LogFAQs > #963273760

Re: the bosses, I feel a similar type of way but it's hard for me to hold it too much against them because I think this is a natural consequences of trying to design fights that are still challenging to series veterans. At this point, we've kind of seen it all.

I played the Demons Souls remaster this year and let me tell you - game's easy for me now! DeS bosses are weird because they do a lot of gimmick fights (which for better or worse have returned in Elden Ring), but every time I got to a classically "Soulslike" boss that used to be a huge roadblock (Flamefucker, Penetrator, Old King) it was just a stomp. That's because these became bread-and-butter souls fights where you are learning and dodging simple attack patterns.

Fights have changed a lot since then - look at how many bosses in this game have weird delays on their attacks, very long combo strings, move erratically, or do multiple of these (hi Margit). We're being challenged in different ways. I think the DS3 DLC really shows this where you have stuff like Gael who is designed this way, or on the other hand you have Freide which I think is also a good fight but the difficulty just comes from it being so long. But then you also have complete bullshit like that dragon, the wolf master, or the duo demon fight. Now in Elden Ring we have a pretty aggressive numerical curve and there's the constant potential of being one or two shot. For all the things they've done to give you better tools for fights like summons and the horse, they've also had to get more creative (or not) with challenges.

See also Bloodborne and Sekiro, which are able to fairly challenge Dark Souls players by changing how fights work on fundamental mechanical levels.

Tldr: I think we have passed a certain threshold for "fair" fights and if we go back then the entrenched players are going to find the game too easy. People were talking about how the game is either too easy or too hard and that sweet spot is probably gone.