Poor design? More like bullshit design.

Too much damage at the start of the move, so learning this is super painful because you die to the first two hits and then watch her go sicko mode on your corpse. Demoralizing.

Learning how to beat waterfowl is stupid. you probably have to look up a guide. But once you know the easiest way to beat it, it ain't that bad. You need to use all 3 methods to avoid attacks: blocking, dodging, and positioning. for her first flurry, hold up a shield. for her second flurry, dodge through it. for her 3rd flurry, walk towards her until she jumps behind you, then walk backwards. don't roll on the 3rd flurry. its pretty easy and you don't have to do any weird targeting spin thing. Ultimately I think this might have been the way they intended you to avoid it, but its unintuitive.

I can see what they were going for. They wanted an attack that tests your ability to manage it. After all, the rest of her moveset is super manageable, basic even, but the inclusion of something as obscene as Waterfowl Dance makes the fight become Player vs. Waterfowl instead of Player vs. Malenia. The bad design part comes from the way players WANT to play, with play styles that Fromsoft no doubt is already aware of. It's an RPG, so a lot of builds have a theme around them. But if your theme has no tools for dealing with Waterfowl, then you may have to start breaking theme just to win. That's the conflict worth critiquing.

I always thought it doesnt have to be. But with light roll youll get used to it and if you know fight it balances out the just spam her tactic. But just imagine pulling of the fight with that camera angle. That would feel weird

Its crazy people praise this in a world where nioh exists. The attention to gameplay for fromsoftware is minimal. They prioritize aesthetics.

the whole thing looks delayed it doesn't visually match up

I know I’m in the minority, but I think it’s a damn good move, once you learn to dodge it, it becomes so satisfying to dodge each time and really adds to the excitement and flow of the fight

Waterfowl could be bad design, but I forgive it because it looks cool as hell

Waterfowl is definitely bad design. You can have an extremely strong boss, but that strength shouldn’t be defined by a single move. Orphan of Kos for example is the hardest boss in bloodborne (and even the souls borne series until Melania arrived), not because any one of his moves are a “win button”, but because he’s an all-around challenge compared to the rest of the game. Melania would be pretty easy if she didn’t have waterfowl. It’s a win button move with no directly feasible way of dodging it. It’s really her best toy, if she didn’t have it she would be a cakewalk of a boss. A few tries maximum.

Everything in souls like games is badly designed.

What ever, but we can't denied that fromsoft one of the best engaging battle game

Nothing a good ol' mimic with rivers of blood can handle 🗿

it's sick asf, my favourite boss, love everything about her > perfect design. I've been conditioned to the pain, now i just simply enjoy the fight

In isolation, it isn’t a bad thing. But with heavier weapons, you lose frames to recovery. AND the sprint button takes time to register. And it’s basically an insta kill even with 70 vgr.

There being no move before it that introduces the concept of not being dodgeable in an intuitive way, its bad design just made to artificially prolong her life while you learn her gimmick

ppl in the comments acting like you need to graduate in aeronautics to be able to dodge the atack, just because it's not something you can dodge with a roll. It's not easy to dodge but if you try different tactics you learn to dodge it very consistently

The second and third volley are perfectly fine, it's the first one that ruins the move, and by extension, the whole fight. I am positive that the designers at From Software did not decide, or even realise, that the only way to counter the first volley with the basic mechanics is to run around her 2.5 times then dodge at a specific angle. You might as well be abusing the AI, not responding to it.

The only way you can dodge it completely is to either get very good timing with light roll which you need for distance (although this may have been before a distance nerf) or to do the weird circle strat where you lock off like in the video. The first barrage is unfair. Yes it can be dodged but the fact that there is no normal way to dodge it all is unfair, even if you only get hit a small number of times and take minimal damage

seeing the hitbox makes it seem even worse tbh, like it you asked me to design an attack that breaks the core mechanics of the game, and there's sort of no good reason to be like that. I defend so much "unreasonably hard" design but the visual ambiguity combined with the uncharacteristic timing is an insult.

Just unlock and run in a circle lol. You can do more than dodge, and they spend the entire game trying to teach you that it’s not Dark Souls. It’s good design, optional bosses that are painfully hard when you are locked into one strategy are fine. Instead of git gud, maybe it’s just git smart

2 things that make waterfowl bad design from my POV: 1. I don’t think that one move should have this great of an impact on a fight. If you take away waterfowl malenia becomes quite manageable all her other attacks are quite standard IMO 2. And this is the bigger issue: say I learn to avoid waterfowl consistently. The reward is just not there your window of attack is wayyyy to small. Timing the arguably hardest attack to avoid in not only ER but the entire series should let you deal some damage of your own. Instead malenia tends to jump away right after. Once I saw the most ludicrous thing ever (granted it was only once) where in her Phase 2 she waterfowled gave me 3 of her standard attacks and waterfowled again which at that point has depleted any stagger you might have built up (which didn’t matter because obviously I died)

Sekiro really ruined the series by making every boss in wacky arm flailing inflatable tubemen.

Bad. Its her only threat because its basically a ohko. Without it shes a normal trivial boss.

Shadow of Erdtree added the deflecting tear which adds a perfect block mechanic like in Sekiro, if the base game had this then I would say that this isn't bad design. I suspect perfect block/deflect will be a feature of future souls games if this is the direction bosses are going in. It will also speed up combat quite a bit.

Yeah it's poorly designed. Firstly, ignoring how "fair" the move is, waterfowl is by far the most oppressive move From has ever put into their game. Because it's so incredibly lethal and difficult to dodge the overwhelming majority of players will simply sit at range if they think she's going to use it because it's simply too dangerous to be near her and resort to either using spells or hit-trading to kill her. Look at pretty much any streamer's first kill of her and chances are this is what they're doing. Secondly, even though you can avoid damage on the first volley up close, that doesn't make it well designed. The run-and-dodge manoeuvre you show here is by far the most complex dodge pattern of any From boss and is so obscure almost no players are gonna figure it out for themselves (it was two weeks before the first video showing this tech was released). The second tech is the frostpot, which again is incredibly obscure (it was a month and a half before someone found this tech). Third and fourth is bloodhound step and blocking. The former requires the player to find one specific item on the other side of a continent and think to use it, and the later results in Malenia healing a bunch and still isn't necessarily safe.

very unintuitive move, can argue it borders between the line of genius & insanity. i for one think it is one of poor design.

I couldn't beat Melania until locked off, dodged what I could, then blocked what I couldn't with a colossal weapon. The guard counter I would get would offset the health regen. That let me solo her guy put alot of false expectations in people's heads. Just because something can be done doesn't mean the majority of people can do it.

Imo they really shouldn't design moves that are bigger than a medium roll, last longer than it and doesn't have high enough startup you can't just run from it on reaction

I beat Malenia once, and I attribute that entirely to me just getting lucky she only did this move once the whole fight. I love everything about her fight except this one dumb move. I feel it should either just be removed entirely or regulated more heavily, like she'll only attempt it once per certain health thresholds reached.

Yeah... she's supposed to be strong and I guess unfair fits her lore well (nuking caelid and a stronger radahn) it just feels lazy when this move pops up. It looks cool but from a gameplay point of view it's a bit too much. Just because of this move i'll say it's bad design... i love her tho

Honestly, I always disagreed with HOW much people talk about Waterfowl, since I don't think Malenia would be much easier without it than she is with it (She has 2 other attacks I straight up consider harder to deal with). But this is a really tough move nonetheless.

If Zack Snyder directed Elden Ring

The move ruins the entire fight. Completely unreadable from a newer player perspective. You need to be an absolute master to perfect dodge it consistently, which for anybody, is incredibly hard to do. Wish they would just remove it entirely because it cannot be redeemed.

It's great design for a sekiro boss 👍

I am 150% sure this attack was supposed to be in Sekiro, but the guys scraped it, and them found out just to use it here. This is reinforced by the fact that all her sword attacks are heavy. She can do 2 or 3 cuts at once, and that's it. With some combos with a maximum of 6 hits. But here is like she summoned a combat art from Sekiro, since her movements look exactly like the Spiral Cloud Passage Combat Art, but with more motion and area. She would have been a great Sekiro boss, but I think she is a really strange Elden Ring boss.

the problem is- it's not fair. every ultimate move rewards you if you managed to dodge them. take example of messmer's flurry. it's punishing and rewarding at the same time. if you dodged it you can deal huge damage to him. the only reward for dodging waterfowl is you get to live

Wish they made the first flurry dodgeable. Maybe it would be bearable.

It's not water fowl itself, it's the long hanging times and the insane tracking Elden Ring bosses have while suspended in mid-air that infuriate me. Nicely demonstrated in this clip.

This is a good design. A good designed attack is an attack that makes you think how to overcome it with the tools provided. There are already tools to overcome it a few ways one is to use shields and simply out damage her healing. Second way is to find blind spots which are usually inside the slashes and time your dodges correctly. Third way to overcome is to use bloodhound step. Fourth is to use pots to stagger her. Fifth is to simply use quarter step which is another ash of war to dodge, it's better than the roll. Sixth is to just stagger her the whole fight. Seventh is to use daggers for speed combining it with various ashes of war. Waterfowl is a definition of good design.

Now waiting for the radahn moves from the dlc where he hits you with the sword 100 times in 1 sec

Malenia would be much better if they removed Waterfowl and instead made her other moves slightly more difficult or gave her new moves. Kind of like what Sister Friede was, or even what Rellana currently is; can you imagine if they made Friede’s moveset easier but gave her an insane Blackflame AOE? The fight would be so much worse

I like it though it fits her personality and lore. She just beyond most people's threshold of how far are people willing to go understanding that makes it reasonable as to why people complain about her but thaat doesn't make her bad.

its absolutely not poor design, unironically a skill issue for the people saying its bad lol. its hands down my favorite move ive ever learned to dodge in gaming.

After fight Consort Radahn, I can say that Malenia is still harder, and it’s because of this single move. Consort Radahn has tons of moves that constantly combo into each other, add in the second phase with the light clones and light pillars and it’s just even crazier. The light pillars are manageable, the clones I’ve yet to find a way to completely dodge them all, I’ve managed to run from them but I can’t seem to replicate when that happens, but over all I’m still able to look at the moves and think “ok I might be able to dodge if I do this”. Waterfowl is fast, active for tons of frames, and you can’t outrun it, it is guaranteed to hit unless you are able to find the incredibly minute sweet spot. Radahns clone attacks don’t even kill if you have max vigor, waterfowl WILL KILL even if you are only hit by 2 of the damage balls. It’s just a ridiculous move.

Its bad and from has doubled down on its bad design.

There's only two things you need to know in elden ring to be successful. What are the targets telegraphic "swing" (watch the arms and elbows.) How many combos come after that attacks stance. There's plenty more nuanced guides but these are the two things I look at when learning.

I’ve learned that if you have a buddy and they hit her mid dance she will agro them, makes it way easier to dodge when your just switching agro mid dance

definitely poorly designed So many hitboxes one after another, no way you can dodge through it, youll just get hit at the end of the dodge unless you do some funny tech

it sort of makes sense that to counter elden ring's PEAK of swordmanship you would need to look up a fucking guide honestly