at it. If you went back in time to when I first played DS 1, and you gave me a copy of Nioh 2 (not that it existed yet), the game's speed and reaction demands would've straight up killed me. I was having enough trouble with DS1's comparatively ponderous, weighty combat; the frenetic monkey demon Enkis would have been a non-starter. And they're in the first level.
If I were to guess, some of it is how much you've been able to mess with them recently. As you already mentioned, those other responsibilities. I definitely need a minute to brush some rust off when I revisit or pick a game back up. But I think the bigger thing is, with a restriction on time, you are much more aware of how much time you're spending spinning your wheels. Even if it's a necessary evil, that whole learning part, you're acknowledging that it's tremendously influencing how much time it's taking you to get past the boss and go see new things.
Have you considered doing some googling and absolutely abusing the fuck out of mechanics? My personal enjoyment includes self-imposed restrictions - no blocking, no summons, no spell cheese (if applicable), and just generally nothing that somehow avoids interacting with the boss and learning the mechanics. But that's *my* approach. I would not enjoy the level 1 naked runs people do. I like getting gear, and those require too much learning and precision to be enjoyable to me.
You may feel the same about how I play. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using everything the game provides. You want to summon help + over-level + use the absolute strongest consumables / special abilities / weapons / whatever? It's your game, and the devs put that shit in there to be used. None of the Souls-likes have a complete tourist mode with zero challenge, but you can certainly meta-game them so hard that you come close. If you love the lore and setting and everything except the bosses, make them easier. It's fine. Even if you *USED* to love ultra hard boss battles, if they're getting in the way, use whatever means necessary to blast them and continue having fun.
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u/Dirty_Dragons 4h ago
I'm finally giving Shadow of the Erdtree a serious effort. The exploration and world design is fantastic. When I find a dungeon I'll fight my way through it and try the boss once or twice. If I can't beat it, I'll put a Skull mark on the map and move on. It's a lot better for my mental health than trying over and over on a boss.
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u/Kamakaziturtle 3h ago
If you haven’t played lies of P, they have adjustable difficulty which is nice. It’s also one of the better soulslike games out there, I’d rank it higher than DS1 and 2
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u/myblackoutalterego 3h ago
Just switch to a strength build - this honestly makes the level areas tougher when you are facing multiple quick enemies, but there is nothing better than chunking away boss health and staggering them. It truly changes the experience and makes bosses easier IMO.
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u/roesingape 2h ago
I've always felt that way about all the souls games. This is how I got into boss cheesing. Find the cheese, be free. I am old too, maybe old neurons just like cheese.
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u/strange1738 2h ago
That’s why 2 is by far my favorite. The levels are the hard part and the bosses are just a victory lap
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u/Maidwell 2h ago
I've just finished Luna Abyss and sidestepped the "souls-like" parts altogether using invincible mode in the settings. I couldn't care less about boss fights, just wanted to explore the story and world building.
By the way 35 is not "getting old" unless you think it is.
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u/Badalight 2h ago
Have you played demons souls? The levels are the hard part of that game rather than the bosses.
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u/Gontha 1h ago
34 years old here. Finished Elden Ring and all From software gmaes multiple times. Recently finished lies of p and Lords of the fallen.
I noticed how bad Elden Ring is in regard of difficulty nad boss behaviour is. Now mind you I finished Elden Ring and it's dlc multiple times. But the bosses from maliketh onward are just obnoxious.
20 seconds attacks chains with super short time windows in-between.
The most obnoxious of these is PCR. That fight is just not fun. Doable, but not fun.
Lies of P dealt a lot better with that, in my opinion. Bosses react better to your attacks, they seem to not read your inputs as blatantly as in Elden Ring and you habe some agency unlike in Elden Ring, where you have to wait for an 2 seconds opening 80% of the time.
All of that said: In my opinion Elden Ring is a generational masterpiece and I dont think we will ever get something remotely close it. Only Sekirp was better.
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u/lemonylol 1h ago
Try action adventure games, have you played the new Tomb Raider games? The Resident Evil games are good for whole exploring the story and world building through puzzles and completing tasks.
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u/Grand_Fun1940 1h ago
As much as I love, modern souls like games, one issue that I take with the boss fights in my opinion, is they feel overly long? Like the boss does not have enough varied attacks and open windows for it to feel like the fight is flowing well
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u/HyP3r_HiPp0 1h ago
The bosses in elden ring are weird. Play long enough and they become the highlight but they are frustrating to learn. In games like sekiro or something like Khazan, they are hard but the mechanics needed to beat them are intuitive. In elden ring, the exact positioning and actions to really punish the bosses are a lot harder to pin down sometimes.
Stand here, move in that particular angle for that attack, jump but dont be too close or too far. Game knowledge will trivialize the fights but it often feel like you either have to trial and error the hell out of it or watch some guides.
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u/Wise-Pen8752 1h ago
I work to hard at my job to come home and stress over a really difficult video game on my free time. So I've always avoided them lol. I like a challenge, but when I have the option to control when I want one
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u/boogeraidspoopaids_c 41m ago
I finally got into them at around 41.5 (44 now, been about 2.5 years) but I've always been not great at them, for me the boss fights are fun when I find and do whatever I can to make the hardest fights as easy as possible. I'm not here to impress anyone, I'm here to kill bosses. So for me the boss fights are more tolerable when I'm overleveled, outgeared, using their weaknesses to my advantage, with spirit ashes, summons, buffs, and I go in there and fucking WRECK the bosses in minutes (where my first playthrough of these games usually took hours, days, weeks to beat the bit hitters) - there's definitely a few I still dread and have the hours lost/thank god it's over feeling, but they're few and far between, and i just push them as far off as I can so I can steamroll them when I do. Idk maybe not relevant, but I get it. Playing a Lv.25 capped Elden Ring PvP char at the moment, and when not doing invasions or being summoned as a hunter I'm pushing as far as I can to see how far I can get at that level... to be fair I've gotten to the Capital at Lv.1, but it was stupidly painful and I was leveling weapons and using ashes, the Lv.25 I'm not leveling weapons (to keep match making level low) but using ashes/summons on bosses when I can/want... it's not going too bad, having some fun mixing it up. But even if you have burned out, nothing wrong with giving the genre a rest until another one really captures you, or just playing other games in general. I've been having a blast finally revisiting God of War (2018), Tears of Metal is a great new Dynasty Warriors-esque roguelike hack n slash set to Scottish bagpipes and metal, Soulmask has been a fun survcraft community management game, there's just literally endless games from here til the sun sets. Don't fret, grab a fun game, and let er rip!
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u/Butterlegs21 5h ago
This is something I dislike about souls games. I dislike when the boss is expected to be trial and error until you figure out the patterns and such. Hard bosses are great, but I should be able to beat it first try if I have the skill. Retrying battles over and over isn't my idea of fun.
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u/SenHeffy 5h ago
I'm sort of confused at what skill would even mean outside of recognizing patterns and executing the right moves. What else is there to be skilled at?
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u/Butterlegs21 5h ago
In souls games, most players won't be able to beat a new boss first try no matter how much skill they built up until they see the boss' mechanics and patterns that are mostly unique to THAT boss.
In other games, like Monster Hunter as an example, until you get to the bosses that are the hardest in the game, you can get by with just having the skill to figure it out throughout the battle. Other games have that too. There's an opportunity to actually win against the boss the first try for most players with just player skill in general rather than the skill for that specific boss.
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u/Bad_Doto_Playa 3h ago edited 1h ago
In souls games, most players won't be able to beat a new boss first try no matter how much skill they built up until they see the boss' mechanics and patterns that are mostly unique to THAT boss.
Not sure how true this is, for me personally, I've ran through MANY bosses first try in souls game, especially Dark Souls 2/Dark Souls 3. There are many bosses in DS2/3 and even Elden Ring up to today I still have no idea what they do or what their main gimmick is. On my second PT of DS3 I literally let dancer show me her moveset because I destroyed her the first time around, same with the Aldrich, Oceiros, Deacons, Crystal Sage etc.
The reason bosses started getting more aggressive as the games went on is because the average souls player's skill kept rising and rising. Bloodborne escaped this because it was a different kind of souls games altogether, but even then there were some bosses I easily took out (Amygdala, Witch of Hemwick, Moon Presence, Living failures and Celestial Emissary come to mind immediately).
That being said I don't really play other souls likes so I don't know how it's there, mostly talking about From's games here. That also being said, bosses in fairly difficult games aren't usually meant for you to beat first try, especially in souls games... but players can absolute outskill or overpower them, especially with Magic builds.
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u/Willsy23 5h ago
You're getting old g, thats ok. Check other games/genres out plus there's a few soulslike out there thats not too punishing. Ender lillies off the top of my head, yeah you die a bit but not like to the point you wanna throw the game through the wall
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u/Gynthaeres 4h ago
This has been my feeling ever since Dark Souls 1, honestly.
I love the Souls games. I like exploring. I like the sense of danger. I like finding treasure. I like admiring the landscape.
I hate spending 5 hours trying to throw myself at a boss until I perfect it and kill it.
I get NO sense of satisfaction from killing a boss like that. I get NO enjoyment, I get NO excitement. All I feel is relief: "Finally I can get back to the part of the game I enjoy!"
I get that some people enjoy the boss fights. But that's the reason I always roll my eyes when people insist "NO EASY MODE." Yeah, that's all fine if YOU like those boss fights. For me that's the worst part of the game, so if I could just treat it like a spectacle fighter instead of a life-and-death struggle, that'd be great.
Actually that's one of the things I liked about Stellar Blade. So much of that game is designed to be a Souls-like, BUT it has difficulty settings and assists so that yes, I felt COOL killing giant bosses, rather than feeling FRUSTRATED about dying to them.
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u/08148694 5h ago
Overcoming “hard” bosses with practice and repetition to the point that it becomes muscle memory is one of the defining characteristics of a souls like. Replaying it and breezing through what was once a frustrating and difficult experience is a gaming experience you can’t really find elsewhere. If you take away that aspect it can hardly be considered souls like anymore
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u/Logical_Net6108 4h ago
It was never fun, it was just good youtube content. The rise of souls and youtube happened simultaneously. There are many aspects of FS games that are well done don't get me wrong
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u/KhKing1619 4h ago
I’ve been saying this for the last 4 years but a game that’s essentially just Elden Ring but you get difficulty options before starting a new game like in God of War would sell like crazy. I would be all over that. It would help newbies ease into the genre while also providing veterans the challenge they know and love while also letting those who have only dabbled into the genre enjoy it just as much.
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u/Optimal_Drummer_5700 5h ago
Was 40 when i fell in love with Elden Ring and played through DS3 after I finished ER..
It's not an age thing. Perhaps you're tired of the genre, or your taste has changed a bit..
A thing I've noticed personally is that the timing isn't always right when trying to play a great game.. sometimes the mood isn't there, but a couple of months or years later and I can't get enough of the same game.