Elden Ring DLC ​​players complain about long boss combos

Ancient Ring found himself once again at the center of a huge discourse around the difficulty of video games and I’m already almost completely bored of it. Not only do we continue to have the same conversation, but we often feel like fake conversation too. However, there is a particularity in this latest cycle that piqued my curiosity because it focuses on FromSoftware’s features. philosophy around boss fightsand how each of them in the Shadow of the Erdtree the expansion seems to have infinite combos.

To be clear, this is not a bold new claim about FromSoft or Ancient Ring. A quick search turns up many complaints about this approach, such as this Reddit post from two years ago lamenting the length of enemy combos when first launching the game. But this recently picked up after the June 21 release of Shadow of the Erdtreethe significantly more difficult expansion which adds a completely new upgrade system and a suite of patterns which push the community into a wall.

Spoilers for some of them Shadow of the ErdtreeBoss fights ensue.

For some people, Shadow of the ErdtreeThe grueling boss encounters drew too heavily on what they consider to be FromSoft’s worst game design tendencies. Messages continue to appear, either on Reddit or on X (formerly Twitter), about the the length of the attack strings that the bosses are unleashed on the players and the relatively short window they have to retaliate. Whether they are the sword master Eleven, Messmer himself, or Rellana, some people are tired of FromSoft’s endless assaults.

The frustrations have sparked at least some discussion about the place of these bosses in FromSoft’s oeuvre, and now many are missing simpler times. An article compares Ancient Ringthe overly complicated attack patterns of Dark souls’ more methodical fights and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, which they said at least put you on equal footing with the enemies for the most part. By comparing, Ancient Ring (and by extension, Shadow of the Erdtree) seems overwhelming. There is now a whole genre of post making fun of the enemies that constantly charge at players in Ancient Ring and the difference in meetings with FromSoft bosses over the years.

Not everyone accepts the idea that these fights are more exhausting than usual, or that there’s something wrong with the long combos. An editor does not believe that this is a “bad boss design”, arguing that you may or may not like it, but that there isn’t just one way to read the situation. Another article on X (formerly Twitter) in response to the illustration I cited earlier states that “basically every fight in Ancient Ring is designed to trip up players who expected to have an intuitive feel for the pacing of combat”, and ultimately found it “as satisfying to learn as other (FromSoft) games”.

And of course, there’s the tried-and-true philosophy that most players have internalized in one way or another. Simply put, these boss fights are meant to be difficult and challenge you in exceptional ways so that triumph over them feels that much sweeter.

myself I hate dealing with long combosand a lot of bullshit I saw in Shadow of the Erdtree is the stuff of nightmares. I may have invested all my skill points into a Dexterity build for my Bloodhound Fang, but I’m not that dexterous myself and I’m only getting older. I can’t moan while dodging and jumping over certain techniques just to find a split-second window to unleash an attack like I used to, and almost every encounter probably shouldn’t feel that way!

But I love the superhuman feeling that I TO DO get to conquering these things, and overall there are systems implemented into these games, whether it’s Scadutree’s blessings, damage-mitigating armor and talismans, or even just the act of invocation, which facilitate this. These games are as difficult as you make them, you are not the victim!

And then there is the question of a definitive change in philosophy at FromSoft over the years. As FromSoft has repeated its formula over the years, each subsequent title has been significantly different from the others, and the story here is the same. Dark Souls 2 was alienating to fans of the first game, Transmitted by blood leaned into a speed and aggression that faced the set Souls series, and Sekiro pushed back most of the habits collectively encouraged by FromSoft games. Ancient Ring is, like the rest of FromSoft’s legendary catalog, a distinct flavor of gaming, even as it plays within similar conventions and aesthetics. Although it can be tiring to face such versatile and powerful opponents, which is fair considering the literal gods you’re often faced with: the expectations that were established by playing previous FromSoft titles simply shouldn’t inform or dominate the understanding of what you’re doing. Ancient Ring it always has been and always will be.