**How Elden Ring Ruined the Dark Souls Multi-Boss Fight — Transcript & Summary | SozAI** Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/elden-ring-ruined-dark-souls-multiboss/ Explores why Elden Ring's multi-boss fights lack the design finesse and balance that made Dark Souls' dual boss encounters legendary. ## Key Takeaways - Dark Souls multi-boss fights are carefully designed as a single, cohesive challenge with complementary enemy behaviors. - Arena design plays a crucial role in balancing multi-boss encounters by providing strategic positioning and escape routes. - Elden Ring’s multi-boss fights lack the synergy and thoughtful design seen in previous Souls games, leading to less enjoyable fights. - Successful multi-boss fights reward player learning, adaptation, and strategic use of the environment. - Poorly designed multi-boss fights can feel chaotic and unfair, diminishing the overall player experience. ## What the video covers - Multi-boss fights have been a staple in the Souls series, featuring iconic encounters like Ornstein and Smough and Father Ariandel with Sister Friede. - Dark Souls multi-boss fights are designed as a single cohesive challenge where bosses complement each other rather than acting as independent enemies. - These fights emphasize interaction between bosses’ movesets and the arena design to create balanced, exploitable challenges. - Examples include the Bell Gargoyles’ synchronized behavior and the strategic use of pillars in Ornstein and Smough’s fight. - Sister Friede and Father Ariandel’s fight in Dark Souls 3 showcases arena design and boss behavior adjustments that maintain fairness and complexity. - Elden Ring’s multi-boss fights fail to recreate this synergy, often feeling like repurposed content with poor arena design and uncoordinated boss movesets. - The cramped arenas and lack of interaction between bosses in Elden Ring lead to chaotic and frustrating encounters. - Unlike previous games, Elden Ring does not properly accommodate multiple enemies in the fight design, resulting in a less satisfying experience. - The video highlights how FromSoftware’s earlier games carefully balanced multi-boss fights to reward learning and adaptation. - Elden Ring’s approach to multi-boss fights is criticized for lacking the thoughtful design that made earlier Souls games’ encounters memorable. ## Chapters 1. 00:00 Introduction to Multi-Boss Fights in Souls Games 2. 01:08 Core Gameplay Loop and Boss Fight Philosophy 3. 02:29 Bell Gargoyles: A Single Boss with Two Models 4. 03:36 Ornstein and Smough: Complementary Boss Roles and Arena Design 5. 04:43 Sister Friede and Father Ariandel: Complex Multi-Phase Fight 6. 05:46 Arena and Boss Behavior Adjustments in Friede and Ariandel Fight 7. 06:50 Elden Ring’s Failure to Recreate Souls Multi-Boss Magic 8. 09:14 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Answers ## Questions about this video What makes Dark Souls multi-boss fights unique compared to Elden Ring? Dark Souls multi-boss fights are designed as a single cohesive challenge where bosses complement each other’s movesets and are supported by arena design, creating balanced and strategic encounters. Elden Ring’s multi-boss fights lack this synergy and thoughtful design. How does arena design impact multi-boss fights in Souls games? Arena design provides strategic positioning and escape routes that allow players to manage multiple enemies effectively. It ensures bosses’ attacks interact in a way that is challenging but fair, as seen in fights like Ornstein and Smough. Why are Elden Ring’s multi-boss fights considered less satisfying? Elden Ring’s multi-boss fights often feel chaotic due to cramped arenas and bosses that do not interact or complement each other’s movesets, leading to frustrating encounters that lack the rewarding learning curve present in earlier Souls games. ## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown 00:00 Speaker A Fighting two bosses at once is nothing new to the Souls games. Father Ariandel and Sister Friede, Bellend Gargoyles, Ornstein and Smough, ass eaters. Every title in this series of games has featured a boss encounter where you have 00:13 Speaker A to juggle multiple enemies at once to varying levels of success. A lot of these boss fights are talked about fondly, and some are even considered to be among the greatest boss fights ever made, and for good reason. FromSoftware definitely has 00:27 Speaker A a knack for designing these kinds of boss fights, and over the years they've had time to hone those skills. So why aren't Elden Ring's multi-boss fights talked about in the same way? Well, first it's important to understand what makes 00:39 Speaker A Souls boss fights great in the first place. Bosses reinforce the core gameplay loop that's at the heart of all of these games. When you walk through a fog door, you're met with an unfamiliar and seemingly insurmountable obstacle and 00:52 Speaker A told, kill it. You try your luck and probably die a lot, but not before getting a taste of what the boss is capable of. You respawn and try again and again and again, gaining a better understanding of the fight each time, of the attack 01:08 Speaker A patterns and how best to respond to them, of what skill or combination of skills the boss is testing, be it parrying, your awareness, DPS, or even your sanity. [Applause] [Music] With each subsequent attempt, you're rewarded not by the boss being made 01:30 Speaker A weaker but by you becoming stronger with all of the information and experience you've gained. Unless you're fighting the Bed of Chaos, your eventual victory is satisfying because it feels earned. But once seemed impossible, you managed to overcome not by bashing your head into a wall 01:47 Speaker A until you did, but by learning and adapting. Now let's add another boss into the arena where you once had to learn a single enemy's attacks before. You now have to master two enemies at the same time. This may seem like a cheap way to increase a 02:01 Speaker A fight's difficulty, but it doesn't quite work like that in practice. FromSoftware doesn't design two separate bosses for their dual fights, rather one boss that just happens to have two separate character models. What the—does that mean? Alright, 02:14 Speaker A alright, alright, hear me out. The past games follow a very distinct design philosophy in all of their multi-boss encounters. The two enemies don't function independently. When Dark Souls 1 throws another boss at you, the game accounts for that. The Bell 02:29 Speaker A Gargoyles are, for all intents and purposes, a single boss, literally. So in the first half of the fight, you have to lower the first gargoyle to about half health before the second one spawns, and when it does, the first gargoyle begins 02:42 Speaker A to behave differently. Whenever one gargoyle is trying to brutally murder you with its halberd, the other gargoyle enters a more passive state in which it stands still and breathes fire. Its passivity, however, does not mean that you can entirely ignore it. During the 02:56 Speaker A second phase, the player has to be much more careful with their positioning so as not to back themselves into the fire-breathing gargoyle. Additionally, there's the constant threat of that gargoyle going on the offensive, so both bosses must be kept on screen so that you can 03:10 Speaker A properly respond to their aggression. The two remain in perfect synchrony with each other so that the player never gets completely overwhelmed. The second boss is more so an extension of the first one's moveset rather than its own independent enemy. The Bell Gargoyles are, 03:24 Speaker A in essence, a reimagining of Demon's Souls' Man-Eaters boss fight, where you have to fight two similar flying enemies with the second one spawning when the first one is lowered to half health. Dark Souls gives them a wider boss arena and more 03:36 Speaker A clear telegraphs between their aggressive and passive attacks. These changes emphasize the importance of two things: how the boss's attacks interact with each other and the arena that you fight them in. But no fight illustrates this quite like Dark Souls' most notorious boss fight, 03:51 Speaker A Ornstein and Smough. Smough is a fat, lumbering giant who can gap close but takes a considerable amount of time to do it. Ornstein is a crack-out blue hedgehog who can get on top of you faster than you can say "Marek is tits." 04:05 Speaker A It's fairly clear right away that Ornstein is the easier boss to focus down since he's the one that's constantly in melee range, but what should you do about the constant threat of Smough blocking you with his hammer? The arena has these six pillars that you 04:17 Speaker A can use to interrupt his attacks where he charges at you, giving you some time to focus on the crackhead with the spear before repositioning to regain distance from Smough. Each boss serves a unique role in delivering this singular 04:28 Speaker A boss experience. Their varying behavior can seem suffocating and devoid of any openings at first, but it is exploitable. You have to use the tools given to you to find those chinks in their seemingly impenetrable armor. This design philosophy continues into Dark Souls 3. 04:43 Speaker A Sister Friede is a brutal boss fight that has a double boss encounter just for one of its three phases, yet it's still beloved by countless players because it adheres to those same conventions: one, 04:54 Speaker A create enemies that complement each other, and two, place them in an arena that properly accommodates the additional boss and their moveset. Friede is a human-sized enemy of average build, at least by Souls standards. Her attacks are fairly aggressive but don't have 05:09 Speaker A immense range, so her arena doesn't have to be that big. The rectangular shape of the room means you only really have two directions you can retreat to: the back of the room or back near the entrance. The sides give you enough room to space 05:21 Speaker A her attacks, but if you remain passive, you'll quickly find yourself backed into a wall. The only real way to get to safety is to get past the woman with the scythe trying to kill you. This creates a sense of tension that would be lost in a 05:32 Speaker A more circular arena. Now let's add Papa Ariandel to the fight. He's a big boy, takes his vitamins. I don't know what he's got in that bowl, but he's been eating good. His body takes up the entire width of the arena, and his 05:46 Speaker A large size means that he doesn't take long to get from one end of the room to the other. Fighting him alone in this room would be miserable, let alone both him and Sister Friede. Luckily, after a cutscene that perfectly contextualizes 05:59 Speaker A the change in setting, we're placed in a larger arena where we have much more freedom to respond to Ariandel's attacks. Additionally, Friede's aggression is significantly dialed back. She's much more likely to use ranged attacks like or frost stomp. Before it was broken, I 06:13 Speaker A love this attack. The ice begins to build frostbite as soon as it appears below your feet and then explodes and deals significant damage after a brief delay. The attack is designed so that it's extremely easy to dodge so long as 06:26 Speaker A you're expecting it, but if you ignore Friede and commit to just one too many hits on Ariandel, by the time you see the ice at your feet, you're locked into that animation and don't have enough time to dodge away. It adds complexity to the 06:38 Speaker A fight while still being incredibly fair and forgiving. Although the two have a shared health bar, meaning you can kill them by exclusively going for the bigger target, Friede can heal both of them, so she should always be kept close enough 06:50 Speaker A to where you can interrupt her heal, adding yet another layer of complexity that's deeper than just another enemy trying to kill you. Each one of them contributes something unique to the fight. Even in fights with two of the 07:00 Speaker A same enemy, the second one is always doing something different. Their complementary moves perform a delicate balancing act to create an experience that simply cannot be achieved with a single boss. So how well does Elden Ring recreate this magic? 07:15 Speaker A It doesn't. Mom, mom, I want Ornstein and Smough. No, honey, we have Ornstein and Smough home. [Music] [Applause] Where before we had slow boss and fast boss, we now have fast-ass boy and still fast-ass boy. Just to add 07:44 Speaker A insult to injury, it's the fat one that's— 07:57 Speaker A opposition to this rule in the foreskin dual boss fight both enemies blatantly read your inputs to throw a fireball the moment you use an item this fireball is their only ranged attack so the more passive boss doesn't have many options 08:11 Speaker A besides constantly approaching you to get in on some of the action i say passive with air quotes because there really is no such thing in elden ring this problem is magnified greatly if you ever get both of them to have health see 08:22 Speaker A while they do share a health bar they also have their own smaller health pools that determine when they face additionally if you kill one of them instead of being rewarded with the now one-on-one fight they just infinitely re-summon each other until the main 08:36 Speaker A health bar is fully depleted in both of their second phases the aggression is taken up to 11 and they gain new attacks that vastly increase their range namely the fat one's rolling attack this attack can be eye-framed with proper timing but 08:49 Speaker A you'll have to do this multiple times per cast and while this is happening the skinny one isn't just sitting in the corner playing with himself he's on that ass your second option for responding to this attack is to hide behind these 09:00 Speaker A pillars like the ons fight but that's not entirely reliable sometimes the boss will just roll over or around the pillar anyways which brings us to the arena the room is essentially a scaled down version of the ons arena and i can't for 09:14 Speaker A the life of me understand why they'd make it so much smaller considering arena's size and the player's ability to keep both enemies on screen are directly related the cramped quarters just further highlight how poorly the boss's move sets interact with each other 09:27 Speaker A rather than being complementary boss attacks overlap in ways that don't account for the other enemy in the room each boss demands your full undivided attention and will punish you for giving it anything less sure this fight can be trivialized with 09:41 Speaker A items that inflict sleep but an option that almost entirely circumvents the fighting part of the fight doesn't excuse poor balancing to continue the tradition of reimagining ds1's fights for the worse we have bell gargoyles at home once again it starts as a 09:56 Speaker A one-on-one fight until you lower the first gargoyle to half health then a second one spawns it in falls apart the two gargoyles alternate between one being passive and the other one being aggressive right right well like i said the game's 10:10 Speaker A definition of passive is vastly different from the previous ones the boss that takes the back seat is usually given a ranged attack with a clear telegraph so as not to overwhelm the player ranged check telegraphed no in dark souls 3's demon prince 10:25 Speaker A fight the more passive demon has a ranged poison attack that creates a trail of mist that then explodes dealing damage and creating poison buildup after a short delay the move is very reminiscent of frida's ice attack which also gives a visual warning well before 10:39 Speaker A dealing damage the valiant gargoyles also have a poison breath attack it covers a massive portion of the ground including behind them and in addition to poison buildup it deals damage on contact by the time you see the mist 10:52 Speaker A near your character you're already taking damage meaning the only way to respond to the poison is to see the gargoyle winding up the attack which isn't reasonable for how much these two jump around the green colored poison is 11:05 Speaker A also incredibly difficult to see against the blues and greens of the environment within the arena it's unclear exactly where the damage zone starts and stops so even if you see the poison coming your only response is just run as far 11:17 Speaker A away as possible from that particular gargoyle both gargoyles seem to have access to this attack regardless of which one is closer to you it can even come out when you're locked into a repulsed animation guaranteeing a warm welcome when you regain control of your 11:30 Speaker A character the game simply does not care to accommodate for additional enemies even games with a heavy emphasis on flashy fast-paced combat like devil may cry have a feature where mobs that are off screen and to a lethargic state 11:43 Speaker A where they're much less likely to attack the arena for this fight doesn't fare much better the larger a boss the greater the precedent for a perfectly leveled arena fights against massive enemies do not function on uneven ground as an enemy size increases the zone from 11:57 Speaker A which you can execute a critical attack also seems to increase but this area does not extend vertically so if you break a gargoyle's stance on uneven ground tough for the most part the arena is leveled aside from a few problem 12:10 Speaker A areas now you can choose to wait until the boss you're targeting is in a more favorable position but this isn't really practical for the first phase where you're trying to get as much damage on the first gargoyle before the second one 12:22 Speaker A enters the fight it's also impossible to dictate exactly where you fight either of them with the existence of the poison missed attack since the attack covers so much real estate the gargoyles can force you into a corner because you have no 12:34 Speaker A option but to respect that one attack the fight is an absolute mess but it wasn't at the start everything changed when the second gargoyle attacked i mean during the first phase of the fight i was gaming with a fat smile on my face 12:47 Speaker A and a wet spot in my trousers the same goes for the singular version of either of the godskins the crucible knights or even the crystallines these enemies work in isolation because that's what they were designed to do and that's exactly 13:01 Speaker A the crux of the problem multi-boss fights are something that have to be built from the ground up from the very conception of sister freda father ariendell was a factor being considered the design of her fight outside of the 13:13 Speaker A demon prince boss encounter we never see the two demons as individual fights imagine defeating ornstein and small in ann orlando entering the painted world and then fighting pornstein and bro as separate unique bosses these enemies don't exist outside of their boss room 13:30 Speaker A because they were made for that one express purpose elton ring doesn't have that there isn't a single multi-boss fight that does not consist of enemies that you fight individually somewhere else each and every one of them is existing 13:44 Speaker A content that has been repurposed and placed in a room with another piece of repurposed content with some minor tweaks added the crucible knights move set wasn't designed around having a misbegotten in the same room and look i have no issues with being resourceful 13:58 Speaker A and with the immense scale of elden ring it's absolutely necessary but when it comes to something that from software once created with such diligence and foresight it seems obvious that this kind of approach just wouldn't work my one major gripe with this game is that 14:12 Speaker A it's overly ambitious and the boss quality is something that suffers greatly from this although i've thoroughly enjoyed the countless hours i've poured into this game it's no masterpiece i'm extremely happy for the boys at from for the commercial and 14:24 Speaker A critical success the game has seen i only hope that they continue to learn from each release and don't see the acclaim as an invitation to stagnate elden ring introduced many worthwhile additions to the souls formula unfortunately not every change was for 14:38 Speaker A the better but that goes beyond the scope of this video i'm just here to hate on duo bosses let me know if you'd like to see a more thorough full-on critique of the entire game i've played it for an ungodly number of hours and 14:50 Speaker A i kind of need an excuse to keep talking about it but that's it for this video like comment subscribe to see more and uh elden bees [Music] Topics: Elden Ring Dark Souls multi-boss fight FromSoftware boss design game design Soulsborne Ornstein and Smough Sister Friede Father Ariandel --- This is the markdown twin of https://sozai.app/transcript/elden-ring-ruined-dark-souls-multiboss/ — the same content, without the markup. 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