Some Elden Ring Players Aren't Happy About How Bosses Attack in the Game

gamerant.com:

FromSoftware's enemy designs are infamous for their difficulty. But this difficulty does not inherently come from awkward AI. Instead, the player must typically have the patience to learn proper parry or roll windows between strikes of their own, as well as take advantage of all other resources available to them to even the odds. This is no different in Elden Ring.

There are a few standout bosses in Elden Ring that have given players a great deal of trouble since launch. Margit, the Fell Omen, for example, is certainly up there in terms of the difficulty players have expressed within Limgrave's Stormveil Castle. But it seems that there is a trick to some of Elden Ring's bosses and enemies that players have found rather tricky or deceptive, especially because it subverts a common attack animation that players can usually detect and telegraph in other FromSoftware titles.

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Redditor WeeziMonkey has offered a stick-figure diagram to represent the considerable attack animation delay that many Elden Ring enemies possess. First, WeeziMonkey illustrates that when «normal bosses» raise their arms, an attack is likely to follow and players are supposed to react to those animation frames with an evasive roll or some other tactic. However, they then illustrate that when Elden Ring's bosses raise their arms, a prolonged delay follows where the enemy tracks the player and does not drop their arm or attack, which incites players' panic and paranoia.

Players may then roll or behave as if an attack would follow, and are punished with a delayed attack as a result. Of course, players instinctively want to react or predict movements in order to avoid taking an