ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มิ.ย. 2024
- The release of Elden Rings highly anticipated (and GOTY contender) DLC has been met with many conversations saying it's too difficult or hard, and sparking an age old conversation again. This time, it has some more interesting reasons for happening though, that takes into account most of the Souls-likes before it. With a mad dash of complaints and builds to counter the difficulty and viral clips of streamers playthroughs, along with the controversy of larger creators such as Asmongold and Penguinz0, I wanted to talk at length as to the reasons that it's difficulty is a matter of perception when perception is two thirds of reality.
Lady Maria footage from Bloodborne.
• Bloodborne: Lady Maria...
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Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:04 Perception vs Reality
05:48 Chapter 1: Progression
09:45 The list of progression methods.
16:25 How to solve it
20:44 Chapter 2: Escalation
27:25 Nerfs and Buffs (VIDEO SPOILER FOR FIRST TWO BOSSES)
31:57 Chapter 3: Bosses
38:09 Video Spoiler for a boss
38:40 Video spoiler over - เกม
They've simply changed their philosophy. They were content before for certain exceptional players to "solve" their games and excel, dominate, and otherwise exploit every option available, knowing that the vast majority - as you put it - were still climbing the mountain using the old tools. They've since opened Pandora's box and are now attempting to shove their own world back into its cage. Players had access to high, sustained DPS? Bosses now have 1-2 second openings. Players have access to long range damage options and can disengage freely to heal? Bosses now have instant, relentless gap closers. Players could stun-lock a superboss into submission? Bosses now shrug off all but the most over-tuned poise strategies. The problem is that this doesn't incentivize a new way to climb the mountain, it simply narrows options to, as you say, the rocket boots. If you only have one second to attack during an opening, of course you're going to do a jumping, power-stanced dual katana hit. If boss health has been inflated to silly proportions, of course you're going to rely on %damage through bleed and frostbite. In sum: why should I want to follow the old rules if the bosses are playing by a new set? It's an arms race - and you can't win an arms race against the very people you want to play your game.
Anyway, a well-reasoned, thought-provoking video. I also think this DLC is a rousing success overall, even if I think it's also exactly emblematic of why we're reaching the end of Elden Ring's potential in its current form. I firmly believe they could ameliorate a lot of these problems in future design iterations, but it would take a re-imagining of "the rules" as we know them. Great review, Mug.
seriously. that end boss can run up and decimate you in seconds lol
I think they need to remove OP strategies and have the bosses match. Bloodborne was limited in its tools but it had way better balancing
@@stephenweir9768 What would you remove? How do you un-open Pandora's box without essentially making it a different game entirely?
Ehh I kinda agree but I also like that they are pushing the limits. Sure some of these bosses are a little too fast for this game but imagine them as a test for a blood borne2 or something. Fromsoft have always tried new things in order to improve future ones and it’s part of why I like their games. Honestly I’m fine with the new bosses radahn is a bit insane but the rest all seem good. Flawed but it’s way better than almost every other game I’ve played recently and it’s a dlc.
@@stephenweir9768the game is fine as it is but any future games fromsoft makes can’t be like this and need significant changes
An immediate note about the upgrade material rewards, you can access the dlc as early as Liurnia. You do not have to set foot on Altus to access the dlc. The game rewarding you with these smaller upgrade materials is to reflect that you do not necessarily have access to the bell bearings to give you unlimited materials. It is also very nice to not have to go run to the twin maiden husk every time anyways.
At the same time tagging 10-30k runes as purple quality when base game has up to somber 9s on white indicator is just plain out weird. Enemies are hella inconsistent too - fire knight will usually drop stone [5] while hornsent warrior in belurat (the infinite poise guys) can drop sombers 7-9 while being much easier to kill.
Actually you have to at least grab one grace in Altus to start the Radahn fight, because you have to beat him and Mohg in order to reach the DLC
Not everyone's going to squat on Frog Hill for an hour to upgrade all their new gear, either. That bell bearing smithing stone grind is absolutely mind-numbing.
@@billythenarwhal1579 "Actually you have to at least grab one grace in Altus to start the Radahn fight"
There's a way to start the festival without going to Altus, but it involves talking to NPCs in a specific order for Ranni's questline, so it's trivially easy to skip that part of the quest.
Yes you can, but the DLC is balanced for endgame. So if you go in that early you will be tickling wandering nobles and getting oneshot from being sneezed at.
They give us all these cool new ashes of war. But boss openings are too short to use many of them. They give us more tools for creative expression, while simultaneously hampering our ability to use them. It's frustrating because I love many aspects of Elden Ring. And it's a pretty easy fix. Just give the boss longer openings to allow more creative combat expression, and increase the boss health and resistance to compensate. Shorten some of the attack chains, while still preserving the difficulty of evading them. Let players attack more, and it will be much fun, even if the difficulty is the same.
Honestly i Think half of the player base have forgotten how learning new moves from both weapons and enemies feels.
People get pissed when they get "perfected" by a boss that nukes your health.
Fr
I would love learning the enemies if I wasn't getting launched to the loading screen every 2 seconds
@@Majoraspersona I did like this with Mesmer, but only because it took me like 10 seconds to reenter the fog gate after dying. Every time I got in more damage I felt like "You may have killed me now, but your life's getting shorter and shorter lanky boi!"
I just think it's a little ridiculous being in the thickest armor with 99 vigor and I can get two tapped and In some cases one shot by these bosses. And couple that with the bosses combos and movesets it makes it very hard to learn
The mountain analogy made me think of what Brandon Rogers once said: "There is no top. Reaching the peak only gives you a better view after the next taller mountain to climb."
If you like the last five bosses of ER, then you are going to love the DLC. If you hated the last 5 bosses of ER you are not going to like the DLC.
This
I dont see the correlation. SOFTEs biggest problem is the shitty scaling system that makes you slog through the open world to get to the meat of the game. Sure the bosses are a bit too sweaty, but that's not the gripe I see.
@@alastor8091 But that's the thing, the open world is the meat of the game. Sure I prefer the bosses and legacy dungeons aswell, but the open world is what sets this game apart from the previous souls games. (I do agree that the scaling system tied to pretty much collectibles isn't well executed)
@@alastor8091lol dude mad he played an open world game and cried about it being open world, I mean what tf did you expect.
real af scaling on those bosses are all extremely intense and they are combined with crazy difficult movesets that are hard to learn. The dlc is just more of that and I love it, but some people don't.
💀nahh git gud
But fr a lot of these issues were noticed in the final boss of the dlc. The openings are so tight that sometimes it feels like rng whether you can get in either a hit with a slower weapon or a heal with your flask. They've also got multiple "stall" attacks where you cant do anything and your buffs run out so its very rng heavy how much damage you can get in within that 60ish seconds that most buffs last. Theres also a lot of visual clutter and a cheap way of making everything harder which is on the ground aoe after-effects after every attack. And **I. Can't. Even.** with the egregious thunder-cross-split attack he does where if you're not already in the right position when he does it, its literally impossible to dodge on med load because it roll catches you with the second swing, meaning if you want to dodge that attack you have to be in that position and be mindful of that one attack THE ENTIRE FIGHT. Its like hahaa we know you'll roll this so here's a roll catch get f*cked.
Still somehow a really fun boss to fight but a lot of its difficulty comes from pure bs.
That one attack you mentioned doesn't catch you if you roll forward i think. But he usually doesn't give you time to ounish it anyway unless it's at the end of another combo so yeah it really is a lot to keep track of, especially when he also has that gravity pull bullshit
@@sabershark3102false.
@@sneaky5141 nope, its objectively false to think its undodgable mid load, theres plenty of enough footage online to prove that, stop spreading misinformation cuz you cant handle basic dodge direction. stick to bb and ds3 where spamming R1 and rolling in mindless directions gets you by.
Honestly, I think this DLC actually handles progression better than any previous FromSoft game, in that it actually has progression. Previous DLCs were always harder than their base games, but there were never any new systems for the players to get any stronger than they were in the base game, only ever more versatile with new weapons and spells.
You mentioned letting weapons upgrade past the original base game limits. except that's pretty much exactly what Scadutree Fragments do, only without the need to upgrade each weapon individually, a necessity of the base game that was actually frequently complained about. Although relatedly I think that's why upgrade materials are so much more common now in the DLC, so that even players who haven't fully explored the base game to find all the miner bell bearings can still easily upgrade any of the new weapons or spirit ashes they find.
As for "difficulty," it's actually pretty close to what I expected based on previous games. I mean, yeah, because Scadutree fragments provide a new upgrade path all the numbers are a lot higher than previous DLCs, but the increased spectacle and aggression is pretty much par for the course... and I say that as a veteran who is currently trying to see just how far I can get in the DLC without using any Scadu Fragments.
Old soul DLC Max pyromancy and magic absolute cake walk xD
I get what you're saying but the Scadutree system is flawed.
You never really know where to get them (aside from hippos) and there's no indicator on the map.
In the base game, mines and churches are depicted on the map. The base game also throws more golden seeds and sacred tears at you than necessary assuring that even if you missed 1 or 2 churches, you're still gonna be able to max out your flask.
Meanwhile in the DLC there's exactly 50 fragments in very specific and sometimes obscure places. Good luck finding them all without a guide.
@@theobell2002: True enough. Although, while I agree there probably should have been more than just 50 fragments, it's far from necessary to get all of them. Even mising a few levels, most players aren't going to notice that much difference between a 2x damage buff and a 1.9x buff.
@@theobell2002See, I hear that a lot. I think it's just people getting angry like they always do when a FromSoft game releases before they figure out the meta and boss movements. I'm trash. I use mimic, I abuse broken bleed builds, I over leveled to 200, and I still get dunked on frequently by bosses. I played the DLC completely blind knowing what Scadutree Fragments actually do and started searching for them immediately. I ran into the Gaol Knight and got whooped, I was scorched by the walking fire giant, I got smeared by the Divine Beast... but I have now completed around 6 bosses and explored most of the map (I believe I've only missed the abyss forest because that got spoiled but I'm currently hunting for it) and I have Scadutree Level 15. I got to, I believe, SL 13 before fighting Rellana. It is possible. It's not hard. It's just exploration. The same way we explored for Talismans and weapons and armor in the base game to better a build we're working on. People really are just salty that they can't steamroll with their current build (cheese or not) without searching for those fragments... and even then, it's balanced to still be difficult for most builds. It's not the common misconception of "narrowing viable builds", it's them ACTUALLY FINDING A BALANCE THAT MAKES IT EQUALLY DIFFICULT FOR ALL BUILDS and there just happens to be a few cheese builds LIKE ALWAYS and the scrubs get mad that they have to use those specific builds to face tank and wipe the floor with the bosses. Sorry, you're now required to play the game as designed. Explore, learn the movements, and 'get gud'.
i feel like it's more of 'get strong' than 'get gud' nowadays
I feel like we're approaching the point where "every subsquent game MUST Be harder than the previous" is becoming a fucking curse for this game lol
Agreed, unless they fundamentally change things with the formula I don't think this is sustainable for another full game
Then don't fking complaint when the game is too ez. Almost every souls player say elden ring is the easiesf from soft game.
Now they make it harder and some other player complaint as well.
There's NO satisfying you lot, if i were fromsoft, I'd understand why they'd just go with what their vision.
A game for everyone is a game for no one.
I don't complain if the player have Sekiro level of power
Get good you are a grown man
@@misterdeer5261in SOTE the player already can have that level of power. Perfect parry with any weapon is a thing thanks to a crystal tear.
If you meant that as in wolf being weak... Idk, being able to block/deflect anything is not weak at all. Also infinite stamina.
I tried the dlc on ng+3 and barely made it past the lion dancer. I restarted a fresh game, and it was much more manageable.
I think that might be a reason why so many are having a hard time.
Yea. People need to clarify if they’re playing on ng+ or smthing. Cause I swear I’m going crazy looking at these videos and the bosses do no dmg to these guys
I think that's exactly what's going on here. With Dark Souls and Bloodborne the DLCs released much closer to the base games and so there were a lot more players who would have still only been in basic NG or maybe NG+1. With Elden Ring, however, it been over 2 years and there's got to be a lot more people who had long since progressed into higher, if not the highest NG+ cycles.
Literally this. While I'm seeing all these people just vomiting the whole "JUST LOOK FOR SCADOO-FRAGZ DUMMY, GIT GUD", I came back to the game after a while on NG+2, started up the DLC (knowing about the blessing being necessary, not expecting to be god-tier at all), and struggled immensely with my gameplay. While watching folks do the DLC on a fresh save looked waaaaaay easier. Not only are they doing way more damage, but they're taking way less, even with less blessing than I have. I'm currently +13 blessing, and before this new patch, things were still 2-shotting me if I missed a dodge or parry window even from trash mobs, and those hits were staggering me and allowing them a free fast-combo to just annihilate me...while my own hits were doing like...1/10th of their health bar or less. I got through 2 bosses with very much effort and a friend being summoned in to help me (further increasing the bosses health, as bad as that is), I just wasn't seeing good numbers on my own.
@@EmeralBookwise cringe brony
I did the exact opposite.
The dance metaphor is every apt for the bosses. If older fights are a dance between two equal partners, the DLC bosses have you in the audience watching the bosses solo performance and waiting until they trip
I got blood builds and they watch me now even with magic get good 😂😂
Was it just me or did Rellana never trip?
I feel like people who post comments like this are playing a completely different game than me. Some of the most complained about bosses in the DLC have more intuitive combos and openings than many of people’s favourites from the base game. The “dance” simply doesn’t get better than what they’ve done here, in my opinion.
Waiting for a semi-professional ballerina to trip, mind you
@@ELpeaceonearth oof a git gud comment. I have to report you for terrorism for such idiocy ❤️
The only issue of these that I have is the stupid dodge for a full minute for one attack that you might still get hit during depending on the attack the boss decides to use
Then learn to dodge better
Learn the moves.
Agreed I'm sorry I know this is blasphemous for souls games but I never found multi hit combos from bosses cool when I can get sent back to the loading screen. Meanwhile I barely crack the health bar
@@calamityhex3729 maybe learn basic dodge direction then.
then youre objectively playign the game wrong if youre just dodging and not attacking durin the windows and wind ups and jumpable attacks, this is objectively a you problem, not a game design problem.
My biggest issue with the boss aggression is that 1 second window you have to attack? Colossal Weapons basically boiled down to Jump Attack Spam, which makes them boring to use to me
Jump attacking with colossal weapons is sadly one of the only usable strategies. Any dex build is garbage because you can’t get more than one hit off to proc bleed so basically it’s like every build just plays by doing one jumping heavy attack in between these 9 hit combos. Wish I could get a refund
Then your build sucks
@@noahh687dex is one of the stromgest especially bleed. Tf are you on? Im running the dlc with a dex status build and destroying things.
@@noahh687 Depends on the fight, though the timing is frustratingly tight regardless. In general I found dex way more viable than str for the DLC bosses. They are just so damn fast even jump attack is too slow a lot of the time for colossals. If you hit every punish window consecutively you can get procs, and frostbite is mostly better in the DLC. For the bosses I tried status builds for I typically got 2 procs, though sometimes the second was at the end of the fight. Messmer as a high-end example, I got 3 frost procs off with twinblades on my kill and I'm not even good, he took me about 40 tries solo.
Powerstance twinblade jumping attack can really stack the hits for statuses, dependent on the boss hurtbox, with flexible light and powerstance attacks for shorter windows or timing errors. Bakchand blade also does an excellent job, and I'm sure the other dex weapons mostly hold up as well. Bayle and Metyr can get just shredded by bleed once you learn their patterns and safer attack points. Rellana sucked for statuses though, she was my one jump bonk boss.
Im runing strenth blood and no boss stands a chance now half way + into i switched builds from magic and only at 10 scatretree@@Retr0Duck
Issues I believe need to be addressed.
1. Some bosses instantly use their best special attack moments after entering the arena. All bosses should walk at you like a cool guy for at least 5 seconds and then engage with the player. This will allow the fights to take place more in the center of the arena as well as make the fight more interesting so its not just dodge X attack at the start which is not that engaging.
2. Move summon signs and spirit ash locations to outside the boss arenas. Some are inside and some are outside, bringing this to parity will remove the frustration of trying to activate summon signs while fighting for your life.
3. Certain boss strings frame data should be adjusted slightly to allow more lenience with dodge rolling. There are a few strings that will roll catch if you don't hit a very tight timing and that does feel unfair and frustrating to engage with.
Elden Ring already felt like a game where you can choose too suffer or you can choose to abuse the game right back with a myriad of broken builds. But the DLC takes it to the extreme. You will abuse the game or the game will abuse you and I have mixed feeling about that. Learning a difficult encounter is allowed to be frustrating but it should also keep the player engaged. Finding the next step forward should be enjoyable and motivating but I felt my progress on a select few bosses, more then any other souls-like, being impeded by unnecessary bullshittery.
Finally someone that actually engages with the criticisms and doesn’t just lecture people about what they’re doing wrong!
I had some serious issues with bosses in the dlc. Not because of the difficulty, but because *I wasn’t having fun.* Sure, the bosses are great when you’ve *already* mastered them, but if 80% of your time spent on a boss isn’t fun, then is it actually a good fight? I mean is spending more time in loading screens than in the boss fight a good thing?
You contradict yourself. You can't say it's not the difficulty, then say it's the loading screen from dying to difficult fights. It's the same as the base game. You die, LEARN, try again, win.
@@spub1031 it’s not about about them being difficult, it’s about them being nowhere near enjoyable enough to be worth the difficulty it’s at.
The final boss is the single most difficult fight From has ever made, and it is UNIVERSALLY hated. Everyone is already calling it “pre-patch” because we’re all dead certain it’s going to be changed.
@Scowleasy funny, you say universal when every person I've seen and talked with that has beaten the boss enjoy the fight (me included). Yes, sometimes it gets a bit much, and if From sees that an attack has issues, then it should be patched. From what I've seen, every attack can be dodged and leaves him open to an attack after the end of a combo. Hell, even Asmongold, who originally gave up on the DLC, enjoyed all except who the boss was character-wise.
@@spub1031 I don’t care about your made up personal stories
@@spub1031count me amongst the people who beat the boss but didn’t find it fun. The sample of your circle of friends isn’t sufficient. Funnily enough some of the other fights I enjoyed a lot, Bayle might be my favourite fight in any FromSoft game. Mesmer took me twice as long to beat as the final boss but I still feel like it was more enjoyable.
Honestly my biggest beef with it is that they basically force you to use at least one or two defensive talismans which obviously makes your damage way lower ...which makes bosses seem way too tanky ..if you dont use defensive talismans you get 2tapped on 60 vig ...just give me 2 more talisman pouches in shadow realm and take them away in base game and Im good to go
100% this. Using dragoncrest and crimson seed is required and most bosses are a lot more manageable with an elemental resist. Another issue like this is buffs being almost necessary, another way of pigeonholing your build
Idk ive honestly found that the 2 tapped on 60 vig is a NG+ issue. And with that in mind ALL i had to do to remedy that was equip a shield. Not full turtle mode legit just took one of the golden triangle shields, and realised a lot of boss attacks such as mesmer snakes, and most ranged attacks dont dmg ur stamina much. Also armor, the game gives u the solitude knight armor from the start. With solitude armor and the dragoncrest talisman alone you can reach close to 55-60% mitigation...
You don’t HAVE to do any of this. Max level scadutree blessing gives you a ridiculous amount of free defense. You’re just getting hit a ton because, let’s face it, you suck. As a result you need more defensive talismans. I also get hit a lot so I take crimson seed +1 but I don’t whine about it and I beat the whole DLC no summon and had an amazing experience with the majority of bosses
Honestly yeah, that's a good idea. Talismans already don't allow you to stack the same effect so it's not like you could break the game too much that way.
My red tear ring build need no vigor or high defend, just have to press O button fast enough xD
I do like how constructive your criticism is. This isn’t just “bad cuz it feels hard” or “Just get good lul” you bring up real good points, and I agree with most of what you said. Progression is linear and slow in a way, main bosses have no flinching and leave hardly any time to attack back. They should have more down time after a long attack string or something. I have experienced not using some of my favorite attacks and spells because I knew they were too slow to use.
"Progression is linear and slow in a way, main bosses have no flinching and leave hardly any time to attack back" plenty of those once you actually learn the fight, i take it youre a bb/ds3 souls veteran? those still havent learned to playe ER properly.
Using the new weapons is a huge driving force for me. Holy shit Milady & dryleaf arts are the most insanely fun weapons.
Blood affinity with both on arcane/dex build.
03:00 "Taking something away from the player once you've given it to them is usually a big no-no in design." That sums it up nicely. I bought Elden Ring on the suspicion that despite being a Soulslike, it might accommodate my playstyle - and man, didn't it do that in a way I totally did not expect. I love exploration and deciphering lore, but I'm a roleplayer. I'm not interested in fair fights but effective fights. Give me one hour to overcome a boss and I'd rather spend 55 minutes of that hour outside the boss arena, to make sure the actual fight is a curbstomp. *This isn't cheap, it's smart* (this can't be repeated often enough)!!! ER's major boss fights are never a curbstomp but it did accommodate my playstyle well enough to overcome almost all bosses with a single-digit number of attempts, and were it not so, I would not have bought the DLC. And then...the enemies became much more difficult AND my build became much less effective. At times I feel the new bosses were deliberately designed to undo all the work I had done to achieve what I wanted - to make the fights easier for me, ie someone with just an average skill at this type of game. With the result that I just don't feel as motivated to tackle the next boss as I was in the main game, Scadutree fragments notwithstanding.
You made an offhand remark about leaving your sign to be summoned to help other players defeat bosses and I think this is a part of the game (the genre?) that is still untapped. They could do more with it and it's very vanilla as it is now. It could be more 'essential', imo. And with this, Miyazaki's recent comments about being open to the idea of future Fromsoft titles having seamless co-op; I think this is the direction I would choose if I was looking to shake up the paradigm and build a better mountain as it were.
If they make a seamless co-op game where I can basically build around a team of friends I might have a heart attack lol
Totally agree. Take a note from remnant 2’s book. That’s one of the reasons I love monster hunter. Being able to co-op hunt monsters with 1 or 2 of my friends and just have some fun. And not have to re invite them to my lobby after every single “boss”
There's also issues with the boss design. Someone said they were getting summoned for one boss and the people who summoned them ended up dying right at the beginning of the fight because of how explosive the bosses are.
This is an intriguing notion..I like it
"SunBros: Solaire gets his groove back" would be an amazing game imho.
Definitely agree with what you say about builds. In the base game I never really felt the need to use overpowered builds and just used weapons I think are cool, but now it seems like I've been caught in the crossfire and every boss is a grindy slog. So ironically, I've felt more tempted to respec into some meta build, if only to make the fights a bit faster.
Felt that too. Been using a normal curved greatsword (the dismounter, if it matters) and great hammer, both heavy infused with no status buildup. I went through the base game mostly without using any cheese or summons (that one was more of a personal challenge). But by the end, I was stuck feeling forced to use ashes like chilling mist, summons, and mimic. Beating the final dlc boss just didn't feel great.
Switched to an ultra greatsword build after using a dex build Milady for so long and it's insane how big the difference is
Milady was miserable in the DLC, with an UGS though? ooga booga I kill everything and last longer in boss fights, they're still miserable to fight but least I do damage now.
Genuinely has sucked all the fun out of the game for me with how the DLC is just skewed toward the most braindead playstyle imo, I don't even read bosses or remember their combos anymore I just dodge when an attack comes and swing big stick until boss dies.
Having to upgrade every weapon to +35 sounds awful if you felt like changing builds. Just seems like a worse system than having a consistant player tied damage boost.
The fragment system isn't much different from collecting golden seed or scared tears. I think instead of having only 50 a bit more should've been scattered around like with extra seeds in the base game.
I wanted a challenge in the dlc. If some people don't, they should've used all the tools instead of whining.
They need to evolve the formula in a more meaningful way.
The core root of many of the game's problems are tied to combat being very, very limited. Primarily in terms of boss interactions. The difficulty is in executing timed inputs, but the inputs themselves are boring as heckies, and the resulting actions are... stale? And lacking in meaningful gameplay variation.
Fundamentally, you only really have one response to any attack - roll. Yes, sometimes sprinting works. Yes, blocking also works to a very limited degree, and yet it's all about rolling in the end.
And all your attacks are just... mashing the one most effective move (single input as well), spell, ash, etc.
It's frankly astonishing just how far they've taken this very basic dynamic, but SoTE (and the base game too, tbf) really shows just how basic it is.
Having combos, more movement options, different dodges aside from rolls, more functional parries would all open up so much design space for encounters. And yes, more staggers/flinches coming from the player. I keep thinking of Nioh as an example of what I mean. The combat in that game stays entertaining for so much longer and is much more varied (itemization is cursed though)
You forgot parry.
@@ronthorn3
Parries can absolutely trivialize a boss, first phase of final DLC boss comes to mind.
You can now also jump as a response to some moves.
"mashing the one most effective move" you are objectively playing the game wrong then.
My entire problem with the dlc (I beat it already) is that while I get being destroyed by a boss, I DO NOT find it fun being oneshot by trash mobs. Especially the random Messmer Soldiers.
How are you getting one shot? I have a hard time belieiving you have 60 vigor and are getting 1 shot? I didn't get 1 shot before finding a single fragment.
@aureateseigneur5317 most of the people saying this are just saying that as cope. They aren't being one or two spotted by trash mobs. Unless they didn't put anything into vigor or stupidly went into the DLC at new game plus 5 or more when they're not about that life
I agree i dont mind bosses with difficult move sets but for christ sake can i learn them without being two shot and yes i made sure to gather those scadu fragments the give you a measly boost fell like a huge waste time since nothing changed
@@SaintKinesi started the DLC on NG+ 5 and have yet to be one shot by any mob. Dudes like this are just lying lol
I do want to know, what's your health at?
My favorite is the attack combo argument. Every since bloodborne, there have been several bosses with insane combos. What did we learn since then? Parry and light roll. You can even parry the final boss of the DLC, and they even gave you a deflect tear, so it's even easier to deal with the combos. Hesitation is defeat as one crazy ass boss once said.
I think the bosses, aside from one(where it FEELS like it should be a mounted battle, but that's actually a bad idea), were actually tuned rather well. I beat it using the Poison bottles, 2h. The problem I see(as I've also spent time attempting to help people with bosses), is that most players aren't reacting to the bosses. 9/10 as soon as I enter the boss fight behind the host, they have attempted to run in to a corner, and when I inevitably pull aggro off them, they still are too skiddish to actually engage. I had so far 2 boss fights where the host was aggro rather than passive, and we actually beat the boss. COINCIDENTALLY both of those players were also the only ones I have run in to NOT using bleed builds. The DLC is pretty hard, but I can confidently say this is a player issue, not a game design issue. To go with the dance metaphor: These bosses aren't ballroom dancing, this is a samba. Get Good 💀
lol switch to bleed build is get gud i guess, so much for my double greataxe build against the last boss. All playstyles should work not the most meta
@@matthewgriffin3486 Bud in my experience the people using bleed builds have had the worst time, I used Poison. as I said the best fights I had helping people were people NOT running bleed builds.
@@redhand8836 ah may need to work on my reading comprehension
I will add that sorcery builds are just as viable as they ever were. Bosses eat comets like candies :D
I think just having the bosses flinch more would do wonders. And tone down the final boss of the DLC.
I agree I came for a final boss not a laser light show
Most of the Dlc bosses flinch easy af compared to the base game ones, I got wayyy more stance breaks in the DLC.
@@billythenarwhal1579He means flinch as in when you hit them it interrupts their attack combo. Like with Malenia etc.
I agree. Some of these bosses/enemies are way too tanky for how they look and fight.
How tf can someone NOT wearing ANY armor tank through a fucking damage based ash of war?
@@crabberdabberyeThat would just trivialize everything.
My issue with the difficulty on the DLC, even though I welcome the challenge: enemies and bosses often times feel like I'm fighting the developer instead of the monster. What do I mean by that: a LOT of combo attacks with insane poise (to stop us from staggering enemies and not engaging with their movesets), LONG combos with a lot of delayed attacks mixed in with the occasional input read combo extension and a roll catching move, on top of having a Sekiro-level of aggression while we still have basically the same defensive tools as DS1 plus a jump.
They added a new cracked tear that actually gives us Sekiro's deflects, but that lasts for only 3 minutes. If there was a way to get Sekiro's deflects until death or resting at a grace, like Malenia's Great Rune giving us the Rally mechanic from Bloodborne, the combat would feel much more enjoyable.
I envy PC players who will be able to mod in an extension on that cracked tear duration to last until death.
Sekiro tear has 5 minute duration, no boss takes more than that and you have it for full duration. It makes the game incredibly fun. You can also use it during legacy dungeons pretty much permanently usually takes less than 5 mins from grace to grace
The sekiro tear is really cool but it is definitely not an excuse for anything, you have to kill one of the fire golems for it, which most players will never bother with since they seem almost impossible to kill at first, it has a limited duration while taking up a slot, and it doesn't do posture damage so there's not much benefit for a style of combat which can be trickier at times due to the tight timing (unless it's really generous in elden ring, I'm not sure), you'd probably only use it because "it's fun".
I highly doubt they intended for any boss to be fought with the tear because of that, but I'm sure it makes the game far more enjoyable and I really hope they implement it properly in a future title, Demon Souls combat just needs to go, the jump button isn't saving us here.
@@Monnisti yeah, but I wanted it active for mini bosses as well and the world.
@@griffin4556 it doesn't excuse, not at all. I just wish we had that as an option like Malenia's Great Rune, I know that I myself would have much more fun with the DLC if I had that option: Rally plus Sekiro deflects? That's the ultimate FromSoft combat experience.
@@matheusmterra Honestly I can see this, seeing as oddly, the Fire Knights can sometimes just randomly do a deflect on you in the middle of you comboing them. Seen it happen a few times, would love it if the DLC had it's own Runes, Deflect being one of them could change ways to tackle bosses.
My biggest problem with dlc is that I don't really want to start new playthrough or ng+ as there is absolutely no way I'm spending few hours running around getting fragments just to not get oneshot right away.
It takes away something that was always very special for me with soulslikes and instantly wanting to start new playthrough with different build.
Also aggressiveness and combos of the bosses and questionable hitboxes are pretty insane
We need a boss rush mode for sure im not running around that damn open world ever again
Isn't that basically what we already do with smithing stones, golden seeds and the like?
thats the problem with the entire game, first 20 hours of gameplay you spend running around in your horse trying to make something that resembles the build you want. Thats why they need to tone down the scale and stop wasting the players time
They insane on purpose
This was my problem with them moving to an open world format. No matter what they do, repeatability will be harmed. It is too big a time investment. The only way to solve it would making exploring less useful, but then exploring would be a waste of time.
I recently fought Mr. 18 inches (for the third time total) with a frost infused light great sword, on NG+3, and it was easily the most joy I've felt in the DLC and probably Elden Ring as a whole. idk why, but sometimes the right weapon and the right boss just click, and it's then that you feel joy, not relief. also I do think Messmer is by far the most fun, well made boss of the DLC, so that helps.
also, git gud💀
There only 1 Remembrance Boss that took me more than 8 tries. The main bosses got spanked by me, with one exception; the final boss.
The last boss took me 158 tries and 6 hours. All other main bosses only killed me 24 times combined. You see the imbalance in the difficulty?
(at least 30 deaths against the last boss were before I could land a hit)
i dont actually, you rolled badly for 30 deaths, and thats about it, use the plenty of tools the game gives you, rather than bitch about difficulty.
I love playing a fast paced playstyle with lots of dodging and counter attacks. Well, there’s plenty of dodging, but no room for counter attacks. I feel like I have just as few attack opportunities as a full tanky turtle build, but with a hundred times the effort and infinitely more risk. All I can do is the occasional poke while watching the boss have all the fun.
🤷 Parry or use certain poise breaking attacks, rellana can be parried mid combos as well as mydra.
Parrying is notoriously unreliable and tedious now because you need 3 parries to get a reposte.
Rellana has a lot of good attack opportunities after she uses all her big skills - I think the main problem I have is with the final boss, who takes everything you’ve learned throughout the game and tosses it out the window. Ultimately it’s not so much an engaging fight as it is a battle of attrition. I got through it after enough practice but it just didn’t feel fun like the previous bosses and I didn’t really feel any joy in beating him. I had never parried before and ultimately learned how to parry in the final fight, so at least I gained a new skill lol
@@wafflecone6968 not all bosses rellana needs 2, mydra needs 3 but his slow swings make it annoying
spoken like ds3/bb fanboys that still havent learned proper dodge direction and spam R1 and backwards dodge all the time. guess this objectively false joseph anderson delusion still plagues you souls veterans. glad fromsoft ignored you folks and made the bosses even mroe aggressive XD
About exploration: it felt really rewarding to me. Almost every structure I could see on the map had an interesting encounter, new equipment/weapon/spell or scadootree fragment or creative interaction like a certain ruin, where the entrance was blocked by something big. I just remember one seriously didappointing chest with just smithing stones inside.
honestly I found the exploration really rewarding too. this video just made me realize the difference between myself and other people, namely that I didn't really care about what I was getting as a reward. half the time I didn't even look to the side of the screen to see what I'd gotten. I'd just picked up the shiny thing and that made me happy. if there was a shiny thing to pick up, it could've been a Smithing Stone [1] for all I cared, I'd be happy to find it and pick it up.
Bosses have (for the most part) been tuned for hyper aggressivity to stop players from using gimmicks and rely on pure gameplay skill. Obviously this is going to give some folks whiplash when they believe everyone is playing the same game of Go Fish and their opponent whips out a reverse UNO card and stabs them in the neck. I can respect this design philosophy, but it is quickly fatiguing.
I agree I'm not amazing at these games die quite alot but I need to be able to take more than 2 hits to learn. I can take out Ludwig or nameless no flasks. I literally had to cheese consort with that perfume bottle nonsense.
@@wilfredwayne7139so you're bad? Got it
@wilfredwayne7139 i have hard time undersranding people saying they get one or two shot. Ive done about 80% of the dlc and ive yet to experience this. I dont use heavy armor or anything even, just fashion as possible while getting 51 poise. I could tank full combos from bosses with 60 vigor and just medium armor, so how people get one or twoshot? I"m also playing first patch without scadu buffs
I think the game was balanced around idea that we are using strong spirit ashes.
@@Monnisti lying like a mf
I will say I completely agree that the absurdly long attack chains need to be shortened.
Honestly though, why weren't people ragging on Lies of P for doing the exact same damn thing? Because the entire endgame of Lies of P is every boss doing the same damn thing. Simon Manus, Laxasia, the secret boss. They all have attack chains that go on for a whole business day.
The difference is that they maybe have 15-20% more recovery time in between (except the secret boss, screw that thing), which is... Probably exactly what these guys need. Just extend recovery by a second each, or shorten the attack chain slightly. Maybe give them 50 more bleed resist... Although it might not even be an actual problem with them so much as the Impenetrable Thorns sorcery inexplicably printing nonsensical amounts of procs, and a few other outliers. Frost is reasonable. Rot is exactly as good as the lore says it should be on the bosses it should be good against, and nerfing it wouldn't make any sense. Honestly, I'm not sure they really need to be resistant to statuses so much as a few outliers need their overlapping hitbox nonsense looked at.
I guess you could get gud 💀... Or you could get the golem spirit or something, that guy is as nonsensically tanky as the enemy version.
İf I were the devs, I'd introduce "scadu runes" in the DLC. Basically another currency that let's you level up in the DLC area. Effectively this does the same thing as Scadutree fragments. But, changes how people approach the game. Instead of running around to find scadutree fragments, players can go to an optional dungeon kill the enemies/bosses and get stronger as result of that.
In other words, this DLC tied progression directly to exploration. In the base game progression tied to combat. That's the biggest flaw I'd say. In the base game where ever you go, you'll find enemies and by beating those enemies you can level up and get stronger. In the DLC, you can beat all the enemies in the area but get nothing out of it. This lessens the core game loop of Souls games. In DLC, you know that when you beat those incredibly strong enemies, you'll get basically nothing. This feels cheap.
I think some of the issue with the player power curve comes from players being over prepared. In my current run, my first playthrough of the dlc, I wanted to go into the DLC before burning the erdtree so i started the DLC at rl127 with only access to the first 3 smithing bells and no glovewort bells. Having a relative lack of resources made the relative impact of finding rocks and flowers as rewards for exploration far greater and always gave me singing I needed. My runes went towards levels I desperately needed and the low level stones dropped from enemies made my new weapons stronger. I scrounged every area for 7 and 8 stones to eke out every little extra piece of damage and through that process managed to find all but 3 scadutree fragments and 1 revered spirit ash naturally. I do agree that the bosses have attack chains that go on too damn long, but in my opinion the majority of bosses that do this are kinda glass cannons. I am by no means a good player of souls games, I'm mediocre at best, but after returning to the main game to get the smithing bells 4 to comfortably take on the final DLC boss and trial new weapons to see which moveset I wanted to use against the big guy I found that I could beat Fire Giant and Godskin Duo first try. The DLC made me a better player on a fundamental level. I'm even starting to learn parry timings finally, after many playthroughs of 4 different souls games and several aborted attempts at learning previously. Maybe this experience is purely due to my own skill level and the build I had (non-cheese non-optimal bleed) but I couldn't help but feel the hands of the designers guiding me throughout the DLC. All that being said, Git Gud 💀 my friends I'm off for day three of attempting the final boss.
How much time and patience do you have that you found all but three scadutree fragments NATURALLY.
@@reubendaniel5691 By the end of my first run of the DLC, I had scadu blessing level 18, and I found it just by going naturally anywhere I thought would be interesting to go.
@@reubendaniel5691 just usual gaming time. Quite a lot over the first two or three days because of weekend time, much less in the following week due to studying. Finding a fragment by killing a pot carrying person by the scorched village meant I sought them out as much as I could. As for patience, a lot I guess. Souls games in the past have greatly improved my patience for unraveling obtuse storytelling, exploring everything and practicing bosses until I succeed.
It is kind of wild that the base game hammers home "hey the posture system is very important and you should try to break enemy posture here's a sword with Square Off to start you out" and then the expansion says "not anymore lol"
Yeah, Margit was a filter boss in a way, but really he was a tutorial on how important certain things are in this game: charged heavy attacks, jump attacks, parry, and guard counters. All of which break poise and/or leave the opening for a critical attack.
True lol if you’re not using a big/colossal weapon or a good poise damaging ash of war you are just never going to be able to break posture. I was using backhand blades against messmer and it took so many charged R2s to break his stance even with the stance breaking physick tear
More like: "posture is an easy mode here take it so you don't complain"
What? I typically get multiple posture breaks per boss run and I’m just using the light greatsword.
I was using moonvail wepon art. Bosses spent half their time on their knees
Honestly some of the complaints about the difficulty are so valid. I hate how there’s so many people that are just like “shut up, it’s not that hard, you’re just weak” instead of actually hearing out these complaints and thinking WHY there are so many in the first place.
I beefed with all the remembrance bosses and honestly? It IS hard, even with all the scadutree fragments available. Fighting most bosses in the base game was incredibly satisfying because it feels like you’re given chance despite being knocked down. But it’s so hard to enjoy the DLCs bosses and learn their move sets when trying to learn feels very punishing
The reason the game floods you with upgrade materials is to address a criticism the base game had. Many people considered upgrade items so rare that they didn't feel free to experiment with weapons and builds. SOTE brought so many amazing new weapons spells and incantations that it's only logical from software wouldn't want you to be limited especially with how much the different bosses encourage different play styles. They are indirectly telling you to experiment.
"The problem, as they say, is freedom." With all of the things that you can level up--things that can drastically alter the way you play--it creates significant design problems that are impossible to solve for every build and playstyle. I don't even think it's the weapons and the playstyles themselves that are the issues, so much as all of the other things surrounding them (like you mentioned, the buff/debuffs, the ashes, the summoning ashes, the consumable variety, the scaling freedom, etc).
It's all led exactly to where you said, where the only difficulty that can be divined out of this freedom is by "denying" people from playing with them by speed, lack of stagger, movement reaction, insane health pools, lengthy combo strings, and attacks with minimal avoidance zones. It's the inevitable, logical conclusion to this system if they keep trying to increase the difficulty. There exists such a thing as too much freedom.
As much as Bloodborne is my favorite FromSoft game, and I really do love Elden Ring's build variety, I think I prefer Sekiro's combat more out of any FromSoft game specifically because of how challenging and rewarding it is. I know others might not agree, but I would prefer if FromSoft started to veer more into the route of Sekiro, much like how Lies of P found a way to incorporate Sekiro into their weapon/class RPG system.
Also, I think the Scadu Tree Fragment progression issue could have been solved if they had just used Shadow Realm Runes to level up in the Shadow Realm specifically, exactly how the leveling system works with normal Runes. The problem I think isn't the Scadu Tree Fragment scaling, so much as it's the presentation and the perception of how it works that's really messing with people.
If it had been explained via lore that we are weak in the Realm of Shadow due to being outside the influence of the Erdtree and its grace, it would signal to the player that they need to stock up on the Shadow Realm Runes which already exist, and must use those to bolster ourselves in this new land beyond the Erdtree's grace. These runes already exist, and instead of the limited Scadu Fragments we get, they could've made finding runes way more exciting because the progression would feel similar to what everyone was used to.
Hell, the Scadu Fragments could've been used instead of Smithing Stones to bolster our weapons, with a lore reason or something being that our weapons, not forged in Shadow, lack the strength/edge necessary to deal with the threats of this land. That would solve people's perception about getting so many smithing stones.
I think SotE was a massive improvement over Elden Ring in most cases, but FromSoft still has some hangups from Elden Ring that have been made way more apparent here.
Great ideas.
100% agree with Sekiro being the best From combat, I would love to see more games like Sekiro. I absolutely love all their games, but for me it goes, Sekiro>Elden Ring>Bloodborne>Dark Souls Trilogy. I believe we WILL see more games similar in vein to Sekiro, as Myazki himself said recently that he believes they could t that they could take it up a notch from Sekiro, I believe that’s a hint at a new game to come. And that statement gets me soooo excited!
I had the same idea, that simply explaining to people, via the lore and NPCs, that this land is different and we need new runes/fragments to be stronger in this land would immediately signal to the player their importance, and explain why we at times are destroyed by trash mobs.
Great ideas on a specific "Shadow realm level" system with shadow runes and fragments to bolster weapons, I thought of the same thing about upgrading weapons with something else in this realm with some kind of lore implication , the forges would be great for this.
Git gud 💀
But you know what, I am unapologetically the type of person to wait for an update to Carian combo warriors and enjoy my power fantasy. I know that's the kind of talk to get the anonymous public to feel some way, but screw it, I'm an 80's born millennial that so far believes does a good job leading a reduced stress life. Don't need this flavor of 1's and 0's to disturb that, there are other options to challenge that particular fulfillment. I'm happy for those deadset on the vanilla experience though and have no problem watching a ZeroLenny video.
I don’t see why they couldn’t just replace all those utterly useless gloveworts and low level smithing stones with runes, rune arcs and MORE dragon smithing stones…why tf are there so little? At least give us items that have a use, even if it’s small. Not completely worthless like smithing stone 3 or some shit
I went into the DLC at NG+. The developers most certainly intended to utilise all the resources available to the player. I exploited the L2s from Death's Poker and Envoy's Long Horn at the start, but Messmer and Scadutree Avatar have challenged these strategies and I have to think of others. Frustrating? Yes. Humiliating? Somewhat. Will I persevere? Oh yes ...
Your video was very insightful, and i feel like i understand the complaints a lot more now. Most of these things didn't affect my personal enjoyment of the game in any negative way, and i didn't feel less incentivised to explore at all, but i do recognize that the reasons people play these games vastly differ. One of the great things about Elden Ring was how it was able to accomodate such a wide range of players, while not losing, or compromising on it's identity as a souls game, where the dlc seems to cater to more specific audiences.
I'm just glad they helped smooth out the early game. My personal big issue was the huge jump in frag lvl from bosses to enemies.
Especially coupling in how caves/dungeons aren't marked when you clear them, it got aggravating warping g around to find places I randomly beat way too early or early game places I'm doing b4 miquella
Can you explain how spells, mimic tear and high poise damage crutches have been removed from the dlc? Ive only done the first 2 bosses but I didnt see how these things would be less effective (I didnt use any of spells unless you count a lightning buff on my sword vs rennala 2 because shes stood in water, so its hard to see for this one). I certainly found myself able to still use summons, I love throwing latenna down in a corner because she increases my dps wihout fucking with my boss agro, and only once or twice did the boss rush me down before I could pull that off. And I also still found it fairly reasonable to stance break, I was using the m'lady and still got multiple staggers per battle, but maybe thats because latenna is very good at stopping stance damage decay.
They are not, they are still perfectly viable. Also these are not crutches, just normal part of the game From Soft wants you to use, as even Miyazaki just said openly.
I agree with this. If From shortens enemy combo strings, gets rid of the awkward delayed attacks that try to throw off your dodge roll timing, and reduce the amount of AOE bombs combat would be a lot better.
Honestly my biggest issue with the DLC is they balanced entirely for the high damage builds that come with strength and overall ooga booga stuff.
It's really disheartening that the Milady for instance is very fun to use, but dex builds suck, because you'll be fighting a tedious boss that takes a strength build user 5-10 minutes
Im not the best soul gamer but i searched for the new level system items before i fought and any boss and came in deleting every boss.
After getting my butt handed to me by Rellana again and again I went out and gathered half the Scadutree Fragments in the game and came back at blessing lv10 and had a much easier time.
Even took me through half the DLC.
Sadly once u go there then there is no back. The fragments significantly boost your power. Makes some bosses again vulnurable to trading hits.
Why ppl dropped their shields? ER puts emphasis in blocking. Raise (ye shields,) ye tarnished! Enemies with long strings becomes a joke.
Stop trying to dodge/jump everything and block. Stop using talismans that gives you offensive buffs and invest in defensive/resistance buffs instead. Honestly it's not that bad if just stand still and block with your tower shields. Bleed is not the answer to everything.
Yeah. I use a str faith build and while I don't use a shield often due to using big weapons, I offset that by using the defensive talismans, and I think a lot of people forget the talismans give a a decent percentage of defense that stacks with all other defense boosts. The +1 flamedrake talisman at vigor 60 and level 6 scadu blessing now doesn't even get one tapped by the wickermen, and still leave some with 20% hp, and their stomps three shot. I'm not wearing heavy armor either to offset damage even more, but its a comfortable amount to fight the wickemen. and for other bosses its easier to optimize for taking less damage.
Claymore + Greatshield chads just keep winning
Yea had to do this and im glad i did i got poke the final boss to death
Coz it’s not fun lol. I feel bored with shields. And I’ve been using shields through DLC and beat it. It’s not fun at all, I wanna use the leaf arts instead but I can’t beat it without a shield.
@@johndotcue bored!? blocking hits and getting a nice r2 is the best feeling in the entire game better then rolling like an idiot for 2 minutes straight while the boss does its never ending combo
I would say exploration was the most rewarding part. Mostly because of scudletree stuff hidden all over the place.
Reason why smithing stones are useless is because farming souls is too easy. If it was not ash of war vs albinaurics easy - those would still be really valuable
I think the issue of caves and catacombs being useless on subsequent runs because you know if you want or need the loot from it is a big replay killer. However, when I did a couple randomizer runs every area was important again.
I “crafted my build” for PvP. It’s a keen Flamberge (little bit of bleed pressure, but not the focus) supplemented with electrify weapon (a suitable but fair buff) and golden vow. The ash is Thunderbolt, for the heal punish (I force honor duels, I do not care that you want to save your summon). I have 67 poise, 50 vig (those last 200 hp for 10 levels isn’t my tea) and the 60 Dex to get some damage out. This is a COMPLETE 125 level build that has trade potential. I found very few enemies respected my damage and stagger output. I usually use smaller weapons like daggers, because I value tiny openings and lighter loads very much, but strength bois have it easy, let’s be honest. Each and every boss took all my buffs, available scadur blessings, a summon (I choose not to mimic, you do you), and dumb luck. I am still not done, but I will say, as a souls vet with DS 1, 2, 3, and Bloodborne under my belt. Elden ring is just hard, unintuitive, and unwilling to play by turn. Your shield will break, your roll caught, your spell dodged, your damage out-matched. It can “be learned”, but I do not believe it can be done alone. I accept the coming git gud 💀comments. I am your martyr, farm me for your hearts. Stand strong and don’t you dare go hollow.
The last boss had quite a few attacks. I fully thought I should be able to jump, and they all still did damage to me or ripped me out of the air. So many bosses punished me for trying to exploit the end of their perceived combo. At some point it became tiring to even want to figure out the bosses because it was so punishing and unintuitive. The dance of combat felt more like dancing against a professional, and they're constantly trying to upstage you every picosecond.
I was so unsatisfied by the end of the DLC. I was happy it was over by the end.
Great points and very eloquently put! I wonder if a solution to both the scadutree fragment problem and the anti-rocket boots bosses problem can be solved by giving players new tools in the toolbox for the DLC?
For example the deflecting hardtear has received a lot of praise for changing the way the game can be played, if they're able to tie obtaining such game changing tools with scadutree fragments instead of it giving a flat stat bonus it could make the DLC progression system much clearer and intuitive to the players.
Imagine a skill tree system to unlock the deflecting ability with scadutree fragments, or a shop that sells it for fragments. The tough part is making enough of these tools to cater to varied playstyles of players while making sure specific combinations of these don't break the game all over again, but it also frees up space for brand new boss designs.
Lastly, git gud 💀
That's starting to sound like Nioh 2 lol (which is good in my book), but i personally would have went with a 5th talisman slot where new playstyle defining options, like deflect, could have been implemented without having to worry about broken thing + broken thing trivializing the entire expansion or affecting boss design all that much.
I must say, while I do appreciate that the video considers most of the complaints and reasons why the game feels hard, I have to disagree with your conclusions.
It doesn't feel bad because "cheeses" or crutches have been taken away, it feels bad because a game that previously embraced variety now punishes it.
You say the bosses "let you" win because they don't spam the garbage nova attacks where they're invincible and it can have one-shot potential, or even just huge damage. But the real issue is that those attacks exist at all.
You're saying it doesn't feel good or it's a bother because the bosses have been reduced down to a series of attacks you must dodge precisely or quickly die, but argue that it isn't difficult, but that's literally the definition of difficulty. The expectation to perform a precise series of actions either perfectly or close to it. The entire genre of rhythm games is built upon that premise, because they are 100% skill with rarely any tactics or options. It's just git gud or lose.
You've heard the complaints but not properly rationalized their intent. The game wants you to play its way, wants you to do it perfectly, and has ways to punish you regardless. I would call that difficult.
TL;DR: It just kinda feels bad man.
Asmon is a perfect example of creating his own frustration. Ignores all the tutorials, refuses to engage with the mechanics, refuses to adjust playstyle, then when the same thing that hasnt worked 100 times before he blames the game.
I mean, how something "feels" directly impacts the difficulty of something. I don't think it makes sense to distinguish between how difficult something feels, and difficult it "actually" is.
Yeah, if someone punches me, feeling like it hurt doesn’t diminish the reality that it hurts.
What? That's absolutely not true. I've known many people in my life that perceived things to be far more difficult than they actually were, and once they were shown how to do it correctly, no longer felt it was difficult
Yes it absolutely makes sense. If I’m constantly making shitty decisions I’m gonna feel like it’s harder than it is, but that’s not worth talking about because I just suck at that point
@@smitty215able That's not an apt example. Because once you have given them new knowledge, and a new way to tackle an obstacle, their feeling is gonna change in proportion to the "actual" difficulty (should it exist)
@@smitty215able difficulty is subjective. I’ve known people who’ve tried Elden ring literal hundreds of times and can’t clear it. Just because some people have the capacity to get better and some are naturally skilled doesn’t somehow negate that for others, it’s a strenuously difficult task. Additionally, just because they got better doesn’t negate the fact that, at one point, it was difficult in both terms of their perception and their reality.
(This got way longer than intended, sorry. It's not a "get good" rant, I promise, but it is mostly a disagreement/discussion of proposals.)
Personally? I felt rewarded by exploration almost all the time. Aside from a few spaces that were basically just scenery (which is its own reward, of sorts), I pretty much either found something interesting or something useful wherever I went. I ended up with at least 5 different future character builds to try with gear I found that wasn't immediately useful for the character I was playing, but definitely wanted to try later, and the scadutree/ash blessing materials are all over the place. I thought exploration was amazing in the DLC.
The smithing stones (less so the glovewort) are also useful for characters that aren't into the post-Leyndell game yet. You can go to the DLC very early, and having upgrade materials all over the place enables you to basically stay there rather than force you to go back and progress through the main game on that character just to upgrade your weapons. The base game also has a lot of "useless" items all over the place that you might want in your first playthrough for completionism's sake, and on subsequent playthroughs you'll probably remember to ignore that side path because you don't need what's in it. I wouldn't say the DLC map is any different in that respect.
The fragments and revered ashes are basically just DLC upgrade materials, and you can treat them the same way you do smithing stones and gravewort: rush them to get overpowered early, get them as you go to build up naturally, ignore them if you feel like you don't need the boost, etc. I think it's a great improvement over their previous DLC which, by comparison, endgame builds often WOULD just immediately steamroll. This progression system (the original one; the updated version is kinda...too strong too fast, I'd say, although it does mean you can get by while finding fewer fragments if you don't enjoy the map exploration) gives the DLC content a better sense of pace than, say, Ashes of Ariandel and the Ringed City, which you can basically boss-rush and be done with in no time if you're already 120+ when you enter them.
For your progression suggestion: I don't think player perception will change, and it wouldn't change the exploration issue if you think there is one, since the fragments would be new smithing stones instead. You'd still have to go out and find them if you can't deal with the current wall in front of you, and if you didn't get enough damage (and introduce an armor upgrade system to increase the defenses, which the blessing also does, to compensate for enemies having higher damage output?), you'd still feel like it's too hard, unfair, etc. This version of the system also wouldn't work at all for characters coming into it early, because if your weapon isn't already +25, you wouldn't be able to use the stones to bring it to +26 until you collected enough to get there, which would mean either doing extra DLC exploration to find all the lower-tier stones in it before you can even get to the DLC-tier progression level, or going back to vanilla before you can play more DLC content. Neither is as clean as just having the parallel progression track available to everyone at every level immediately upon entry to the DLC.
Maybe I just wasn't using enough cheese (not out of elitism or anything, I just didn't want to build that way), but I'm honestly not sure what you're talking about when it comes to "tools being taken away." Infinite Comet Azur deletion is definitely off the table, and frankly some fights seem like they must be maddening as a pure caster, but then, I've never been good at playing pure caster, so maybe I'm just bad at the required tactics for it. My first full run of the DLC was done with a Milady mainhand (Wing Stance), Smithscript Daggers offhand, and good old Mimic Tear to draw aggro, for almost the entirety of the run. No new or extra gimmicks required, no min/maxing strats. The only exception was the very last boss which...yeah. Yeah, that one is way over the top. Point being, I didn't get the impression most of the DLC content "countered" anything new or specific. Tools weren't taken away. You're just climbing a more difficult mountain and your tools need more careful usage to work (and finding an abundance of blessings helps to soften the harsh weather up there).
Related aside: I can't say I noticed most enemies, even bosses, being significantly harder to stagger *if you hit them consistently and hard enough,* but the sometimes ridiculous aggression/small windows to attack make it harder to do that consistent damage to get the stagger. Your fire knight spin example, for instance: jumping powerstanced/heavy attacks with at least a greatsword staggered that guy every time for me, and three powerstanced jumps (maybe two on a two-handed heavier weapon than my second run was using) opened him up for a crit. Seemed pretty normal. The Horned Warriors are the notable exception: I don't think I saw one of those even get poise-broken, much less stance-broken for a crit, in both playthroughs I've done so far. As far as I can tell they're just immune to stagger altogether, so I focus on either doing maximum dps or safe attacks instead and just assume their attack patterns won't be interrupted by anything I do.
This video seems like it only approaches from the perspective of "how does the DLC feel going into it with a fully completed vanilla character that isn't interested in any of the options raised by new content", in which case I could see how it might come across as a bit bland, sure. To anyone not locked into a predetermined mindset of what is "better," however, it presents a number of new options, some of which are very strong indeed, others simply interesting or different (currently building a perfumer/archer that feels very different from anything I've tried before). I think it would be incorrect to cater to a purely perspective-based overreaction to new things, especially when it's only been out for a week. Give players a little time to get used to the new system, and for speedrunners and the like to post the new exploits and strats for players who rely on that content to absorb and incorporate, and I expect the fussing will die down without the need for many changes.
(Really though that last boss, good lord, put a friggin' epilepsy warning on their fog gate or something, FromSoft. What the heck.)
Regarding your first point mention a single worthy reward in rouh base? Litteraly nothing there beyond a fee runes the back section is just empty.
The abyssal forest was empty af as well but at least it has a gimic. Cerulean cost has a few items, but their location is so obvious they have to be gloveworts, etc.
The river areas server as nothing but long loading screens with the occasional horse platforming.
Exploration seems nice untill you pay attention and see your reward is runes or upgrade materials you don't need
This is the only good argument and response in this comment section.
I can't agree enough with basically everything.
I want to just also put it out there that exploration does indeed feel rewarding. There's some areas that do have less in them, but they still have their own worth depending on who you are and what you need, or even as OP said, scenery, sometimes lore.
Also, Horned Warriors do get staggered. Dual Colossal weapons jumping powerstance gets them there eventually. I can't remember at the top of my head how many, but it's possible.
@@jamesn0va Rauh base? You mean one of the regions I want to reach ASAP on any build for The Poison Flower Blooms Twice? The area with a catacomb that has Knight's Lightning Spear for faith nuke builds and the Death Knight Longhaft Axe to further support that faith build with stylish melee options?
You're right, can't think of anything there. My bad.
Abyssal forest is tense as hell on first playthrough, and I'm not going to explain why in case anyone who hasn't been there yet is reading this. It has some interesting items for madness if you're into that, though since that's basically a pvp-only status I've never really cared much about it (I prefer builds that perform well in both pve and pvp), but the fun of exploration there is the area itself more than the gear you can find in it, I'd say. On second playthrough, eh, it's whatever, I'll probably never go back there because I don't need madness stuff, but I can say that about so many things in vanilla ER, too.
You nailed one key issue ablut this DLC that I think bugs people the most: it feels annoying. Fighting the bosses and some of the regular enemies is ANNOYING. The you don't overcome a challenging fight, you overcome an annoying one. I can see what i need to learn to beat X boss, i just can't be bothered, they escalated to the point of being boring and obnoxious
I have some different ideas for how to fix the difficulty problem or generally improve the DLC experience:
1. Introduce an infinite larval tear source into the DLC.
This would incentivize players to change their build depending on the boss they are facing, which also allows them to try out all the weapons they have access to at this point, assuming the DLC remains a late-game thing. For example, one could introduce a trader towards the beginning of the DLC which sells infinite larval tears for a pretty steep price. You would still have to grind for them, but they allow you to change up your build for any difficult boss. This both makes the bosses easier, since you can tailor your build to any specific boss, and simultaneously embraces the build variety which makes Elden Ring stand out as a Souls Game.
2. Add a new spirit ash which does not attack enemies, but passively buffs your melee weapon (or staff) when spawned.
Many players who are complaining about the DLC being too difficult are too proud to use 'normal' spirit ashes, which I understand. As you correctly stated, the developers reasonably assume players to use every tool they are given. Having a spirit ash which does not distract the bosses attention, and is essentially only buffing yourself but never directly interacting with the boss, would allow these players to keep their pride while not making it too difficult for them. Perhaps, instead of making this a distinct new spirit ash, one might just create an item which buffs you during a boss fight but prevents you from spawning spirits.
Let me know what you guys think about these improvements :)
From should've set the dlc difficulty to be as if it were an area after Farum or at least Mohg's palace. If a player goes in there with a maxed level character, that's their choice. But someone with a new character on a new save should experience natural progression with the dlc.
I kind of think that's what they did. The difficulty is pretty much like the late game
You need to kill Mogh to get into DLC at all and it's scaled like final arenas of the game, so I don't get what you are talking about.
People dont play souls cause its hard. That i truly believe is a misconception. Ds2 was obnoxious difficult and nobody recommends it and very few like it. Most of that game is hard for the sake of being hard.
People truly play cause they are great games.
If everyboss takes every pro 100 tries imma go ahead and say it was too hard.
But honestly i think wat screwed it was the system lf collecting items to get stronger. Most are clueless about that and its purpose i guarantee was to give everybody an even experience no matter level.
To make it re hard again. Also summons. Use them 🤣 it can be done solo but why? To prove you can learn a set of moves? Nobody cares how good you are i assure you lol.
They aren’t playing it for the story that for damn sure😂😂 there is no story
We're playing for the feels. For the zweihaender that carried us for 13 years.
Heres the benefit of this DLC progression system: you NEVER feel like you’re grinding or being pressuring into farming. With many players already spending hundreds of hours in Elden Ring it’s a breath of fresh air (to me at least). Just go see all the stuff and fight all the things. Maybe I change course for a bit but I’m never grinding. I haven’t fought any of the major bosses yet but several of the smaller ones. So far they feel on par with endgame difficulty. If I struggled on one briefly it’s been because I needed to change my tactics and gear.
I'm not sure I agree honestly. I've been playing without summons this whole time, and I felt like the difficulty was completely reasonable up until the final boss and were plenty fun. They have some long combos and fast attacks, but it is absolutely not required to play completely passively and dodge for 20 minutes waiting for an opening. Those "ultimate moves" that they could in theory just spam forever are often actually rather easy to dodge, they just look flashy and leave them vulnerable, it's not really that they're "letting you win." Spoilers for the final boss below:
The final boss in particular has some questionable design with the readability of attacks but after learning the fight, even he actually allows a ton of aggression. For example, that overhead-slash-slash-overhead-rock explosion attack? You can fit in a guard counter in the middle of it with the deflecting tear *and* get an a charged R2 during the recovery. There's actually a surprising number of attacks you can fit in a charged heavy immediately before or after. It died for days on the boss by doing purely jump attacks when it was completely safe, but when I actually switched to being aggressive, I could consistently posture break him and beat phase 1 in less than a minute. Phase 2 was... less consistent but I could still get a posture break eventually.
I kinda agree; with Putrescent Knight, Romina and, Messmer, it really feels like I won because the CPU threw me a bone, instead of spamming their arena-covering, 7 swing,1-hit kill, homing, combo.
I've been thinking about the DLC a lot the past few days, and I beat it and honestly... I think I hate it.
Scadutree fragments directly effecting defenses was a mistake it should have been something else (I think maybe healing or something would have been better to make it feel less required, 50% damage reduction is actually so stupid).
I beat the bosses in only a few tries but frankly I hated a lot of them, I'll be honest I never want to fight several of them ever again. The problem is I love the regions, I love the aesthetics and it feels if the bosses and progression didn't feel bad to me it would be a 10/10. I WANT THIS TO BE A 10/10. I'm just so sad, it feels like such a shitty send off to me. Maybe I'm alone, maybe people will say I'm a baby and I should get good or whatever, but no one can change how I feel at this point. I hate this all more because it feels like there could have been something great in here, but its clearly not for me, even though I played the base game for 600 hours and I'm going to touch this DLC for maybe 25 and never go back.
Replaying the DLC just sort of reminds me of HAVING to find Scadutree fragments to make the bosses more reasonable just feels like shit. If I could get a refund I would because I'm very close to never wanting to engage with the DLC ever again.
Edit: I hadn't finished the entirety of your video, but you said the following, and forgive me if I get a little wrong here: Mimic tear, high poise damage, hyper armor abilities are a crutch and they are gone. I've played through the DLC twice and the easiest time I had was a dude spamming the hell out of lion's claw. Almost no boss has any answer to a guy that can't be stopped with a mimic tear that cant be stopped smashing their head in. I would go as far as to say it is in fact the EASIEST way to beat every boss except the last one because you can just tank through it with enough scadutree upgrades without issue at all.
This is the closest i've seen someone's feeling towards this dlc to be as close as mine. Aside of mesmer, sunflower and midra. All the bosses were a big disappointment. Difficulty not really being an issue, finished my first playthrough with scadlvl 16 and dmge/def felt fine, But the agression and camera made everything much worse.
@@jranjos2no offense, but spoken like ds3/bb fanboys that still havent learned proper dodge direction and spam R1 and backwards dodge all the time. the aggression is what makes them great once you learn proper dodge direction, and didnt have a single camera issue, not even in the hippo fight, i just stuck to the middle of the arena and was fine.
@flamingmanure never played bloodborne, did ds3 and sekiro. Not really a fanboy of anything. Thats just how I felt even after beating the game. I play on pc keyboard and mouse, maybe it's different for controller/console. But camera and monitor issues were common in all 3 fromsoft games I played. Also rolling in specific directions was never the issue. Managed to kill everything once I stopped locking target for bosses. The game is still fun, just disappointing at the same time.
I feel like people are not playing elden ring, they're playing DS3. I love DS3 but that game was heavily criticised for its lacklustre build options basically being an R1 spam and dodge roll spam game. Now in elden ring there are more options and creative build opportunities than ever with all major builds not only being viable but incredibly powerful if you utilise all the tools the game gives you such as talismans the physic buffs and so on. And yet when for years people have been belittling and making fun of people that use these "cheese" mechanics and use the same strength build they've used since demons souls (what i mean by they're still playing DS3) despite the fact the enemy and boss design has been evolving with the vast amount of powerful tools players now have access to create cool interesting builds and engage with an open world RPG with an emphasise of personal experience, They complain its too hard because their ego only allows them to scratch the surface and the potential this game offers. I saw someone kill radahn in 2 hits. thats not "cheese" or a "crutch" thats using the items and tools they found from exploring to be creative and combine put together a huge burst of damage using the new perfume weapon rewarding individual experimentation and exploration with great results. plus this is a PVE game mostly and if someone wants to be overpowered they can. Miyazaki has absolutely killed it with how he's handled difficulty without destroying the game and what makes this series special by not adding an easy mode but allowing for an extremely easy experience for those who engage with the tools found through explorations to tailor the game to their own experience.
When Elden Ring first came out, I spent like an hour riding around Liurnia trying to find a way up to the Moonlight Altar area. I gave up and got there in the end through a quest. It wasn't an experience I particularly enjoyed to be honest, and the entire SotE map is basically this. Like I wanted to go find map fragments before exploring more, but over and over again every time I found a new area that I thought might finally have a path to the map fragment, it wasn't. I ended up looking up how to find them because I got so sick of it. The ONE time I felt like it was ok I still couldn't get to it was when I stumbled across St Trina's area. Other than that, I never found anything that made me glad I'd at least taken the journey, I just felt like I'd wasted more time.
But once I checked out the guides and opened up the world, I started having a lot more fun riding around and finding stuff. I really hated the way the game was sort of playing 'keep away' with the map fragments, but aside from that I had a good experience with it. Exploration is kind of a one time thing, and wasn't my favourite part of the base game, so it's not a huge deal if the dlc fumbles in that area. But man did it fumble
I greatly disagree with people's issue with the crafting and upgrade mats. Technically they can be infinite by then provided you collected the bell bearings. However you still have to grind runes to buy them. And it takes quite a few of each type.
Considering how many new weapons are in the dlc, that's a ton of grinding just to try out new gear. Putting the upgrade stones all over cuts way way down on grinding, let's me spend my runes elsewhere, and keeps my time more focused on exploration and experimentation. The things that make the base game so fun.
I think you nailed it... I already beat the DLC and I still have no idea what the Scadutree Fragment and Revered Ashes system was?
Why didn't they just baseline all of the DLC bosses strength to match a LEVEL 150 build? That's a fair number to level up to in the base game, before exploring the DLC. You would be exploring the new world anyway, to find the bosses and dungeons. Bloodborne (still the best DLC ever) didn't have a totally new upgrade mechanic...?
I think they did It because in Elden ring it's much easier to reach High levels even without going into High tier NG+
Previous games were smaller so the average levels an endgame player reached were probably lower
I think the reason they might've not stopped Bleed from being useful in the DLC might be because of where the entrance is placed, right after Mohg
in Mohgwyn Palace you would've just gotten Swarm of Flies and Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear and/or Bloodboon. it's very much the area that gives you a bunch of Bleed toys. then in the DLC itself one of your greatest allies is a Pureblood Knight equipped with a bleed weapon and a bloodflame incantation. if a new player was to start the game now it'd basically be seen as the area where you now get to play around with all your new Bleed toys
You can literally get stronger in SOTE just by wandering around and finding fragments. 0 fighting
As always Mugthief, you give such a detailed, objective analysis of the game and how to better play and enjoy the game, whilst highlighting what could have been done better, and what people are reacting to. Thank you. Get gud 💀
Great well thought out video!
I personally believe that the extra ammpunt of gloveworts and smithing stone is meant to facilitate buildcrafting with the many new items they added, though i have to admit i think maybe they should just provide ancient variants only since the rest is easily purchasable in the base game
I also agree with the over agressiveness of bosses, thought i've yet to face all of the bosses, I've seen several that genuinely made me feel
"Ok im going to cheese, idc anymore, this needs to die"
Or
"Im not in control over that situation at all, that was pure luck"
I actually disagree with what you propose as a solution. I think it would honestly make things a lot worse. The system they've implemented seems really fine to me.
For me personally the base game when it came out felt quite a lot more difficult and frustrating than the DLC ever did.
All the areas in the DLC were amazing to explore and felt just the right difficulty and I felt the same way about the bosses. Never got "stuck" on a boss for more than 20 attempts without any summons and I'm an average skilled player.
The damage the bosses did to me was actually less than what fire giant or Maliketh did in the base game. People simply don't want to explore and use the progression system presented to them. They expect that everything is just basically at the lvl of Farum Azula and stay the same.
I really enjoyed this DLC and felt like everything was really fair in terms of difficulty and progression.
I honestly hate the scadu blessings mechanic, mainly because it's supposed to be the DLCs version of collecting Golden seeds and sacred tears but at least those items were always in specific locations that can be seen from a distance (baby erdtrees and Marika Church. Scadu blessings at the crosses are good but the ones that are tucked away in crevices and dropped by certain field enemies is dumb, especially on repeat playthroughs
2:40 I would say most of the time I explored I was rewarded for it. Like 80% of the time. I found most of the areas in the game by myself. I think there was just one that I missed because I thought I had already gone down a specific path.
Same bro finding most of the remembrance bosses, weapons and ash of wars, and secrets areas from just going in a random catacombs had me in awe.
Right, 100% agree, even if I found items that weren’t that special, the journeys WAS special,such a beautiful world crafted with so much care and love, and man to think they made this dlc in just a few years or less, is astonishing. How long did it take for Nintendo to make BOTW 1.5? Like 6 years? Fromsoft is a beast, and always has my $.
I love how they bullied asmondgold to beating the game😂😂 the souls community is toxic as hell
You're not allowed to criticize the game. If you do, you get personal insults thrown at you. They attack you while attacking your argument. 😅
I WANT to explore, but i want to explore to find scadutree fragments, because I already have a build that works for me. And yet, almost everytime i go explore on my own without a guide, I just find anything except scadutree fragments. Yes I know to look for any statues of Marika and churches and some of the pot-holding enemies, but still I never find them without a guide and that is definitely discouraging.
Agree 100%. They should make them easier to find and easier to differentiate from regular loot
I am someone who beat the entire DLC on NG+4 and here's my biggest takeaway on the difficulty argument:
I feel like this DLC really reflected the issue with Elden Ring's design as a whole. The idea that the player can break the game has essentially become what the game is balanced around. I am replaying the entire game on a fresh save without utilizing any of the major "broken" builds (Magic/Summons/Bleed/etc) and the game feels infinitely less fairly designed this way. Going into the DLC knowing to collect the scadutree fragments isn't enough, they feel so intangible as a buff and I am still going into fights getting 2 shot with no radagon soreseal (or any damage-raising equipment) and the best dragoncrest medallion in the game to further reduce damage. I remember people having major issues with the final segment of ER's base game when it first released, and it feels like the DLC has taken that issue and made it even worse with the pure damage bloat these bosses have.
I also believe the fact Rellana is the first boss for many people is a horrendous choice to make on fromsoft's part. The boss is like Pontiff Sulivan who is a SERIOUS run killer in DS3. Extremely long and varying combos, extremely fast gap close, projectiles if you try to stay away, this boss feels like it wasn't designed around fighting her fair whatsoever. Anyone who goes into Elden Ring without summons, even with one of the overpowered builds, is still gonna feel like they're fighting a brick wall since it really feels like these bosses weren't designed for 1 person to be aggroed on anymore.
I love this game but I absolutely want Fromsoft to tone down the difficulty. The fact I cannot fight a boss without feeling I have to resort to either hours of grinding miscellaneous random items all across the map or to just popping a summon and using one of the overpowered tools at my disposal results in a very unsatisfying gameplay loop. Midra is one of my favorite bosses in all of souls 1v1, and when I tried fighting him with the summons and a bleed weapon he instantly stopped being fun and I felt extremely unsatisfied beating him. I want From to go back to more of the DS3 boss design, where bosses feel like a fairly executed dance between you and the boss itself throughout the entire game while maintaining difficulty and allowing for players that "break" the game to just invalidate them, as for the regular player, that isn't going to be fun.
I think after 2 years, some people went into the dlc with a max level character on ng +7. If your levels don't matter and you missed 7 sets of scadutrees, your character's gonna get steam rolled.
I don’t think scadutrees stack on each playthrough, once you get to plus 20 that’s it you can only level up your stats through ruins.
Nah, I switched off my ng character. Found it pointless too grind with a weakling.
Past FS games had been characterized being difficult but fair. One way is that difficult boss usually have weaker enemies in the area. While more difficult enemies in the area will have less difficult boss. DLC have difficult regular enemies throughout all areas. It is not issue of being difficult, rather it becomes annoying.
If is one thing fighting boss ten or twenty times. It is annoying when equipped with knowledge of area map and placement of enemies, yet still killed by regular enemies. If it ended up players simply ride through the area to boss and ignoring most enemies, the game become horse ride simulator.
I went with a new character, did the mandatory Radahn and took Varre's quest to get to Moghwyn early, and aside from entering the DLC too early, (lvl 60 or so, first boss and the way there gave me like 8 level ups), this feels like the intended experience and it's great.
I don't have the bell bearings as a result, so getting 8 smithing stone [7] feels like a godsend, level ups feel very impactful, especially as I'm still getting 2 or so per boss, and the side-grades in weapons and talismans are just that, an alternative progression in my case since i dont have Farum Azula, mountain peak or even Leyndell. Feels great to use a light greatsword for a change.
Only real issue is that I lack one talisman slot and my estus flask is a bit behind, and of course returning to the main game afterwards is gonna be a cakewalk
Remember in Dark Souls 3, where everyone went crazy over the final boss having a 5 Swing Combo. "That's crazy from, how could you put in a 5 swing combo. sure, it looks awesome but I have to get out of the way of 5 swings?"
They took that 1 ability and made half the DLC out of it. The moon slam attack on Relanna is basically a quick time event without the button prompts. Press A 3 times or you gotta start from the last checkpoint.
Good god, there's just no satisfying you lot. People used to bitch ER was the easiest fromsoft game, THEN they make the game harder and different group complaint.
I can understand if fromsoft just chose to design the game with their vision instead. A game for everyone is a game for no one.
I just want a new Adventures of Cookie and Cream game.
people didn't just say that elden ring is the easiest game. Elden ring is simultaneously one of the easiest and hardest souls game. Elden ring is the easiest because it doesn't have skill checks, DS3 hits you with a skill check in the tutorial boss, bloodborne hits you with a skill check on the first boss. Elden ring doesn't have any moments that force you to lock in and learn a boss fight or the game mechanics. elden ring teaches you that if you ever meet resistance, you should leave and come back when youre stronger or found one of the many tools you can cheese the game with. Elden ring ultimately teaches you to use every tool at your disposal. Elden ring is also the hardest game because if you dont want to use all the tools and basically play like its ds3 still, youre gonna have a god awful time. The reason people came into the game still playing like ds3 is because your character has essentialy the same abilities as you had back in ds3, the only new ability we got as players is jumping.
@@corbinhauser7758 very true
People think its too hard because they steamrolled the game with sword of night and flame rivers of blood etc and this dlc makes that much harder
On point
No bragging but with Backhandswords I found almost to every attack of radhan an oppening.
I beat him after several times in the most Assassins like way you could imagine.
This was for me one of my best experiences.
Most bosses in Elden Ring u could trade of some hits without getting punished. But radhan just needs perfect timing.
Also in my opinion Summons are bait and will make it harder to dodge the patterns if u don't know them good enough.
Simply said. Get good. I would like to see another boss like radhan in the next game.
What tipped the scales for me on this whole debacle was seeing Cr1tikal struggle for FIVE HOURS on the final boss, visibly stressed and frustrated about it, then releasing a video clowning on Asmongold for saying that it's simply too hard to be fun. I mean, if your idea of fun is stressing yourself out for multiple hours just to beat a video-game boss, go ahead, but to me it really seems that a lot of the community basically crafted their identity on being someone that plays these hard, impossible, games From Software makes, getting extremely defensive whenever someone brings up that difficulty was never the point and increasing difficulty without rebalancing the gameplay is a bad design choice. I generally agree with everything said in this video, but personally, as someone that played through all of it at RL275 NG+3 with medium heavy weapons and armor pieces, I don't think the analogy of "taking away rocket boots" works, mainly because whenever I found myself stumped in overcoming a challenge, I tried throwing a couple of ranged attacks in my playstyle and I absolutely melted whatever I was having trouble with. So rather than getting my rocket boots stolen, I felt like From decided to sand down the mountainside and add constant 160mph winds blowing in my face. So more like I was being forced to take the "unbalanced/broken" way to the top with rocket boots, rather than doing it out of laziness aor lack of commitment.
What I mean is that the bare minimum skill required to just get to the end of the game remains as low as before, it's just harder to have a memorable 1v1 duel with a boss, and it just so happens that the core audience of these games tends to prefer well designed, meaningful fights with important adversaries, rather than visually stunning anime flipping nobodies (don't worry, the lore experts are currently overdosing on copium trying to justify their existence, as if Miyazaki didn't pull them out of his ass just last week).
When you have to resort to designing jerky rollcatching animations, AOE spam or environmental hazard on top of extended combos with no downtime to fuck with whoever wants to fight the boss face to face (all of this without spending one second to rebalance animation recovery time and input delay on the player's part) you're either offending experienced players of the series or suggesting it's not about combat anymore; It's about stepping aside to admire this meaningless 3d model do acrobatics. This is a symptom of creative bankruptcy on From's part, because it's not all bosses that suffer from this issue, or at least, there's still some very well designed, honest bossfights in this DLC: Messmer, Midra, Gaius, Romina and also Rellana isn't that bad, except for a few attacks. This shows they can disregard this need for an escalating power creep in order to stay relevant, but it's probably extremely unprofitable, especially when the selling point of your product is being almost as big as the main game, shame it's also a fraction of its density and quality. It really just feels as a cheap way to generate discourse, because - at least personally - the more I look into this expansion, the more I feel disappointed.
The exploration is not just poor in terms of rewards to time spent looking around ratio, the overworld is designed like a lasagna and this makes the emptiness stick out even more, because 90% of the time you're trying to access a new area the chance of stumbling on something else, discovering something equally interesting is single digit percentage at best. Areas of interest are also somehow linear, ESPECIALLY legacy dungeons. Every single one is basically a straight line from beginning to end, with some detours that reward you with something ridicolous like a smithing stone. Castle Ensis is probably the worst offender, but the others aren't much better. Make a new character and go back to explore Stormveil Castle if you're not convinced. It feels designed by a completely different team. There's an embarassing amount of NPC "Bossfights", the only memorable support NPC is Igon and he isn't even part of the main quest. Tons of reused content, somehow Radahn returned, Miquella is completely absent from the events of the game and even when he finally arrives, we're left with nothing within a couple of minutes. Almost everything else is clearly either an afterthought or a hasty rewrite, but still completely irrelevant to the mythos built in the base game either way. Performance issues aren't negligible either, I play with unlocked FPS and I was getting 100-120 in base game with max settings and RTX in 4K DSR. In the DLC I have trouble maintaining 100 in 1440p with a DLSS mod, dipping to the mid 40 in some areas.
I really hope From understood that many of these criticism a good portion of the community is making come from people that love their games and have their hearts in the right places, and we deserve best than a lazy patch to nerf damage as if that would change anything.
i 100% agree the bosses of the DLC felt like a time waste and they let me win and not a i finally over came this boss
I really think they failed us on this DLC. Mostly empty open world, weird upgrade mechanic, more of the same anime boss design making most players needing to cheese, and a very bizarre incestual plot. They use to have esoteric metaphysical plots.
Obnoxious was just the word I wanted to hear from this video. Absolute nail on the head. Almost every single boss I beat in this DLC gave me a sense of "Oh great its over, I can get on with my evening" rather than the euphoria I've had with some of the best bosses From has made before.
I'm more willing to take the pessimistic side that Fromsoft, if ever so slightly, fumbled a lot the DLC. Its still good, its still worth full price in my eyes, but its now more clear than ever that Souls gameplay needs another layer. Something's got to give.
Base Game Boss: "I will strike the ground once, swipe, then fly up and breathe fire downwards. After this, I land, and you get a few seconds to wail on me."
SotE Boss: "I will strike the ground three times, swipe three times, pretend to fly up before suddenly swiping, then ACTUALLY fly up and breathe fire. After this, I land, and you get a few seconds to- PSYCHE!! Here I go with several more attacks, followed by-"
Player: "Wait, when do you stop?"
SotE Boss: "I stop when you get out of my personal space trying to get your attacks in."
Why draconic tree sentinel feels harder than it really is: you don’t even try to dodge the delayed lightning strike move
Reasons:
1) people expected to use cheese builds that had in base game
2) people forgot their over leveled cheese build is in fact over leveled and used cheese to get through the game
3) people don’t explore to get the necessary items to scale the dlc
4) people are really bad at the game
Agreed. People got used to dumpstering everything. Too many people just used spirit summons and a level 300 build cheese to get through the base game and never acclimated to the step up in difficulty/focus on positioning that ER's base game bosses required.
@@SomeUnkindledAsh yep. They increased health pools because bleed procs, they have bosses more poise because of jump heavy spam, and they gave them combos to stagger you if you turtle up with a shield. The dlc scales you and bosses adjust to what people used to cheese the base game. If you think it’s too hard you either didn’t explore the dlc or you never tried to actually improve in the base game.
No it because people watch those stupid TH-cam m and their cringe no hit runs and want to be a rolling god when they could just pick up a shield these bosses are joke when you use shield
@@_CrimsonBlade yes and no. Easy to get staggered with shield with the boss combos unless you use certain talismans and builds.
It's not even that bro, right now I don't have much time to play so I'm running mimic on every fight so I won't be spoiled on the internet and it's working fine, 1 hour on lion, 2 to 3 hours on rellana mesmer on the 5th try an so on, they're just bad and it shows @@SomeUnkindledAsh
Imo SotET has really tested the limit of the traditional Dark Souls trifecta combat. Attack, Dodge, and Parry. Using the new Deflecting Hardtear has been breath of fresh air as it allows you to weave in Sekiro "lite" block counters. It's so nice having a new avenue of skill-based boss attack punishes that isnt the perfect timing, high risk, high reward of parrying.
Sure but the problem is, they should just give that to everyone. If you don't find that thing, you can have a totally miserable time. Just that one hardtear can turn the final boss into an hour-long battle, rather than a 12-hour long battle. It's too unbalanced.
@@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERSI disagree that it should just be given. But I do think it being a talisman that is ‘on the road’ is a better idea.
It should be tied to katanas or an ash of war
Honestly I prefer the base game over the DLC. Having played all Dark Souls, Sekiro and Bloodborne, I never felt like I was doing a chore while fighting the bosses, however in this DLC everytime I fought a boss except maybe 2 bosses, felt like I was not having fun for simply having to dodge 6 to 8 hits and then landing one attack and repeat.
I don't like the direction From Software took with the DLC, DS3 for example had Gael and I always felt like I could get a hit or two while he was attacking, now if I try to attack rennalla or mesmer after going behind them, I just get smoked by the barrage of slashes and combos.
I also felt like exploring wasn't so rewarding, I explored cerulean coast and felt like it was a waste of time after the first 20 minutes, because the area is literally the scenery and some scattered materials or common enemies.
I have a controversial take, I say get rid of the bosses as they are entirely and rework a lot of them to be beat by more “clever” methods, even if it means that beating the boss is “easy” once you know the answer.
Whenever I’m playing the base game, running around doing stuff, I play mostly carefully, looking around every corner, stopping to see if I go there then maybe something else around this corner gets me, what I mean is I’m solving the game as an adventurer in a scary world. And while on the face of it, it might loook like the bosses kinda follow that pattern by being brutal, really what ends up happening for me is I’m like I don’t wanna memorize your moves boss so I’m gonna watch someone else beat you so I can learn the openings and when I’m allowed to attack. If there were more gimmick bosses and you had to go through the whole level before fighting them each time, it would allow players to take their time and figure out what the bosses deal is. Hell I would even have info about the bosses spread around the area you explore before you find the boss. Stuff like this boss is blind so don’t roll around or sneak around more, this boss is weak to lightening, this boss surrounds himself with weaklings that you might be able to turn against him. I don’t know I feel like I’d enjoy that better. You can still have a traditional boss but not every boss has to be that way. I think Elden ring would’ve been perfect if they embraced more so called gimmick bosses as long as the gimmick isn’t repeated over and over again like use blue weapon cause boss is weak to magic.
I really liked the Radahn fight in the base game cause it felt so epic because it took a whole festival to beat him. I’d take fewer bosses and more
Mini bosses if it meant the main bosses we got were actually epic and memorable and not just because they can hit you for your whole health pool.
I think it’s just ridiculous that nearly half the weapon classes if not more are just useless in this entire dlc. They hated that players used bleed, magic, etc(even though we literally are paying for this game and it’s mostly pve so what does it matter what the player does)so now they changed it by making those play styles useless and instead the only way to play is by using heavy weapons and/or a shield, and other super cheesy builds. It’s just not fun and this is not what people wanted. What’s the point in using fast attacking weapons to try and combo when you can only get one heavy off after a bosses 9 hit combo
tbh i dont understand the antibleed paranoia, its frankly the only way the final boss can take more than 1/100th of its healthbar in 30 seconds
Great break down, keep killing it, dude
I fucking love it so far. I went in on ng+ with 2 of every weapon at either +9/24 or a few at +10/25, every talisman, maxed healing, every spell, every piece of armor, ungodly amounts of items/craftables, basically anything you can think of. Why? On top of being awful at the game to the point i over level myself (412 atm in the dlc) i wanted to prepare for it, pretty simple. Having an absolute blast.
I don't think it's a coincidence that many of these bosses even have npc summons as quest which could already be an indicator that this won't be an easy game