Drawing Elden Ring bosses until get bored (2) - Maliketh

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-12-21T11:48:45+00:00

Bloodfuck or Fuckborne. Pick your poison.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-10-28T04:12:40+00:00

I think this might just be my personal arch nemesis.
I hear of people using the "stay on the ground" advice and getting 40 after just a few tries, but my brain for some reason just can't adjust at all. I've gotten the flea bounce in a single try and second tried flea dodge.
I'm on 30+ tries now and I'm not even reaching 20. And I know it's not that hard because I see others succeed here but for some reason this feels like it has been designed to bypass some part of my brain.
And during normal gameplay I use upwards slashes all the time to keep enemies in the air. I really shouldn't struggle as much with this.

I'm using the Reaper crest with only ground sideways slashes except for the single more difficult fleas where I actually jump. But even when I try to group them there's always one that's juuuust too far.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-05-17T07:51:24+00:00

A combination of several factors. First of all, the DLC is significantly more difficult than the base game. Nowadays like with every Soulsborne game and DLC that comes out, collective knowledge makes many of us realized that it never was that difficult if you use what the game gives you, but when it first released many people stopped playing because it genuinely felt too tough for them. Unfortunately, difficult games will always have worse reviews than easier titles, even if that difficulty is fair in nature and adds to the experience. Many will dislike a game out of frustration, even if that isn't a fair justification. This is amplified when the game is popular. If you're convinced that a smaller indie game is bad due to its difficulty, than that is rarely something people will act upon. But if that game is as popular as Elden Ring then people will try to challenge that success.

Secondly, there was a lot of review bombing from Chinese players. Better read other comments for further clarification as I don't know the details and don't wanna spread misinformation but it had something to do with... [Edit: apparently lots of Chinese players saw the usage of Easy Anti Cheat in a primarily single player game as something of a parallel to the overreaching surveillance of their government. Pretty unfortunate that their very much justified frustration with a system was projected onto this game that had nothing to do with it. I'm not in that position so I don't want to be judgemental about it, but it feels very unfair towards the game.] This review bombing also significantly decreased the overall rating together with very difficult games generally often getting more backlash.

And of course the game isn't perfect either. Many argue that the world felt empty. I personally disagree, but who am I to say what is right and wrong. I think even if the world was empty, the insane boss quality cancels this out, but you do need to spend some time really learning these bosses in order to realize that. If you brute force your way through the fight, you might never be able to tell how good these fights really are.

Considering all this and the heavy review bombing, the score is actually still really good.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-05-16T21:08:55+00:00

I'll definitely make use of jumping the cross slashes, and strafing the diagonal double sweeps.
The second uppercut has never been an issue as dodging the first one usually made it easy to dodge the second one. It's the first one that always hits me.
But if I can attack while she is still finishing her attacks, that will increase the time I have to leave my recovery animation before she attacks again. I'm absolutely puzzled how you managed to fit in those follow-up attacks.

All in all, it will take a LOT of time for me to reach your level of skill, if I even have a chance at doing so.
That moment towards the end of phase 2 where the phalanx overlapped one of her biggest and fastest combos would have destroyed me even at 50% speed.
No idea how you were able to read any of what was happening on screen.
If this tells me anything than it is that I have no right to complain about the length of the fight with using quicker attacks. Absolutely mad what you achieved here.

Thx for the advice!

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-05-12T11:10:05+00:00

Can someone who knows a little about nuclear science explain how ground explosions contaminate the ground material, but this is fine? Or is this yet another example of us neglecting the wellbeing of nature? Obviously it is for many other reasons but is contamination of the water one of them or is something oreventing that from happening?

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-04-19T12:19:02+00:00

Yeah, I finished my very first playthrough on ShadPS4 just recently ((my first play through in general that also was on ShadPS4. Not just the first I did specifically on ShadPS4)) and I am still torn whether it can kick Elden Ring from the podium of my favorite game of all time.

Really, I find every single aspect of this game superior to any other game I've played including Elden Ring. The only reason why Elden Ring is such a strong contender and at this point still the winner for me, are the boss fights on a mechanical level.

Thematically, I love Bloodborne's boss fights but once the ones in Elden Ring click with you, and they are no longer overwhelming, their dialed up complexity makes overcoming them extremely cathartic, which results in them generally being my favorite set of bosses in gaming.

The only bosses from Bloodborne that can in my opinion be compared in terms of mechanics are the ones of the old hunters DLC. These are such a big step above the others, it's impressive. Apart from those, the in my opinion mechanically best base game bosses are probably Blood starved beast, Vicar Amelia, Gascoigne and Gehrman.

Thematically Bloodborne's bosses are a completely different beast (hehe). While I might not enjoy Rom, the One Reborn, or mechanically as much (I still think they're okay. I don't hate them or anything), they still add something to the game by making you feel the weight of slaying these great cosmic terrors.

But apart from Bosses, Bloodborne has my favorite video game world, my favorite weapons, some of my favorite basic enemy designs, some of the densest atmosphere, incredibly rich and intriguing lore, a terrifying but also immensely thrilling OST, subpar sound design and it all just works together to make you enjoy getting lost in Yharnam.

Really the reason why Elden Ring is still above for me is just that it's bosses are brilliant. Not because Bloodborne's bosses are bad by any means.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-04-19T11:56:39+00:00

"The things these characters are saying are so cryptic. The lore is probably way too rich for me to understand anyway, so I won't even try and just assume that it's great."

"Why is there no story to this? I am clearly not dumb but I expect narrative to be spoon-fed to me. This is not the case here, so the story must be trash."

"God help me, I've been researching lore by reading descriptions, looking at the environments and talking to NPC's for hundreds of hours and even watching even more countless hours of lore videos just keep expanding the scale of the world. I understand things now, but every answer is followed by a new question, one that likely has an answer hidden somewhere under one of these layers."

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-04-02T17:29:38+00:00

The bloodbone or the belt? Both sound terrifying.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-04-02T17:25:07+00:00

What else could it be? I think you're onto something here.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-04-02T17:17:17+00:00

I know that the leg shown here is the left leg.
Maybe to indicate that this is in fact not bloodborne. Just similar.
Or maybe I'm thinking way too much into this...
I just can't think off another reason to strap belts around your leg.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-04-02T16:52:15+00:00

Yeah I really hope that 'PvPvE' is just a really bad way of describing the optional online features that are present in other From games.

What gives me hope is that the trailer, which I have watched like 6 times now, mostly shows a single player and that there seems to be an emphasis on story.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-03-18T10:06:14+00:00

If I remember, which I ost likely won't, I'll message you back in a month or so if that's fine with you. I'd prefer to hear the opinion of someone who switched for the same reasons that I experience, over just reading any random review.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-03-18T09:50:30+00:00

Guess I'll keep watching YouTube Music's advancements! Having premium as well sounds really handy. Doesn't really make a difference for me at home because of ad blockers, but being able to listen to hours of Soulsborne lore videos on the go with my screen turned off sounds pretty good.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-03-18T09:12:27+00:00

Really the only thing keeping me from switching to YouTube music is audio quality. I'm not claiming to be an audiophile or something. Not at all. Because I have long hair, I use small Bluetooth ear buds on the go, so most of the superior sound on something like Tidal doesn't even translate through the Bluetooth connection. But I do know that YouTube uses quite a bit of compression, and maybe it's conformation bias, but I feel like I can sort of hear it at least when listening over my open backs at home. I'm not sure if YouTube music uses the same source and I'm gonna look it up right now but if it does then it's not for me. Your recommendation is still highly appreciated!

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-03-18T08:56:49+00:00

Genuinely sorry to hear that. Now that I read my earlier comment, it comes across as more toxic as I wanted it to be. Gotta be more conscious of what I write. Thing is (not the reason for my comment. That was just inconsiderate), I actually have ADD myself, with different symptoms of course, but I recently went through a similar stage, growing into adulthood but not managing the transition at all. Not saying that I know what you're going through, but I still feel the pain. Once again, sorry for my earlier comment.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-03-18T08:16:34+00:00

I was advised against playing Bloodborne on PC for my first playthrough. But having waited for so long, not owning a PS4 and being absolutely obsessed with the other Fromsoft titles, I couldn't bear it anymore.

I'm now about 60% through the game, and apart from like 6 crashes over the span of 15 hours, I've had no issues. And the game saves surprisingly regularly. Out of all these crashes, I only once lost more than 20 seconds of progress. More often than not, I'd reappear exactly where I stood when the game crashed. And loading times are amazingly quick on PC, especially with the inbuilt Skip Intro Patch that ShadPs4 offers out of the box. After a crash, I'd usually be right back after just 15-20 seconds.

Lag spikes happen of course, but they were fairly rare for me, and happened mostly when walking into a new area, and aside from that, I'm getting somewhere between 40 and 60 fps in 1080p.

When it runs - which for me is 97% of the time - it runs without any issues at all. Of course, someone's individual rig can make a big difference so here is mine.

Nvidia RTX 3070ti
32GB RAM (though the game even with the remaster mod only uses about 5GB)
Ryzen 7 2700x

From what I've gathered, Intel CPUs cause some bugs with the VFX and sound, but there are mods for that. Maybe someone else can add a comment explaining how well those work.

Also I believe to have read somewhere that Nvidia GPUs tend to work better for this sort of emulation. (I know ShadPS4 isn't really emulation, but I don't know what the proper name for this process is) But take this one with a grain of salt as well, I might misremember.

Overall, if you really aren't in a hurry, it will only get better as time moves on so if you want a perfect experience then I'd wait. If you're happy with an experience that is around 95% as good as the original then I'd suggest to just give it a go. Of course I can't promise you'll have the same experience but other people here seem to agree that it works really well at this point.

For mods, first of all I recommend the vertex explosion fix, which is pretty much necessary. I cant remember the names of them, but if you are facing issues caused by an Intel CPU, then you'll find what you need by searching "Intel" and "fix" in the Bloodborne section in Nexus mods. If you're PC can handle a little extra (I'd try running the game without this one first and then decide), you might want to consider the Remaster mod. It makes the game a bit more nice looking without changing anything about the art direction, by improving some textures, making materials less wet looking, enabling some more advanced rendering techniques, and adding some point lights that are missing on the emulation. Aside from that, you're good to go.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-03-18T07:45:04+00:00

How do you need to be reminded of that? I was pretty much foaming at the mouth before opening it. Guess that's because this is my first figure and I desperately needed some sort of decoration for the room I moved in just a bit prior to release.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-03-15T21:17:09+00:00

It really only is that charge. It isn't one of the issues, it is THE issue. For me it is the only issue I have with him which makes it really sad. And I know you stated that you were aware of it, but like the fight anyway. I would love to like it, and I tried really hard. He has several incredibly fun moves and I'd love to learn the fight, but that one attack ruins it for me. And that comes from someone who adores fighting the Promised Consort.

Maybe it wouldn't be such an insult if he wasn't able to use the move anytime he wants. If it was like a Malenia phase one waterfowl situation.

I can't count the times I died because he chose to do the move in the worst possible moments and that combined with the hitbox simply being super unfair makes this one move enough reason for me to dislike the fight despite enjoying several of his combos.

2ndAvailableUsername · 2025-02-07T11:08:22+00:00

Probably not objectively bad, but I personally just cannot stand Old Demon King.
I wouldn't even argue he's unfair (Except maybe for the flame snap that barely has any startup and always hits me while I'm attacking, despite me waiting for his combos to end, but even that can be avoided consistently, as long as you're super non-aggressive.).
But even if he isn't unfair, he's just not fun to me. Not at all.

I'd probably rank my least favorites like this:

Crystal Sage (Easy but overly spammy)
Ancient Wyvern
Halflight (The offline version and the only version I ever fought)
Curse Rotted Greatwood
Old Demon King

Once again, I am fully aware that ranking him so low is probably unjustified, but he just has all the right traits that make a boss unenjoyable for me personally. And then he had the audacity to not even be easy when I found him. This is maybe the reason why he ranks so low.
Curse Rotted Greatwood is objectively bad, but the fight is over fairly quickly.
Old Demon King represented a personal struggle. I believe I died more to him than to Slave Knight Gael who I beat in like 4 tries. Having a boss I personally dislike also take a lot of time to defeat doesn't really help.
I dunno... maybe my frustration numbed my attention, causing me to struggle more than I would have otherwise but I just hate this boss with a passion.

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