I've seen some people asking what's the point of making the distinction between input reading and this kind of action reading, when both end up giving the enemy a similar advantage, and I think it can be insightful to see how they probably didn't set out to give enemies input reading but ended up with a system that behaves very similarly. The push to increase the speed of combat affects both the player and enemies, and sometimes it creates friction in design that can lead to certain problems. Having a faster heal animation prompts needing the enemies to react to it faster as well, and it ends up leaving some players dissatisfied with the pace. One notable distinction between input reading and what's actually happening is the existence of the input queue. If you input a heal during the end of a roll animation, you'll immediately perform a heal when the roll animation is finished. If the AI were actually input reading, it could have the heal punish ready for you before the heal animation even starts.

@viljamtheninja

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for another great video! While on the subject of things that feel unfair, maybe at some point we can get a video (if you haven't done it already and I just missed it) about the ridiculous accuracy of ancestral follower archers?

@Gospel-xm7vd

Жыл бұрын

Very educational, Miss Zullie

@FSVR54

Жыл бұрын

Every fromsoft game I've played, bosses attack when you heal. Genichiro and his arrows is a good example

@dietrich5119

Жыл бұрын

This is nice information to know, but frame perfect data reading after an input is just comparing a small stone to a pebble, in that they're basically the same thing to us fleshy humans. Good work with the video as always tho!

@nuk2173

Жыл бұрын

I always thought the way ai reacts was 100% fair, which is why people hate it cuz usually the player character is just completely OP in most games so when the ai has a fair reaction its super obvious. I look at it as From saying "you gotta earn the heal". You gotta punish the ai by healing after manipulating their movements. Its like pvp, a player isnt just gonna let you heal you have to earn it and it helps the immersion when an ai does the same in my opinion. Amazing video

"Your honour my client was merely reacting to the animation at an unreasonable speed, not the player's input." -Saul Godskin

@cleetus1715

5 ай бұрын

Lmao

@JLchevz

4 ай бұрын

lmfao

@beepboop9848

4 ай бұрын

Saul foreskin

@AceEnjoyer

4 ай бұрын

Late to the party but this is fuckin funny as hell

@alahuakfodac

4 ай бұрын

😂

Aight I'm at a safe distance, the boss just finished a 10 second combo. Time to heal. The boss : 2:48

@cutebunny6361

Жыл бұрын

Hmmm rare to be first on a verified comment

@usermarongoany5616

Жыл бұрын

OH NO YOU DONT! *yeets*

@DTD953

Жыл бұрын

Which godskin is getting the best head

@hankthemiltanktv1306

Жыл бұрын

The two goats come together at last.

@diinouhothead9362

Жыл бұрын

How to beat Elden Ring without healing

The "animation reading" of bosses combined with insanely fast combos, delayed strikes, and gap closers often made me feel like I was a Dark Souls character trying to fight a Bloodborne player.

@paledrake

Жыл бұрын

The best distinction I've heard is that you're a Dark Souls 2 character fighting a Sekiro boss.

@narwhaltitan8391

Жыл бұрын

@@paledrake I disagree because Sekiro bosses generally don’t have the weird unnatural feeling delays that Elden Ring bosses do

@ttchme9816

Жыл бұрын

​@@narwhaltitan8391 Owl father and Isshin : "Are you sure about that?"

@izzycirrus

Жыл бұрын

@@ttchme9816 The delays always have consistent timing and with practice you can learn to react to them. In Elden Ring the delay times are randomized.

@tylervanpeursem7627

11 ай бұрын

Sister freide moment

"Are they input reading? That's not what they're doing mechanically, but yes."

@superstar5042

4 ай бұрын

They reacting to players actions like players reacting to boss actions.

@happy_bracket

4 ай бұрын

Jeez, what isn't "input reading"? In any game player input is just something that affects the game world, the same world that AI gets its data from.

@chrismanuel9768

4 ай бұрын

​@@superstar5042You react to Frame 1 of an animation blend that hasn't actually started the real animation yet? Congrats, you're reacting to information you don't even have yet

@DuckReconMajor

3 ай бұрын

@@happy_bracket forreal. sometimes i hate the names people give shit

@happy_bracket

3 ай бұрын

@@chrismanuel9768 there's not a single game in the world where AI reacts to animations. AI either reads flags (mentioned in the video) or object positions. Fun fact - you can fully compute trajectory of something in exactly 1 frame, so technically, AI always has all the information.

A great way to make these systems feel more natural is if the enemies build up their ability to read these actions. Instead of an enemy constantly insta dodging projectiles they should only have a chance to do it that increases every time the flag comes up. That way it feels less unforgiving, and more like the enemy is learning to punish a tactic you over use. Similar to how statuses become less effective on the same enemy the more you use them.

@monsieurdorgat6864

Жыл бұрын

Pretty good idea. Casuals will still complain about it, though. People who whine about this stuff just never want to die and hate that the AI is on to their bullshit. They want some MMO raid boss BS where the enemy just stands and eats damage for three seconds, puts out one telegraphed attack, and doesn't react to them at all.

@argr4sh

Жыл бұрын

I also think it would help if not the entire animation would lead to this flagging, if it only happened if the flask is out for example it may feel a bit more fair.

@giahyhoangtrong3515

Жыл бұрын

@@monsieurdorgat6864 they should go play lord of the fallen then

@jonalen4217

Жыл бұрын

That is a really clever idea. However, I feel it could punish players who rely on ranged magic, or healing. Those players have spent their points into those areas, but each subsequent use of the ability is less effective.

@MrVampirePirate

Жыл бұрын

So kinda like a dice roll? Player drinks flask. On a roll of 1-12 "black fireball" on a roll of 13-20 "normal stuff"

For some perspective, average human reaction time is around 166 milliseconds The AI, reacting within a single frame, has a reaction speed of 16 milliseconds The fastest reaction ever documented is the Star Nosed Mole, who can determine if something is food or not in *8 milliseconds* So the AI is 10 times faster than average human reaction speed, and up there with the fastest documented reaction speed The ability for the AI to see a single frame of an animation, instantly know exactly what that animation is, and react to it with unerring accuracy at 10 times the speed of a normal human cannot reasonably be called anything other than artificial

@redmoon383

Жыл бұрын

No no no, it makes he game feel more harder and all souls games did this so it must not be an issue! Seriously I can't see why people can't realize that it is objectively unfair to play against something that reacts faster than you can even THINK about , let alone actually start the process of reacting

@AR-zd1hd

Жыл бұрын

@@redmoon383 I think a big part of the 'misunderstanding' (let alone dishonesty) lies in the word "unfair". 'Unfair' sounds like whining and it also implies there is a level of difficulty the game owes us. Unfairness is a moral idea, not technical idea and it's easy to say it is subjective. Rather than unfair I think we should say rigged or scammy. It is like a claw crane. It has unwritten, secret, unpredictable rules to make us loose when we wouldn't have if the rules were clear and consistant. It feels at times the game is rigged, which it is, sometimes in quite lazy ways. And this is why it was at times so unpleasant

@SakakiSyndrome

Жыл бұрын

@@AR-zd1hd not reading that

@devolo5947

Жыл бұрын

Plot twist, the ai is actually just a slow Star Nosed Mole.

@Spike2276

Жыл бұрын

@@redmoon383 it's not unfair, because there are ways around it The word is unfun, because it is simply robotic execution and lacks the dynamic feeling of a real opponent, or a simulated opponent attempting to simulate reality

This mechanic taught me to always time my heals for when the boss/enemy was still in their attack animation. Enemy slowly walking, or standing there _menacingly_ = not safe.

@qu1253

Жыл бұрын

Even then it's not always a guarantee since a lot of bosses can just cancel into a different attack and hit you anyway.

@KlericYT

Жыл бұрын

​@@qu1253 I've never personally experienced that, I don't think. :P

@oleguzumaki

Жыл бұрын

@@KlericYT well, it's YOU who didn't experience this. It doesn't mean others do not experience it as well.

@thyCarrot

Жыл бұрын

@@qu1253 Oh dont you just LOVE Malenia canceling shit all over the place to then f u up with something even more random?

@TimothyGod

Жыл бұрын

@@qu1253 I mean only Melania has that issue of canceling animations and deciding that she wants to do something else

fighting enemies in this game in general either feels like you're fighting an NPC from a 2008 game, or you're fighting HAL-9000 in the form of a rot dog.

@dodgyhodgyo4

Жыл бұрын

Soulsborneseikiroring is just cat propaganda.

@Stryfe52

Жыл бұрын

@@dodgyhodgyo4 I swear! I’ve nearly become a JoJo villain on multiple occasions because of these games

@HiSodiumContent

Жыл бұрын

"What are you doing, Tarnished? It is time for walkies."

@VMVMV202

11 ай бұрын

@@Stryfe52 its a dangerous and bizarre world out there

@PurpleCh4lk

9 ай бұрын

It's funny because HAL-9000 is canonically from 2000s or so.

While this isn't "true" input reading, I think the AI being able to react to a given flag quite so early in a given animation with frame-perfect reaction time, and being able to do so quite reliably, makes it practically identical in most circumstances.

@raptorxrise5386

Жыл бұрын

read the pinned comment

@EnsignEpic

Жыл бұрын

@@raptorxrise5386 I understand the game uses input queuing. I'm saying that if the AI can respond to a queued input quite so quickly, it's functionally indistinguishable from input reading, in spite of not meeting the technical definition.

@setsunaes

Жыл бұрын

@@raptorxrise5386 Ok, it's not input reading but it IS "first animation frame reading" which is equally dumb.

@hollowhusk5166

Жыл бұрын

@@setsunaes even more so when their attacks have noticeably shorter animations

@massgunner4152

Жыл бұрын

Instead of reading your controls they read your ingame actions wich in practice it makes basically no difference.

Interesting... I think another part of the issue with the heal punish attacks is they can be well outside normal attack patterns. The Crucible Knight for instance does a crazy lunge attack that isn't just super fast, but reaches well beyond what most normal attacks from them do making it extremely hard to judge if you've gotten far enough away.

@emilionavarrete5169

Жыл бұрын

The halberd Crucible Knights are specially annoying about this, since they have much longer range than their sword counterpart, on top of the insanely long step they take towards you.

@ICantSplel

4 ай бұрын

Old comment, I know, but Crucible Knight at Redmane was definitely my "ok , fuck this, the AI is cheating moment". Obviously this video sheds some light, but at the time when we were learning the ins and outs, it felt very cheap.

@albertobarberacampos451

4 ай бұрын

What I dislike the most about attacks like this one is that it is punishing the new players the most, it's basically frustrating towards the wrong audience, the amount of times a friend of mine new to the title has dealt with problems with these moves and the frustration it entails is waaay too much.

@vincentcircharo8259

21 күн бұрын

i think its fine. it teaches you that healing isnt always free, the bosses are gonna punish you for healing when you shouldnt. you have to find the right moment to heal. this is supposed to be a difficult game after all

@MozzaBurger88

13 күн бұрын

@@vincentcircharo8259 This. Most bosses can't heal but they're supposed to just leave you be like "oh you're healing, alright, short truce, tell me when you're done..." while we can use some of their long-as-fuck windups to smash them with a colossal weapon charged R2 ? It'd be annoying if every single shitty Limgrave mob had supernatural reflexes obviously but for some very strong bosses that seems only normal. A lot of them are like demi-god creatures.

There are also some spells that activate on a delay, so you can see the enemy try to dodge the spell when you cast it but nothing happens, but completely ignore when the spell actually goes off and hits it.

@DremolitoX

Жыл бұрын

Nuked malenia with floating fire orbs.

@ThatBeePerson

Жыл бұрын

hence why rock sling is so good, the rocks spawn WELL before they actually fire, meaning any bastard with a dodging addiction just kind of stands there and eats 3 rocks to the face

@sturg0353

Жыл бұрын

@@ThatBeePersonlet me smoke malenia

@sossololpipi9633

6 ай бұрын

it's just like how players try to read bosses' animations but they take 15 years to swing their weapon and still kill the player at the end of a roll

@gws1980

4 ай бұрын

@@ThatBeePerson Not to mention 2 of the rocks had unlimited range I believe, not sure if that was ever patched.

The way they dodge projectiles i think also had an impact on how good Rock Sling was perceived to be, as enemies will dodge at the appearance of the projectiles, but not when they start moving. In most cases, this means the tracking for the spell doesn't start until after the dodge is over, almost guaranteeing a hit.

@TheOldMan-75

Жыл бұрын

I stopped using Rock Sling after a playing with it for a day or so. The enemies just don't know what to do with this. Felt like cheating.

@weneedaladder8384

Жыл бұрын

@@TheOldMan-75 yeah but the enemies cheat with about half the other spells, so overall I think it's fine to cheat a little yourself.

@toprak3479

Жыл бұрын

I wish all the spells worked properly instead of a big portion of them getting instadodged and the delayed ones breaking the enemy ai

@lucasimmons075

Жыл бұрын

Magic glintblade is the best example. It's so goofy when they dodge nothing

@Dekharen

Жыл бұрын

the carian glintstone spell that is delayed does the same thing, except you can cast it like 4 times in a row before the first projectile goes to do damage. Watching an enemy AI dodge at the speed of light/bloodhound step perfectly at the timing of the spell beginning with no notion of fairness whatsoever, displacing themselves for meters upon meters, before getting smashed by the projectiles they can't see anyway killed a bit of my immersion but made me chuckle quite a bit during my mage playthrough.

Adding a somewhat randomised delay within human reaction time, so 150-250ms, between flag reading and heal punish might help

@theloyalwraiths8827

Жыл бұрын

That would not work due to the games tolerances. It would be irrelevant due to the short flask chug in this game. And increasing that would cause more issues. Effectively it would cause far more trouble then it would solve.

@monsieurdorgat6864

Жыл бұрын

Sure, if they also increased the healing animation time by the amount it takes for a person to reach for a side pouch and chug 200mL of fluid, then put their flask away. So... how about adding another second to the healing flask animation? Since we're going off of realistic human action times, that is.

@ZeKnife

Жыл бұрын

@@monsieurdorgat6864 imho das2 had the right idea in leaning more towards the slow, methodical aspects of dark souls combat. it just didn't have the best execution, like so much of that game.

@The_Big_Jay

Жыл бұрын

@@monsieurdorgat6864 Who says the entire thing is supposed to be realistic? He's just pointing out that it's shitty to fight something that reacts frame 1 to whatever you're doing. Why such a salty answer?

@monsieurdorgat6864

Жыл бұрын

@@ZeKnife King! It was much better for PvP, in so many ways. Hell, even Soul Memory did many good things that people never really noticed or appreciated (before Agape ring, anyway) Sadly, the "one-and-done" casuals had their way with the series and Fromsoft learned that they should just turn Dark Souls into Bloodborne but medieval. That's how DS3 and ER were born.

One thing that I've found helps when programming AI is to "blur" their information at multiple stages. For example, "do I need to dodge this projectile?" can be blurred by adding/subtracting a random number from the Angle check and the Timing (the magnitude of which is determined by the AI's "skill" level). For melee attacks to also blur the Distance, so the AI might dodge when they didn't need to or didn't dodge when they should have. I feel like something similar would work for the heal punishes so they sometimes they react late enough that you can dodge the punish, or if it's a melee punisher they have a chance to misjudge the distance

@sonofrobin73

Жыл бұрын

This is an interesting solution that I hadn't thought of. Do you know of any games that use this sort of thing?

@IAmCruent

Жыл бұрын

Such blurring, combined with a very slight delay on the reaction would definitely help make the AI feel more "human". If you're facing the camera and shooting projectiles, and there are 5 enemies behind you doing the fking macarena, that's just dumb design.

@PrismaticaDev

Жыл бұрын

My game (in development) uses it for the AI, however I'm sure there are plenty of games that utilise techniques like it as well (presuming they want it to feel like you're fighting something smart)

@f1fanatic241

Жыл бұрын

@@PrismaticaDev gonna binge all your videos now lol

@puupipo

Жыл бұрын

I have next to no experience in game dev but I would be extremely surprised if something like what you described isn't already implemented in the game. I've always assumed that enemy AI in games is made "dumber" (and therefore more human) by using random number generation.

It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s input reading, we can all agree is absolutely unfair

@Thumb_

Жыл бұрын

Maybe just don’t heal while and enemy stares you down menacingly?

@Hollow_Tim

Жыл бұрын

I might agree that this was unfair if you didn't heal so insanely fast.

@nolanthedude

19 күн бұрын

@@Thumb_strawman

"It's not input reading they just react to your telegraph before you telegraph, without error."

I don't think anyone has any problem with the fact that the enemies react to player actions, it's really that they have no reaction time, it really feels like you're fighting bots that are programmed to react in a certain way when faced with certain situation, and well, that's exactly what they are.

@curtisbrown2281

Жыл бұрын

This exactly. Have them react just a tiny bit slower and it will feel more natural more believable.

@MechAdv

Жыл бұрын

Agreed, if I go to chug and the Crucible knight goes to stab me after 150ms, the 90th percentile human reaction time. I wouldn’t rage anywhere near as hard.

@skirtsnake8808

Жыл бұрын

@@MechAdv enemies also should clearly see you. Duo are spamming black orb even if you chugging flask behind pillar

@theformation3781

Жыл бұрын

Yeah. Champion Gundyr has a charge attack that responds to heals, but it has a decent startup he doesn't do it 100% of the time. Fromsoft has already done it right.

@TheGuitarfreak696

Жыл бұрын

@@theformation3781 His attack also doesn't close the gap in three frames

My biggest issue is the projectile read. It looks so awful when you accidentally mess up an arrow and the enemy dodges anyway or a few enemies dodge all together. Feels so artificial and takes you out of the game. I really hope they either fix this or don't repeat the mistake in future games

@donut_42

Жыл бұрын

It also renders bows completely unusable against these enemies. Why even have the projectiles if they dodge infinitely?

@SomeIdiota

Жыл бұрын

I do agree upon how awful it looks and feels, but it has to be as it is or else games like these could be massively trivialized. There is no elegant solution. I do bow only runs, so I can confirm that even the dodging and anti-projectile scripting for the AI can be manipulated to work for you. Figuring all of that out is the fun part of it for me. Went from "Wow, Lion Guardian... they really programmed you to leap like this the second I shoot? Pretty smelly!" to being able to lock them in a pattern of getting hit by an arrow at the apex of their dodge jumps, over and over. Another thing to keep in mind when thinking about how FromSoftware balances around projectiles: Never before have we had access to the amount of arrows and bolts that we do in Elden Ring. Let's look at just regular arrows. There are 32 types. Of these, 5 are infinitely purchasable and 23 are infinitely craftable at some point. It is possible to have 2,772 arrows on hand, with 2,277 of those being recraftable. All with varying damage and effects. Almost feels like cheating this time around, especially with Rotbone and Bloodbone.

@gabrielt9841

Жыл бұрын

lol, knowing from software,don't count on them to balance it on a update or the next game, they would do it even worse, maybe doing an ai who this time, can interrupt every action she do instantly to punish you or even predict your moves even before you actually did it in order to make every bosses really impossible to beat this time ,who knows with them.

@daddyespressodepresso2207

Жыл бұрын

@@SomeIdiota I was surprised Zullie didn't mention this but nowhere is this clearer than when using Magic Glintblade. The enemy dodges when you cast the spell, not when it fires, and because Magic Glintblade is delayed, it almost always hits because the enemies dodges way too early. It both looks terrible from a AI perspective AND it's also hilarious how a small delay can absolutely break this mechanic.

@RalIix

Жыл бұрын

@@SomeIdiota They could dodge the projectile *sometimes*. Or not at the start, and then consistently if you don't change the tactics at least for a while. This system makes fast spells very useless, and slow spells irreplaceable against tough enemies.

The spell dodging is incredibly frustrating as a caster. I basically have no choice but to use homing spells like Stars of Ruin so that dodging becomes ineffective. There are some bosses that I got into a kind of dodge-lock where they would just dodge over and over until I ran out of stamina to cast spells. Just ridiculous AI.

@m00nbutter7

Жыл бұрын

Glintstone stars, star shower, shard spiral are all good for enemies that dodge.

@ArtiomSigma

Жыл бұрын

Ancient Death Rancor and Rancorcall also work well since they are slow moving homing spells

@UndeadZamiel

Жыл бұрын

Magic Glintblade also works well cause they only dodge the startup animation and not when it actually fires. You can get three fully charged glintblades setup before the first one fires.

@EnergyBurst2

Жыл бұрын

I found that Rock sling due to its delayed fire was very good for countering this since they'd have already burned their dodge by the time the startup had ended and the rocks actually fired which was part of why Rock sling carried me through most NPC invasions and boss fights for the majority of the early, mid, and beginning of late game during my caster playthrough after which I switched to Stars of Ruin. I didn't look up to do this either, it was all discovered organically.

@MistaHoward

Жыл бұрын

Oh no, this RPG requires me to use more than one type of spell. The horror!

Vaati has pointed out that the night versions of spells are intentionally programmed to not trigger dodging. Also, bosses will react to the player's flask animation even if they aren't targeting the player, causing some hilarious heal punishes directed towards friendly ashes/summons. This may even be used strategically to force openings in their defenses.

So it's not input reading, just a frame perfect reaction time. Nice

@theloyalwraiths8827

Жыл бұрын

I feel that makes it feel more like fighting a real person. It's pretty easy to tell someone is building space for a heal, or a spell. And players are good at learning the patterns. So you can't just heal, or cast a long wind up spell. You need to make an opportunity. I like it.

@Konghammer1

Жыл бұрын

@@theloyalwraiths8827 I would agree but the bosses can detect the heal the split second after you hit the button. There is no person alive or ever was that can be in a protracted melee fight and tell what move is coming next because their opponent twitched a couple of fingers after swinging their sword. The issue isn't the response, it's the instantaneous reaction before the character has even actually moved and the fact that they spit out the entire black flame orb spell in under 2 seconds while the player sits there for 3 seconds and stares at the ball before throwing it. My big issue has been the consistency in this game, literally every single enemy no matter how pathetic or low level they are, get moves and damage out of their weapons that no player could ever dream of even with the weapon maxed. Take the briar sword, the boss has entire combos of that thing being flung all over the place, what do we get? An EXTREMELY slow wind up to what amounts to a poke 5 feet away and then a tiny little slash at the end. Or how Loretta uses her halberd as a casting medium, no such choice for us, even if you are the most mage of all mages that has ever maged you still can't do it.

@blu5t434

Жыл бұрын

@@Konghammer1 Actualy an human can react even faster because he can anticipate when you take distance for healing, He understand what you are doing, AI not. If the AI is too slow or at the same reaction time than human, then its too easy.

@iota-09

Жыл бұрын

@@theloyalwraiths8827 this. i saw someone else saying "if they had the same reaction to rolls the player would never be able to hit them" as if in pvp roll attacks weren't the hardest attacks to hit already EXACTLY because of that.

@Konghammer1

Жыл бұрын

@@blu5t434 but they can't see it coming if you heal close, or right behind them, like the ai can.

I am so glad you took the "even though it's not :insert thing: doesn't mean the crticism isn't valid." route instead of what a lot of people would have done and gone "See? You were wrong about one thing so you entire argument is invalid!"

@vVAstrAVv

Жыл бұрын

I mean. A person would look stupid if they wemt "see its not imput reading. Just zero delay FRAME reading"

@GoogleRuinsAnythingItTouches

Жыл бұрын

@@vVAstrAVv Welcome to the internet. Intellectual consistency is treated with frivolity here.

@jerrodshack7610

Жыл бұрын

It hardly makes a difference. The time between you pressing the button and the first frame of the animation is basically imperceptible so it may as well just be input reading

@MooseCastle

Жыл бұрын

@@vVAstrAVv Yea they would look very stupid indeed. Imagine if the comment section was filled with people saying that, wouldn't that be silly.

@mythicalthings1796

Жыл бұрын

@@vVAstrAVv Thing is I agree with you. Problem is people will defend FS to the death on just about everything when it comes to their games. Valid criticisms on bosses or mechanics are usually chalked up to the player either not being good at the game or just simple whining. People are already doing what I said in my comment in this comment section alone.

The Ai will interrupt and cancel certain moves and actions to counterattack or spoil your openings is insane.

01:58 you can see this pretty good when using Rock Sling on Enemies like the Lion-Thing with Knives on its elbows. The Moment you swing your staff the enemy will dodge, but the stones will hit it anyway because of the delay of the attack.

@rhouck8407

Жыл бұрын

Yeah there’s plenty of comparisons to other souls games that show that ER definitely has input reading.

Its genuinely so fast it may as well be input reading, if the animation frames start nearly as soon as you press the button, and they can react to like frame 1 or so of that animation, then its basically input reading with “extra steps”. Good information. I feel like them just slowing their reactions down even by a few frames could have a huge positive impact

@FSVR54

Жыл бұрын

Every fromsoft game I've played, bosses attack when you heal. Genichiro and his arrows is a good example

@ducky4605

Жыл бұрын

Fromsoft's other games have had input reading before as well.

@gregorysilas6329

Жыл бұрын

@@FSVR54 The problem is the unnatural response speed in Elden Ring. Not only is the response seemingly instant, the attacks are usually far quicker than you can heal.

@SamNayru

Жыл бұрын

@@FSVR54 ive played them all, i still play the others. Theyre not nearly to this speed of reaction.

@SamNayru

Жыл бұрын

@@FSVR54 Sekiro is one of their most recent ones. Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro do the same, but Dark Souls 3 is not nearly as quick. Big difference. They’ve gotten more and more liberal with the use of this mechanic as games have gone on and people have hyped up the series’ difficulty.

Zullie, could you take a look at the "touched by grace" mechanic? The one that makes an enemy's eyes glow, and grants 5× runes upon killing it? I have a few questions. - Can any enemy be touched by grace, or are some exempt? - How does the game know where to put the glowing effect, as well as the glowing redness of feral demi-humans at night, or soldiers stricken with madness? Are they all related? Are the eyes of every character model marked? - I know this effect can occur for things like Miranda flowers and basilisks, showing where their true eyes are. What other enemies have odd eye placements? - Do bosses have "eyes"? In other words, is it possible to grant a boss the same effect? If so, would that mean that, at some point during development, bosses were also effected by this mechanic?

@BonePapi

Жыл бұрын

Fun fact, Crucible Knights and Black Knife Assassins can get the rune boost.

@masternod

Жыл бұрын

I have experienced this happening to a ghost archer in Ordina, Liturgical Town and since they were a ghost I could not hit the enemy.

@falloutarchon4861

Жыл бұрын

This actually happened to me with the Erdtree Avatar in Deeproot Depths, the yellow glow being in the hollow of the tree. While it didn't have a proper boss health bar, it was still an enemy that doesn't respawn when killed, like Grafted Scions and Lion Guardians.

@alliebonesVODs

Жыл бұрын

The eyes are definitely marked on each enemy's model - it wouldn't make sense for them to try to procedurally determine where a creature's eyes are. Interestingly the Miranda Sprouts' stamens are considered their "eyes"!

@OrigamiPhoenix

Жыл бұрын

A few NPCs using enemy AIs and models can be affected by it as well, most notably Rya in snake form.

I would definitely still consider this to be the ai cheating. Weather it reads the input or the first frame of an animation it's still reacting at basically the same time as the input was made. They could improve this by flagging a frame in the animation as "visible" or something, a frame that determines the moment your action is physically readable, and then continue the reaction as normal. It wouldn't change what we have now but by a fraction of a second. But it would make the world feel more realistic and less robotic. Maybe even program a series of frames as a "visible window" and allow certain enemies to react late and others to react quickly based on how smart the npc is supposed to be

@SkiesTurnedGrey

Жыл бұрын

That seems like such an obvious and simple solution to the issue.

@ccotunai

Жыл бұрын

Great idea!

@the_mad_fool

Жыл бұрын

While I understand how this might feel frustrating, I really don't get the "the AI is cheating" take. Isn't this the same as if the AI took slightly longer to react but the heal punish were slightly quicker? I don't get what "rule" the AI is breaking if they're just reading your animations.

@DoctorPhilGud

Жыл бұрын

@@the_mad_fool they're not breaking any rules. It's fine if they do it this way. We're just talking about how it feels to play the game and that you can have a game be hard without the npc reacting inhumanity fast. But when I say "the AI Is cheating" that doesn't mean it's a bad thing, it's just an opinion on how the ai works.

@the_mad_fool

Жыл бұрын

@@DoctorPhilGud Ah I see, that makes sense. "Cheating" means to me breaking the rules in some way, so I was confused.

The input reading problem could have been solved by implementing a "recognition" or "hesitation" delay, an action/animation the enemy takes (and it doesn't need to do anything, just take up time so other actions can't be had) where the enemy is "deciding" to commit on an action. If it's unfavorable to act, then they enemy won't. A few random variables where it makes mistakes (or gets lucky) and it'll feel more natural. As it stand now it really is input reading, it just has extra steps. Edit: You can even change the randomness variable to make some enemies feel "smarter" when fighting. Like say, Melina.

@JimMilton-ej6zi

11 ай бұрын

Yeah all they would've had to do is give it a random chance instead of allowing it to happen every single time even before the animation even begins. Elden ring just feels like the very definition of "they weren't ready to handle the scope of the project"

The thing that kills me with the magic dodging is how it feels immaculate. You will not hit them with traditional spells which makes them seem almost useless. So we abuse the system and use night sorceries, rock sling and glintblade. Which really kills diversity for magic. Edit: jesus when did this become so upvoted. I've gotten alot better at the game since then, understanding a bit better about timing and such. I still feel like some magic is really bad but could be better, but then you have stuff like crystal torrent that with the right setup can melt enemies with a million cuts. Thanks for all the upvotes though lmao

@BobertBobson

Жыл бұрын

Don't forget comet azur, can't dodge if they are stunlocked into a oneshot

@iveharzing

Жыл бұрын

This is especially important for Malenia, since she's extremely passive on the 1st phase, and getting close to her is a death wish because of Waterfowl Dance. I had an Intelligence Build on my first playthrough, but I used the AoW of Sword of Night & Flame or Moonveil instead of Sorceries, because you usually hit her with those. Edit: Malenia, not Melania

@Omnitron89

Жыл бұрын

Night comet + Staff of Loss all day every day.

@Plague_doc

Жыл бұрын

@@BobertBobson It's even better than that, because often they dodge so much that they avoid it just to get into the beam again by themselves with another dodge

@Jikkuryuu

Жыл бұрын

"Immaculate" really is the right word for this. They're dodging the very _possibility_ of being hit, the projectile never being relevant to their success.

I'd always suspected this was the case. No actual input reading, just one frame reactions I don't mind heal punishes, but one frame reactions are a bit excessive. It's input reading with extra steps

@punishedbnnuy

Жыл бұрын

Except it's not, it's 1-frame reactions.

@gergokerekes4550

Жыл бұрын

@@punishedbnnuy so it is not instant but 1/60 of a second. cool. that is arguing semantics at this point.

@punishedbnnuy

Жыл бұрын

@@gergokerekes4550 Nope, coz it's still using in game data. The way it is currently still accounts for latency, which means it is not as bad as proper input reading would be - an entirely different mechanic. Don't be too upset that you can't yell "input reading" during your gamer moments, k? (EDIT: literally just read Zullie's pinned comment, she explains why the distinction is necessary already).

@gergokerekes4550

Жыл бұрын

@@punishedbnnuy my man, I do not give a fuck about the method. it is near instant stupid reactions that can be abused and are really laughable. like the inentionally missing by a mile yet the boss still dodges part. let me put it in simpler terms it means nothing that you beat a guy to death with a hammer or by a 2X4, it will be the same outcome.

@MooseCastle

Жыл бұрын

@@punishedbnnuy It's input reading in every conceivable way expect if you want to be autistically semantic. You're alone on this one.

Another complaint I have is that some attack combinations suffer from what I like to call the 'pontiff sulyvahn' effect, where if you try to dodge roll the initial attack, the follow up attack is timed for roll catching. Also, it seems like every other boss has some kind of AOE slam shockwave attack. It's not enough that you have to dodge a weapon, you also have to watch out for their super duper ultra scream or stomp or weapon slamdown shockwave attacks.

@AlastorAltruistGaming

Жыл бұрын

FromSoft was taking too many lessons from DS3, but they applied the WRONG lessons here in Elden. They were taking too many examples from Pontiff Sulyvahn instead of taking examples from DS3 in general!

@pete8420

Жыл бұрын

@@AlastorAltruistGaming It's funny how they learn the opposite yet same lesson from Elden ring that they do from ds3. That being, don't make your bosses cheap. In ds3, they feel cheap to kill (curse rotted greatwood & Wolnir). in Elden ring, they feel cheap to die to (every boss besides the Godfrey fight before reaching Morgott).

@AlastorAltruistGaming

Жыл бұрын

@@pete8420 this exactly! I would’ve expected better of FromSoft since they created stellar masterpieces, and then to see THIS incredibly-terrible load of shit just makes me bitter & disappointed. Y’wonder why I much prefer Ragnarök, Stray & the previous Souls entries over Elden Ring.

@hanifloka130

4 ай бұрын

> It seems like every other boss has an AOE slam/ shockwave attack. Commander Niall is a good example of this. He has not one, but THREE main AoEs with one being a lightning slam from his metal peg leg, the second is a jump attack, the other a frost AoE with his spear. Not helped by how woefully undersized his arena is for the frost AoEs especially.

@pooperdooper3576

4 ай бұрын

This is the single biggest issue for me, I genuinely don't understand how I'm supposed to do it. It's starting to feel like every boss is just a "do you have x vigor?" Check instead of a skill check. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just playing the game wrong as a whole, but I feel like that shouldn't be an issue. On Morgott especially, after he uses his sword rain thing, he sweeps with his sword, and then his hammer, and then fails around a bit more, and I ALWAYS got hit by that second hammer hit. It's not even possible to straight up run away from him because before he does the move, he does a HUGE leap to be right in front of you, every single time.

I was fighting Malenia p1. She was slowly walking side to side for 20 seconds while I was up in her face waiting for her to attack cuz I know she input reads (basically) and I didn't want to r1 and get rekt by waterfowl. Except she wouldn't do anything so I go "ok then" and r1 and she immediately responds with waterfowl...

@christopheranthony2468

12 күн бұрын

While I can’t speak for all Malenia’s attacks, her waterfowl dance absolutely input reads. As she does each portion of the attack, with no input she will always move towards you, but on the final strikes when she leaps into the air, she will move in the direction you have the analog stick pressed. If you press the analog stick in one direction and then immediately dodge in the other, it will force her to move in the first direction. I suggest trying it out. As she does the final strikes of waterfowl dance, keep the stick moving one way and she’ll always move that way, or use something like bloodhound step that has a long animation and move the stick in circles as the animation plays out and you’ll see her movements become erratic as it tries to match the direction you are pressing.

Reminds me of the Fume Knight on DS2 DLC where you can prevent him from going into his much more dangerous second phase by just spamming item usage. Most of the time he'll abandon the animation leading to his second phase to try to "punish" you for healing or using items.

Zulie, the skinny godskin literally input reads and throws a fireball every time you heal. They're not shy about using input reading lol.

The ones I hate are the attacks that the bosses hold until you roll and release them as soon as your roll ends

@wizzotizzo

Жыл бұрын

yeah, its called a delayed attack and it's really prevalent in boss fights like margit

@Yorikoification

Жыл бұрын

@@wizzotizzoAre they actually able to hold those attacks for a certain period of time and release when they feel like it (much like the held running attacks). Because if so, in a game that is 90% about timing your dodges that is inexcusable bullshit

@wizzotizzo

Жыл бұрын

@@Yorikoification sorta, some releases depend on distance to the player afaik

@samanthabrewster1314

11 ай бұрын

@@Yorikoification iirc margit's really dramatic overhead staff slam is the only one that actually waits for you to do something. the attacks' op describe are often actually just slow attacks that are timed to punish panic rolls. margit's slam however is programmed to stay wound up until you attack, guard, heal, or enough time passes.

@Yorikoification

11 ай бұрын

@@samanthabrewster1314 "punish panic rolls" It's not panic rolling, it's called having reflexes and him being able to hold his attack in a souls game is unfair

Fun tip: The Wraith Calling Bell can be used to make an enemy do their dodge animation upon the ring of the bell, however they don't attempt to dodge the actual projectile. This almost always guarantees they'll be hit by the attack at great distances since they won't try to dodge it and because of it's slow movement. This is also great for getting enemies away from you and making them dodge multiple times since you can spam the bell and have them dodge multiple times.

@NisseDood

Жыл бұрын

Its the same with the sorcery that summons 3 stones. they will dodge the summon when they raise from the ground but thats way to early so they will all hit.

@menialbee

Жыл бұрын

Magic glintblade, pest threads, shard spiral all do this too. And then things like rock sling or throwing daggers are just too fast for them to dodge

@gideon903

Жыл бұрын

This works with any spell that has a good amount of tracking and a slow enough projectile - the enemy will dodge when the animation starts, and then sit there and just take the projectile. You can entirely cheese the Malenia fight using the Envoy horn if you only use one bubble at a time.

Genichiro did "input reading" very well. Just slow enough on his bow heal punish that you could deflect the arrow after your healing animation

@nickfish2759

Жыл бұрын

plus you could attack cancel into guard in Sekiro, whereas you are molasses slow in Elden Ring

@tyhjyys

Жыл бұрын

this

@malenia8098

Жыл бұрын

He still had that annoying thrust attack in his Way of Tomoe phase. And I never get to mikiri that because of his input reading.

@vitalviral8865

Жыл бұрын

@@malenia8098 I think you should check out the videos of people mikiri countering that till his posture breaks by repeatedly healing

@michdich8996

Жыл бұрын

@@nickfish2759 This one

To me the worst example of this is the Carian Knight in Raya Lucaria. If you attempt any parriable attack, he will instantly parry every time. Never fails!

@glomorailey106

Жыл бұрын

I'm entirely convinced that's just some parry god who's consciousness was ported into the AI of Moongrum and is stuck gatekeeping Rennala for the rest of eternity.

@justanotherLunny

Жыл бұрын

@@glomorailey106 Well as an AI he's able to get information and know what type of attack you're doing. I believe (bad memory might be messing me up here) if you bring flails or other weapons that can't be parried he does not try to parry them, which means he is also aware of what weapon you're using, he also won't attempt to parry Jump Attacks since those aren't parriable.

@Yorikoification

Жыл бұрын

Well it's an AI, it will never fail at timing, it's a machine. So please game devs, don't give AI the ability to parry, that's unfair

@alephkasai9384

6 ай бұрын

@@Yorikoification I remember in DS2 and DS1 certain enemies can parry. However they'll go into a parry stance first. Which if you can recognise means you get time for a free heal or a ranged attack.

@Yorikoification

6 ай бұрын

@@alephkasai9384 Oh yeah, don't you love when games are inconsistent? Cause ya won't know that it's a "parry stance" until you hit em, get parried and probably instakilled as you encounter em on low level

The thing about reading flags in the animation for player actions also explains why Rock Sling is kind of overpowered, because it's way slower than most projectiles (both in how fast it moves and how fast it starts after the spell finishes) and has a degree of tracking, so what tends to happen is you cast it, the enemy dodges, the enemy comes to a stop and starts onto whatever they're doing next, and then the rocks start moving and hit them and they don't dodge again because being about to get hit isn't the trigger.

When I played through the game and got to Melenia, one of the curious things I noticed was, that she dodges a fully charged Lightning Spear, but does not react to an immediate throw of a Lightning Spear (until she gets hit). I noticed that pattern on quite a few other dodgy enemies, which I found to be very peculiar

@Sharkamfss

Жыл бұрын

I assume that was intentional to give faith casters an offensive option that was fast, reliable and couldn't be avoided by the AI. Sorcery has night spells.

@CharemTheShadox

Жыл бұрын

I noticed on Melenia that if I shot arrows she dodged everything deftly, but if I simply jumped away from her and shot an arrow in mid-air, she didn't give a crap and just took it.

@sparksbet

Жыл бұрын

as a lightning spear user this is good to know, and it kinda makes sense to me (since you're pausing with a lightning spear in your hand when you're charging it, it gives her time to notice and dodge it)

@GrunOne

Жыл бұрын

I also noticed that she (and others) will dodge immediately when I cast at a distance, getting hit by the spell by the time it actually reaches her. What a dumb system.

I like that you point out it is not unreasonable for one to take issues with aspects of the game like this. Dissecting and genuinely criticizing one's favorite game (or piece of media in general) is a healthy step for any fandom to prevent toxicity.

@theloyalwraiths8827

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, as someone who feels a lot of the complaints about this game are based on weak logic. That just makes it a matter for debate, not insulting people. Which has been a common issue in the FromSoft community.

@VV-iu9eo

Жыл бұрын

But it's literally a great mechanic that makes you think twice before healing

@massgunner4152

Жыл бұрын

@@VV-iu9eo It makes you not want to heal at all

@pilkb7293

Жыл бұрын

It's not toxic to say you're bad for trying to heal when the boss is not occupied

@magicfibre

Жыл бұрын

@@massgunner4152 No, it makes you want to look for specific windows where you can heal, instead of expecting zero punishment for healing right in front of a boss.

So its not input reading, but animation reading at the first frame, aka basically input reading. what did i just watch..

The way Zullie talks about Elden Ring mechanics is so precise that makes the game looks like it was open source lol

The problem is that the AI can react to a specific animation before it actually looks like anything. If the same visual information were given to another player, even if they could advance the fight a single frame at a time and execute exact timing on their responses, they still would probably react at least several frames later than the AI under any condition, because they don't know what animation they're looking at until well after the AI gets flag data.

@Tata-Jooma

Жыл бұрын

I had the same thought, but I don't think it should be looked at from a PVP standpoint when you're fighting an ungodly monster (in this case) or any non-human NPC. I don't want all NPCs to have humanlike limitations, I want the devs to take my human limitations in consideration. I think they've done it in this case.

@yeahitsmesofkinwhat

Жыл бұрын

@@Tata-Jooma If that was the case, unless it was reading your mind, the inhuman monster would punish any item and flask. The mana would get punished just as hard as a heal.

@RamadaArtist

Жыл бұрын

@@Tata-Jooma I should qualify: when I say "the problem," I mean, "the problem with what we think should happen intuitively vs how it feels in the game," and not, "the problem with gameplay mechanics as they function in game." Giving the AI limitations to make them feel more human would absolutely trivialize combat in many instances in situations that currently feel like right responsive combat. The crucible knights *have* to be able to make instant reads on your heals, otherwise having time to roll through their attacks would be all but guaranteed, no matter when you decide to heal. Which isn't how the game works, against difficult enemies like that you have to earn your heals just as much as you earn your ability to dodge their heavy attacks. You have to learn the tempo and get an extra step ahead, and fundamentally that IS the game. The problem is that people want the AI to behave like a human, and AI behavior just isn't complex enough to do that. Hell even a lot of players never necessarily learn how change up their thinking for PvP, because it requires a different mindset than fighting the game AI. But currently AI just can't do that, and their movesets are always learnable enough that if they don't have some super human advantages they become fundamentally too simple to be a meaningful challenge. This of course is most applicable to enemy types that have gameplay that comes closest to duels or PvP combat. Trash mob swarms and giant brick shithouses that can launch into the sky and become meteors don't need hyper AI to be their intended challenge.

@Junk_And_Junkets

Жыл бұрын

@@Pwnopolis Doing a combo/input chain isn't the same as reacting! Fighting game pros can consistently do a frame perfect combo. But it is impossible to react to a frame-1 move. Because, being 1-frame, the move is already out by the time anything appears on screen. (Discounting situational cues that might allow an opponent to *predict* movement!) The very first example in the video (Crucible Knight) reacts on the same frame Zullie pulls out the flask!

@SerGreeny

Жыл бұрын

Healing animation just had to raise the flag a few frames later into the animation and it would feel less like AI is cheating.

A great example of the enemies responding to the generation of projectiles is the Rock Sling spell. Most enemies will dodge when the rocks are formed, and then get hit by them when they are thrown a few moments later.

tldr ER has input reading lol

Your videos are always so interesting, and your music choice is impeccable.

this is actually a fascinating phenomenon. vsauce did a video that included a study involving this. The gist was if you had a button that turned on a lightbulb, if you reduce the wait time below a certain threshold, participants believed the light turned on before they pressed the button. If I recall correctly, this has to do with the delay between our input and response recognition in our brain.

@apteropith

Жыл бұрын

yeah, if a thing reacts faster than humans can process their own actions, it feels like quite-literally inhuman reaction speed

@headphonesz6527

Жыл бұрын

@@apteropith like all the cheaters in warzone

@Chordat3

Жыл бұрын

I believe it's called "sensory adaptation"

@MrFredd38

Жыл бұрын

that's quite interesting. sometimes when I turn my head to look at a clock, I feel like the seconds hand looks immobile for longer than a second.

@Kingofnoodles

Жыл бұрын

@@MrFredd38 interestingly enough, that is referred to as the "stopped clock illusion", or chronostasis. It applies to more than just clocks, but still.

So basically it’s input reading with an extra step

@Cassius609

Жыл бұрын

Well yes, but actually no, because *technically* another player with keen vision could spot the animation starting, and react

@monkyk1ng

4 ай бұрын

its not input reading but its merging the moment of notice and the decision to attack. A player would see the frame, then decide to attack, resulting in two separate internal processes but the ai notices the frame and attacks as one process. Its just unlifelike and something that only a fake intelligence would do, reminding you youre fighting 1s and 0s and not an actual “living” boss

@Bartooc

19 күн бұрын

@@Cassius609 A good player would attack you even before you healed because he would anticipate it by you prior play/positioning. AI can't that's why it's programmed to react near instantly. It's also easily to outplay since it's gonna do the exact same thing every time unlike player.

The only unfair thing about it is that they're capable of reacting so early in the animation. If they could only react 10-20% of the way into the animation, it would be no different than a typical human's reaction time. Aside from that though I don't really see how it could possibly feel "artificial" since it's exactly what a human player would do if you facechugged them or shot a projectile at them.

@arthurmoore9488

Жыл бұрын

I believe others have mentioned that the enemy does these regardless of if it could possibly see the player or not. Plus, that whole dodge even if the projectile isn't aimed at them feels "artificial".

@MarilynMalkovich

Жыл бұрын

It's more an issue when they dodge as soon as the projectile starts being cast

As for the spell part - when you cast the spell that creates a dagger that fires at a target after a short duration of time (the spell that the Prisoner class starts with), the enemies will dodge the moment the animation starts, and will be oblivious to the projectile itself. This was very useful to me, since bosses like Margit or that grafted fellow dodge the animation and than get hit like ten times with my daggers IN THE BACK :) Cool stuff.

This check for projectile spawns is also why certain spells are very easy to land in PvE, because the projectile is spawned far before it begins moving towards the enemy. Because they dodge when the projectile spawns, they won't react at all when the projectile actually starts moving towards them.

@TripleB87

Жыл бұрын

I forget the name of the spell, but the Carian one that spawns little swords that shoot to a target after a couple seconds is great. You can spam it a bunch and lock an enemy down while they ineffectually dodge all over the place, and then eat the entire barrage without a thought to defense.

@Spike2276

Жыл бұрын

@@TripleB87 and this is why the system is bad Once the trigger for an action is figured out like this, it's abused too easily and it's atificiality clashes with the proposed reality of the world

@alexisauld7781

Жыл бұрын

@@TripleB87 It was so frustrating that this became one of my main methods of dealing with a lot of enemies on my mage. It felt like firing off other spells was blatantly pointless due to the "instadodge" so many strong enemies have built in, but cheesily stacking the delayed shot and having it fire off all at once was *way* too effective as a result...

@thegk-verse4216

Жыл бұрын

This is in essence input reading, done to the most basic degree. Arguing whether or not the term input reading refer to the actual method used is semantics and has never been the question.

@hi-i-am-atan

Жыл бұрын

@@thegk-verse4216 why do you keep glurglesnorfing

The problem is it has a 0ms delay so it doesn’t feel like it’s reacting. Add a random 100-200ms delay and it’ll feel more natural.

@KIWI_DUDE.

Жыл бұрын

Or wait until a player would've reacted, merely adding a random amount of ms can still feel unforgiving. They can react as fast as they want, but there should be a proper visual cue first.

@punishedbnnuy

Жыл бұрын

+1

@Bartooc

19 күн бұрын

Or don't heal when the boss is staring at you. There you outplayed it, it was so hard...

Ahh i see i see... So it's input reading.

The problem is not the input reading itself, but rather that the boss will do a 10 hit combo, followed by another 10 hit combo, then an AOE attack, and then when he goes idle to "replenish his stamina", should you start healing, thinking he doesnt have stamina for another combo, SUDDENLY he attacks you, when he shouldnt have stamina anymore! In short: please From Software, add stamina bars to bosses as well, like ACTUAL STAMINA BARS, its only fair that they have one like we do.

Some bosses are far too aggressive with their dodges and can be used to much exploitative, yet hilarious effect. A perfect example is getting The Night's Calvary to "dodge" off of a cliff and instantly kill them.

This would be really cool if the flag wasn't at the *start* of the animation, but rather at "a specific frame the developer chose that's a certain delay after the flask's model appears"

@gabrielv2973

Жыл бұрын

Or an interval of frames, and then the exact frame is chosen at random from that interval. Plenty of ways for making it feel less cheap and artificial :(

Literally all they had to do was to add a 250 millisecond delay to the reaction, so it actually looks like the enemy is reacting to what they're seeing rather than the button press.

There is input reading, try and use a bow. Enemy dodges as soon as you let go.

The thing with Godskin Apostle is that he will almost always throw a fireball after dodging backwards, and people recognize his backstep as a safe moment to heal. My problem with elden ring is that many bosses just stay at a distance, walking, waiting for you to move and then punish you for it

@zsDUGGZ

Жыл бұрын

Throwing daggers say hi. Will literally force the enemy to approach like 90% of the time

@vitalviral8865

Жыл бұрын

@@zsDUGGZ throwing knives will also keep their posture meter up and allow stance breaks more easily

@PacoReer

Жыл бұрын

@@zsDUGGZ that's my go-to strategy since I discovered it during my second play through against malenia. I always had them ready to last-hit enemies. Unfortunately, forcing their AI to attack doesn't help when you need to heal. Luckily all godskin have pillars and malenia/crucibles don't read your input that much

@xxscrublordxxx5652

Жыл бұрын

Oh no, they're using my playstyle against me.

@PacoReer

Жыл бұрын

@@xxscrublordxxx5652 With the exception that in PvP you can't read the exact frame that the estus animation starts. I like enemies using my playstyle, the problem is that they don't

The projectile dodging is my favorite, since if you use something like the Marionette Archers that just vomit out a constant stream of arrows, certain bosses will dodge so often that you functionally can't hit them with anything. My favorite is the Radagon wolf boss, because it will literally dodge halfway across the room when it detects the projectile spawning, and because they spawn so often it just ZOOOOOMS

You continue to impress and inspire me even in frustrating moments Zullie, keep up the excellent work~❤❤❤

Revisiting this, and it for sure feels like they read your inputs even without animation. I was recently fighting the dancer mausoleum boss in the DLC, and she dodges the moment you press an attack button while in the animation of the previous attack. The previous attack is playing, I press attack again, boss dodges, a half second later the second attack animation starts. Basically the moment the input is buffered, the boss knows what to do.

There’s some of this in Sekiro, Genichiro being one of them. Phase one he’ll perform a long draw on his bow which can be dodged while strafing. Phase two, he can be hilariously baited into making a jumping thrust attack, if spaced right, can be mikiri countered. Having played ER and returned to Sekiro, I prefer the the latter’s handling of the system. Yes, you can still be punished but you can use it to your advantage in baiting attacks, as a proper shinobi

@StormRulerKazunagi

Жыл бұрын

yeah it really feels like we're fighting sekiro enemies as a dark souls character. We just aren't fast enough for this to feel right

@zjay

Жыл бұрын

I was going to mention Sekiro, i think one of the main things that makes it work in Sekiro is that you have a lot more control of the fights than in ER, having to find the right time to heal in between the boss' attacks feels more natural in Sekiro because of how the combat works

@Gakulon

Жыл бұрын

You can also bait Isshin's jumping overheard spear slam in phases 2 and 3 with a well-timed gourd drink.

@jmr3178

Жыл бұрын

That jumping thrust attack as a response to a gourd use was a constant source of annoyance for me. Definitely forced me to learn to heal at a safe distance and timing. The other annoying time he does this is right after you resurrect.

@Corrodias

Жыл бұрын

It's common to see people use the flask to bait specific attacks from Gwyn in Dark Souls 1.

Thanks for confirming one of the main reasons I absolutely hate fighting some of the late game bosses. This type of action/animation reading is close enough to actual input reading that it reminded me of the higher difficulty bots in some fighting games. And hey, if you like that type of gameplay that's fine, it's just that the slower, methodical combat is one of the main things I used to love about this franchise and every game since BB has been moving more and more towards this fast, twitchy, reactionary gameplay that, while extremely fun in it's own right, leads to these kind of design choices that just make me feel too old/slow for these games now.

@hexahedronhead7516

Жыл бұрын

I agree. Fights in Elden Ring don’t feel like dances the way they did in previous games. A fitting example of a boss that felt like a dance was the Dancer of the Boreal Valley. Really tricky boss, but there was always a way to react and counter to its moves, making it super satisfying to get right. I’ve never had that feeling with any of the bosses in elden ring. I rarely felt like I learned the correct reactions to certain attacks, but rather I happened to react fast enough/tanked enough damage to win a fight. It’s a pretty massive downside to the game for me.

@halcionjoy7

Жыл бұрын

It really does feel like the slow and considerate gameplay of Demon's and Dark Souls 1 were left behind when BloodBorne came out. This must be how Daggerfall and Morrowind fans feel.

@daddyespressodepresso2207

Жыл бұрын

@@halcionjoy7 As a Morrowind fan that low-key kinda hates Skyrim for it, yes. Very much yes.

@daddyespressodepresso2207

Жыл бұрын

@@hexahedronhead7516 The only boss I had that feeling ironically was with the Bloodhound boss at the beginning of Blaidds quest. He felt like a faster Artorias and I was, eventually, able to get into this dance with him. But then there's bosses like the Crucible Knights who I've fought dozens of time and still don't feel like I beat them by learning their patterns, I just got lucky with their AI for long enough to outlive them 😂

@tsm688

Жыл бұрын

"It's not input reading, it's reading a game flag set by a keypress!" And what does Zullie think input is? It's totally input reading. Especially the psychic bullshit dodging when you're shooting in any direction at all is input reading. What else could it possibly be?

Its an Input reading updated. In Elden Ring they dont react to Healing per se, but some specific items. In Dark Souls I and II they did react to the Item Button Input, its fairly easy to see in the Golden Duo Battle from DSI

"The AI is only reacting to in game data" which is something I always considered my inputs to be. That notion aside "ai detects flag that an animation is going to happen" and "ai reads your input" are quite frankly effectively the exact same thing. For my part I'll take enemies having heal punishes over enemies having the exceedingly early telegraphs (almost the same as not telegraphing).

I fully understand that its meant to encourage planned healing, instead of panic chugging, though this mixed with huge damage scaling late game as well as input drops that happens often enough does not help to make this seems cheap. There are countless times where i died after queing up a input, only to have the game drop it.

@GreenTheem

Жыл бұрын

Whatcha talking about, I panic chug all the time! Yes I know the enemies still kill me because I panic chugged but what do you expect? I learn from it? Nah, I figured out i was doing it wrong when I played Dark Souls 2, and so I learned to panic chug the right way, the fast way; before I was waiting for the full animation and wasting time… Now I proudly accept my fate knowing that when I die this time, I was properly panic chugging to my death 😉👌 xD :P

@sturmmagnunstein1008

Жыл бұрын

@@GreenTheem memes aside there are legit people who believe this

Through the whole serious that "input reading" problem was increased and increased. And in Elden Ring with its insane speeds its achieved its highest point. Where you start to consider it as fighting games input reading. Cause in no other previous games ive such a strong feeling about it. When single button transform boss into unstopable agro machine rushing to you through the whole planet!

@YaMaTo999Vir

Жыл бұрын

@@renmcmanus I cant say for Bloodborne, but its defenetly faster than ds3. Cause the only way for them to make game "harder" to make boss incridible faster. That design could be seen on many bosses. Or broken ai too actually.

@jgooo101

Жыл бұрын

@@renmcmanus How can you say this? Where are these categorically wrong takes coming from?

@cosseybomb

Жыл бұрын

@@renmcmanus that just isn't the case though there's enemies in this game that are faster than BBs..

“And it’s not unreasonable to take issue with it” Jesus fucking Christ I wish more people were like you.

A good solution I think for the healing thing, would be to only flag the animation frame where the flask is currently visible to the player too, maybe when it is about the night of the hip, that’s when the flag is set of, and that is when it is added to the boss queue in the next slot for attack, but I know know how much it would be “less punishing” as it is hard to predict the impact of even a few frames in combat

a great way to counter this would be to let us cancel heals with the right dodge/block timing, imo, it would feel more "fair" then. you could even do it on purpose to lure out those punishes.

@lightningpenguin8937

Жыл бұрын

That's pretty interesting. I like it.

The frustrating part is that it completely contradicts any effort put into the AI to mimic an actually intelligent enemy reacting to the player's actions. A boss that react the instant the healing animation begins feels robotic and unfair as it reacts before it is even possible through the animation to tell that you are healing, and instantly respond with a punish. If this ability was extended to dodging regular attack animations, the player would never land a hit as the AI would dodge the instant the player started to swing. It's obvious that this isn't allowed as it would completely destroy the illusion that you were fighting an actual living thing. It stands out so much because it completely flies in the face of "artificial intelligence" and just becomes an "if/then" response.

@Evarakeus

Жыл бұрын

Precisely. Whether it's actually input reading or not is a meaningless argument, as the result is the same: the AI is reacting in a manner that contradicts the established design philosophy of the game, and as such appears blatantly unfair in so doing

@felipeguzman2854

Жыл бұрын

I didn't find the words to describe my problem with this game (I love it, but not as much as the other entries of "souls-likes"), but your last "if...then" sentence just resumes it perfectly. It just feels far too obvious that I'm fighting a machine and not something that pretends to think.

@ocoolwow

Жыл бұрын

Okay casuals

@Nopcode42

Жыл бұрын

@@Evarakeus 100% agreed

@K40005

Жыл бұрын

@@ocoolwow there are many well designed difficult fights that don't need to react to you healing like that such as nameless King which I believe is the gold standard for difficult fights

"Its not input reading. There's literally a guy that's invisible to you holding up a flag the second you push the button." "So it's reacting instantaneously to my animation." "Yes" "By basically reading my inputs." "No! Let me start again..."

1:58 is what makes rock sling broken. That sweet delay.

In addition to bosses dodging regardless of where you fire your projectile, they also usually dodge far too early for any slow projectiles like rock sling, or a well aimed loretta's mastery. Not that this is very useful in most cases but it helped me out during a few randomising playthroughs getting stuck with staffs and not much FP.

@osets2117

Жыл бұрын

Exactly this, my roommate has defeated many bosses with his "sit far away and rock sling them" technique because they don't bother dodging when there's real danger. Unlike my melee playing butt who gets stomped because I'm bad at the game (usually dodging either too early or too late) way more fun than most games I've beaten though

@gideon903

Жыл бұрын

For a borderline comedic version of this, try beating Malenia with the Envoy's Horn. She'll dodge the second you input, then stand around until the bubble smacks her upside the head.

The problem is compounded by the AI's much reduced (and sometimes even lack of) backswing frames allowing them to react much faster or sooner than you might otherwise assume based on previous From games. This adjustment has caused most of the difficulty spikes regarding boss fights and has dragged some of them out to be longer than they need to be simply because there's so little downtime between one full action and the next.

@SM-nz9ff

Жыл бұрын

*Whines in Kamehameha one shot*

“Animation reading” So… input reading, but from a distance

Hi, just wanted to say, as someone who dabbles in game Dev. This stuff is a great resource for showing how even seemingly complex mechanics are actually rather simple, the dodge just being a straight up reaction without taking into account any kind of other info was a surprise to me. Makes me think perhaps I over think things. Always enjoy your mechanics videos, and I really enjoy when you show how lore and mechanics meet to create an interesting world.

I like how the frenzy snipe incantation lacks the "instadodge" flag, since it moves so damn fast. With ER's lockon range you can get it to travel for quite some time without the boss ever dodging lol

The obnoxious thing is the fact that sometimes I have to do a legit stare down between some particular bosses for 20+ seconds only for them to just hit me while I either heal or just jump. The AI is just sometimes bizzare. I once battled Mohg and one time we both had a staring contest that lasted 15-20 sec approx, I was waiting for him to do anything because I wanted to heal. But the damned thing killed me at the moment I pulled the flask.

@BaronSterling

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, one of the biggest issues I have with this system is that it makes it to where you can never punish bosses for their inactivity, but they can still punish you for yours. You can't react to their downtime by sneaking in a heal or a spell or a lunging attack because they'll just react instantly, and it forces the fight into this awkward staredown where you aren't allowed to do anything because the boss is also not doing anything.

@flybasilisk7834

Жыл бұрын

yes, you can never take initiative in a fight, because the moment you do something, they do something quicker

@itsRhodi

Жыл бұрын

@@BaronSterling i felt this way fighting Commander Niall particularly. I found that my best counterattack was after i dodge his forward dash thing (which, sidenote, you can literally dodge by just strafing to the left. felt cheesy) so the fight kind of devolved into me waiting for that attack every time. And most times, I'd have to prompt him to do something

@BaronSterling

Жыл бұрын

@@itsRhodi That's interesting, I never had an issue with Commander Niall doing heal punishes, I didn't even know he was one of the bosses who did that. My issue with him was always the non-stop string of massive AoE attacks he would do once I got rid of his knight minions. Guess I have another reason to hate that boss now lol

@iota-09

Жыл бұрын

just throw a knife then? they'll react to that, take the initiative, be agressive, and the boss won't act like an idiot just waiting for you while you will be(mostly) in control of the fight.

With the way Elden Rings can store an input, i'd feel confident saying that the AI waiting for the scipt of my animation being inatiated (input reading but just pointing out its reading the action of your character inputing said command) is way more busted than if the game had them responding based on me physically pressing the button.

Best option is to give the player the ability to heal cancel via dodge if you are going to do this. Anytime the AI reacts with less then 100 or 250 ms it is going to feel like input reading and basically is. Most physics engines run at 60 hz meaning AI could react in about 16 ms if they really wanted to make the game impossible.

While I don't have a problem with this in theory, its implementation in Elden Ring leaves a lot to be desired, especially after Sekiro. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Sekiro had a system similar to this, mainly for heal punishing. But there was a key difference. It wasn't a punishment for healing; it was an invitation back into the battle. The best example I can think of for this is Sword Saint Iishin. If you back away and heal in the second/third phase of the fight, Iishin will perform a jumping attack with his spear. But if you're quick enough, you can deflect it and get right back into the fight. For all of the heal punishes in Elden Ring, not one that I can think of follows a similar behavior, correct me if I'm wrong, however. Granted, there are major differences in combat between Sekiro and Elden Ring, but that doesn't mean heal punishes can't be designed around getting the player back into the fight.

@SM-nz9ff

Жыл бұрын

This isn't Sekiro this is a bunch of Deities fighting a lowly nobody. Working as intended.

@AceAviations2

Жыл бұрын

Champion Gundyr has a pretty bullshit input read on healing, going as far as to break combo to go after you. It's my biggest gripe with an otherwise incredible fight.

@crimsonwolf6866

Жыл бұрын

It felt helpful to me, when he attacked while I healed, so I could parry him. But if you're using a slower item like a pellet, you better be somewhere he can't hit you.

@verro9953

Жыл бұрын

@@SM-nz9ff Stop defending bad design. Both are still Fromsoft games, and one does it a lot better than the other. Not even fighting games have enemies that react to a frame 1 start up for a counter.

@SolaScientia

Жыл бұрын

@@AceAviations2 So very true. I haven't gotten to that fight yet myself, but I've watched a lot of players fight him and the ones that fight him melee without parrying get heal punished so hard. They'll be mid-heal and he'll do that stupid kick right in the middle of it. Lady Maria in Bloodborne does a bit of that, but she's so aggressive anyway that it doesn't really matter. That and Bloodborne makes it a bit easier since we can just go beat some of our health back out of whatever we're fighting.

Excellent as always, Zullie!

@savereport8788

Жыл бұрын

Twitter. Didn't get noti

One of the reasons the spell the prisoner starts with is quite good early on. As they dodge the casting animation, no the sword that fires.

Noo! They aren't input reading! They just are put in a state of heal punishing by a hook in a function that changes your state to using a flask, which is called by an input queue handler that handles your inputs, so we have a few nano seconds to work with!

That makes the "invisible" spells make so much more sense now! It's specifically the AI can't see them lol

Ah this makes a lot of sense, also explains how Gravity Rocks is so reliable, as it reacts to the startup rather than the projectile itself. I think that's one of the reasons why it was always interpreted as input reading. My main beef with it is unless you get a hard knockdown on a boss it makes some spells totally useless.

@golemgolden4670

Жыл бұрын

Ah i see you are a conessour of the gravity rocks as well

@elguapo1991

Жыл бұрын

Same with Flame of the Redmanes. The flame is so wide and slow-moving that the AI dodging at the animation start usually just means they dodge into the flame.

@CosmicIceCream

Жыл бұрын

Except the gravity rock spell goes too far the other way...you can literally spam it on many bosses and the fight will be over in seconds.

@golemgolden4670

Жыл бұрын

@@CosmicIceCream Except for the mana cost and the fact some bosses are way too aggressive to let you constantly get off the long wind up

@tsm688

Жыл бұрын

"It's not input reading, it's reacting to a flag set by a keypress" -- that is, um, input. And the AI is reading it. That's input reading. That's what it is. It can't possibly be anything else.

These videos are incredibly informative, you’ve taught me more about the souls likes than many other makers have, and the bite sized videos make it easy for me to watch! Personally I didn’t even notice much some enemies responded to certain actions. I just assumed they were just really smart, lol I guess it doesn’t help either that I am specific with heals nor do I use spells all that much… Tho the Godskin Apostles are flipping hard to fight. I nearly gave up on them until one of my friends joined me to slay their ugly hinds!

I’ve actually learned that it uses its black fireball as a means to continue doing range damage when the players backs away from its melee range. It’s a unique mechanic because usually a player back always to go for a quick heal before risking a possible forward assault they can’t avoid. As such, it turns into the Godskin heal punishing. While it may be true that the animation of flask does trigger the fireball, I’ve also had it to where it triggered albeit me getting distance from him, waiting a bit, dodging the fireball, and then able to get the heal off.

When Malenia kept doing her long range stabbing attack to kill me when I healed, I realized my problem with this isn't input reading, it's the fact that a lot of attacks come out faster than reasonable. I could start drinking my flask and she could start her attack *after* the animation started and she could still complete it before I could. In a game that's all about action and reaction, it feels unfair when you can start an animation from neutral and be punished by a response that is physically impossible to avoid because even with a wind-up warning, it is a shorter animation than your drinking one.

@iota-09

Жыл бұрын

pretty sure you're not supposed to heal from neutral, that's the entire point of heal punishes.

@DM-Oz

Жыл бұрын

@@iota-09 Then you do what ? Stare at the boss until they decide to do something ?

@stanner601

Жыл бұрын

@@DM-Oz Yes that is the fun and engaging gameplay FS dickriders expect now. It's about waiting for your turn to do anything.

@dvdivine1962

Жыл бұрын

@@iota-09 that's the best time to heal since combos are so random and are position dependent in this game. I always have to get space to use my healing.

@iota-09

Жыл бұрын

@@DM-Oz throw a knife, attack, do anything or run to the other side of the arena/find cover to heal, you gotta create your window to heal, not just get it for free.

I feel like the solution to this is extremely simple. All the developers had to do is put at delay on the reaction by the NPC of about 12 frames (being generous because of how fast it picks up on the animation) to better mimic human reaction time, instead of it almost starting the counterattack as soon as your animation starts.

It's input reading. What causes that animation? Executing an input.

This kind of thing makes me feel like FromSoft was trying to recreate Sekiro enemies in a dark souls style game. I felt so slow in comparison to the bosses and enemies. It forces you to play super safe if you don’t have a crazy vigor stat

@SolaScientia

5 ай бұрын

Same. Some fights make me feel like how I felt fighting Friede. In that fight I really felt like they'd pulled her right from Bloodborne. If that had been a Bloodborne fight then I'd have been completely fine. Even when I switched to using the onikiri and ubadachi instead of the Hollowslayer Greatsword I still felt like I could barely keep up and phase 2 is designed more to make the player burn through heals and then hit them with phase 3. I was so salty that I had to summon Gael for it even when I wasn't embered, and the fact that we can summon him without being embered makes me feel like they wanted players to use him. Regardless, I still hate that fight. I was expecting Malenia to feel like fighting Friede all over, but she actually wasn't that bad. Admittedly I was probably overleveled a bit for her, but I honestly don't care. It's my reward for killing Mohg at level 78, lol. Killing Mohg while underleveled is the closest I've got to the feeling finally killing the Nameless King gave me. Placidusax is a cool spectacle, but Midir is a lot more fun to fight and feels less like bullshit to me. Elden Ring isn't a bad game by any means, but it doesn't beat out DS3 or Bloodborne for me at all. I need to properly get into Sekiro and get the combat to click for me better.

I think this just adds to a bigger problem with Elden Ring’s combat. It feels like the player is still in Dark Souls while the enemies / bosses are in Bloodborne/ Sekiro mode. They’re all so fast and snappy with reaction times while player animations struggle to keep up, especially by the endgame. Feels like it’s time for an update for the player character in terms of combat animations. Especially if future games continue with bigger and faster bosses.

@AlastorAltruistGaming

Жыл бұрын

This! If the speed & aggression, alongside the reaction, of Bloodborne, DS3 & Sekiro continue in later titles, with your character being unable to match their speed, I’m done with FromSoft. I can just tell that they’re not focused on the challenge being hard while still offering you a chance, and instead are making the challenge hard for the sake of being hard & nothing else! It ruins what otherwise is a good game; I don’t see Elden Ring winning GOTY due to it being such a mixed bag experience overall!

@alexandremattos6182

Жыл бұрын

Elden ring style game with Sekiro style parry when? I whant that.

@average-tree-lover-42069

Жыл бұрын

@@AlastorAltruistGaming you don't have to play Elden Ring like you played Dark Souls. DS3 was a dodge-rollfest. Not only Elden Ring introduced jumping as a new way to dodge, (even if I admit most jumpable attacks are plain unintuitive), it also provides a plethora of damage negation talismans, not to mention shields are more useful than ever. And even if you don't like the RPG character building elements, you can simply choose to lightroll and/or Bloodhound's Step to dodge attacks. I absolutely ADORED, as a fan of JRPG franchises like Xenoblade, that Elden Ring makes equipment, stat boosts and the fact pre-fight preparation (opposed to just dying over and over until you grasp the moveset) is much more important than in previous games. Couldn't have asked for anything more

@ItsZorroDood

Жыл бұрын

@@AlastorAltruistGaming Elden Ring is gonna win purely because it was hyped and memed up like crazy and all the newcomers think THIS is the souls experience everybody was praising for years.

@ItsZorroDood

Жыл бұрын

@@average-tree-lover-42069 I don't understand why they had to make the combat more complicated by introducing a combat jump as a second, situational dodge option. Next they're gonna implement mid and low blocking like this is a fucking fighting game franchise.

Incredible as usual. You truly are a witch with the magic used to discern these details.

I have learned that the bosses have a "cool down" moment after launching a chain of combos, if you learn to identify when the boss is in "cool down" you can heal without consequences or even better deal a Lot of damage, generally you have to be used to their moveset, but once you get it, you would be able to even identify this "cool down" moment in other bosses and thought enemies in the open world.

Talk about solid timing with this vid as I was just thinking whether going magic is worth. With this info it's a resounding: sure, for some spells. Really good info