hell, even DS2 had the thing where with the right setup you could just almost oneshot most bosses with some spells

For still others, maybe you dodge in a particular direction

You also only have to repeat when you're doing badly

but I have yet to see any other game do bosses consistently as good as dark souls

theres that dark souls copy game, Lords of the Fallen

If you're doing well against a new boss, you're likely figuring out how it works

didn't everyone hate lords of the fallen?

find me a game that does bosses better than dark souls

I think it was generally thought of as a satisfactory tide-over

Wonderful 101

You'd probably have ot restrict that to RPGs

I have fond memories of e.g. Metroid Prime bosses

>Platinum Games

not even fair

But the necessary principles there are really different

still, the same things that you could criticize dark souls bosses for could also be applied to games like Metal Gear Rising

Enemy design generally

Lords of the Fall was legit what i said though, and due to its similarities to dark souls i generalise any such games the same,

Its about just dodging around until you understand the boss's standard pattern and then just attack during that 1 build in flaw

Most enemies are always designed with deliberate spaces for them to be vulnerable to the player

You can also do the inverse

Attack until it's dangerous

thats the premise of Serious Sam 😄

or Duke Nukem

what's wrong with that design doctrine?

should fighting a boss be a random chance of success, or a challenge that can be learned and overcome?

dark souls is very much like a dance

theres a difference between a challenge to overcome, and
"Oh he's about to be vulnerable"

dark souls doesn't have hyper armor for bosses

they're always vulnerable to damage

yes but you'll get punished for recklessness

if you maneuver out of the way during their attack you can hit them whenever you want

DS2 even gave you extra damage for this

so you shouldn't be punished for recklessness?

You should be, but thats not the point

Blitzcrieging the boss trying to deal more damage to it than it can do to you in the same timeframe should be punished

but it shouldn't be a waiting game

which was my experience with it atleast

that makes no sense

should you be able to attack the boss while it's attacking or something?

I don't understand how you would do bosses differently

i'd give the bosses more abilities, and methods/chances to surprise/counter you

And make them feel like you're on an even footing, but can't properly learn their method of attack

such a thing would be impossible to program

you need to make animations, line up hit detection, and pre-program AI

sooner or later, people are going to learn the pattern, and it will become a dance that can be learned

what you've just described is what only PvP can do

and even then, with a limit

because there IS a limit to the tools that can be used by the player

Nah it wouldn't be impossible to program,

It would require a lot more work yes,

But you can easily design such systems where an enemy can switch its attack half-way and have a selection of attack choices or so

but there would ofc be flaws to it

Dark Souls 3 kinda does that

enemies will slow down or speed up their attacks seemingly randomly to throw off players

stuff liek that yeah