I thought that the dlc was good, it had some of my favourite moments in the game. Exploring the abyssal woods and the mansion afterward were great. The atmosphere of terror and fear it created with those messages at the entrance and the ruined state of the house was very engaging. Exploring the shaman village and seeing the beautiful flowers only to realise what had happened to marikas home was a very somber moment too. However, I think it went wrong with the bosses and some of the design decisions. I know souls games are known for having very elaborate quests but one felt too much in the dlc. I would never have thought to do the gesture in front of the statute to move it, especially given the area beyond its beauty. For the bosses, I think it has some of the best but also some of the worst in the game. I liked the dancing lion and mesmer, and rellana was alright. The frenzied flame guy was my favourite fight but I thought the saint of rot was good as well, alongside the avatar. However, commander gauis is the worst boss in the game in my opinion. The fight just felt frustrating and it didn’t feel like I was making mistakes when I died. I ended up winning but it felt like chance from a war of attrition. I thought the final boss was a bit of a disappointment. I had accidentally seen that radhan was the final boss and it was nice seeing the few mentions of him before that. The boss fight was very difficult and when I finally beat it, it felt like I had overcome a great challenge. The memory made some sense to me, but I was surprised that it just ended there. The gate of divinity, a gate of corpses just stood there. I expected it to be intractable somehow. The rewards were also kind of lacklustre. The headpiece seemed cool and it is a nice reward but it fells like for the final reward of the game, it should raise the stats it does by more than 1. Radhans swords were also cool but didn’t feel great. Not having any new ending or ending for the dlc was also disappointing. I killed the final boss and all of the npcs were dead and it felt like I had no grand reward for such a difficult fight, the memory didn’t really feel like one. Overall, I would give it an 8/10
Every Fromsoft game has been very cryptic, I think this is just something that we have to accept and I don't see how a person is reasonably supposed to figure some stuff out. I assume the statue thing is why there's so few scadutree fragments on that part of the map - they knew most people won't find it, and I suppose most people weren't "meant" to find it. I'd agree with you that Gaius was not a very engaging fight. For me the charge wasn't so bad (I think I had an easier time dodging because I had a light roll), but the fight itself was kind of mundane. It seems overall you had a better time than I did and I'm really glad that's the case! The DLC was some of the best Fromsoft has ever done, but I also think some of the worst - at least when it comes to understanding what people enjoy. I suppose you just can't cater to 5 or so million people though. Good analysis, thank you!!
I found the hidden way because of messages. Messages are pretty much the only you can possibly find all the secrets without looking them up. I personally really like Gaius. The charge is a bit annoying but other than that I thought the moveset is really fun.
Commander Gaius was impossible for me at first. He made me switch my build for the first time. If you just use a shield and guard counter at the right times he’s easy. It took me so many tries before thinking of changing my weapons and style 🤣
@@Eufuu dude that charge attack is almost undodgeable you absolutely need bloodhounds step and you still might get hit 🤣 Yeah man, with my usual build i could barely get him to half life but when I switched to guard counter i got him first try. He staggers after 2 or 3 and you get a free crit 🔥
I think my main counter to many of your points is that this is at heart a dlc and not a new game. I think a lot of people had unrealistic expectations for something that was at heart an expansion of the core game and not meant as an entirely new experience. Many of the repeat enemies had new twists that made it a little less samey to fight, though I do agree that it got a bit much at times. I disagree with your point about the scadutree fragments though as they are presented in a very similar way to golden seeds, sacred tears and the wondrous physic in the base game. I think its very reasonable to assume that players make the link between scaling in the dlc being based on this rather than on levels to try and avoid stringent level requirements to enter the dlc. Also, it might be a personal thing but I don't think your points about the rewards for exploration make much sense. There are plenty of powerful talismans and rune rewards for exploring, similar to the base game, and even if you didn't make use of the weapons you found many people did, and a lot of them were unique or had interesting aow's. It's true that a lot of the armour was lackluster stats wise, but many of them had buffs to certain playstyles which I think is more engaging. I do agree with a lot of people about the lackluster final boss but don't really understand your point about the boss fights feeling like your doing the same thing. Basically, in my opinion, I think this is a 9/10 or even 10/10 dlc, but if you were to rate it in isolation I agree that it would probably be a 6-7/10
I think your main counter is why I am so perplexed I didn't enjoy it. I expected it to be like the base game and I engaged with it in the same way I did with the base game - but my experience felt fundamentally different and less enjoyable. I think you also illustrate my point about scadutree fragments - in the DLC you have just the scadutree fragments, in the main game there were so many more things to "stumble" upon. I never felt like I was explicitly searching for golden seeds for example, I expected the game would provide me with a smattering of those if I was dilligent enough. I agree though that rewards are conditioned to my playstyle and just because I didn't find them rewarding doesn't mean they weren't. I was basing this off my completely subjective experience (whereas my point about exploration and how scadutree fragments make you feel on "edge" is a more objective one, at least in my mind). To expand on the boss fights, I think the major difficulty for me here is that a lot of bosses fall into the pattern of dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, exploit an opening. Dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge... as in, the rhythm of the fight feels similar. Compared to something like scadutree avatar which has a fundamentally different rhythm with way more openings, but still feels like a challenging fight, I enjoyed it way more (also because of its twist on having 3 phases and also a story with how its using up more energy and getting worn down over time, that was super cool! :D) Thank you for your thoughts, I'll try to engage with the game a bit more on my next go around (or when the next one comes along) and try to at least internalise the rewards more. Use them, experiment etc. I think that would have helped a lot!
My major criticism for the DLC is still the same one I had for the main game. Open world takes too much space with barely anything in it. The shadow fragments would be a cool mechanic if the open world wasn't so big and confusing to traverse. It's one hell of a first experience but Im finding it difficult to go through it a 2nd time
Oh really, you also thought the main world was empty? Do you know any other game that you think had a good, full open world? I think in general I feel very hesitant of open worlds. They are spectacular, yes, and atmospheric - and maybe that's reason enough. But when I'm riding through the empty plains with nothing to interact, it really gets to me. I didn't mind it as much in Elden Ring, I don't think it was THAT bad, but in something like Starfield. Oh boy, running on the empty planets for quests made me want to rip my hair out :') I would agree that I'm finding it harder to replay Elden Ring compared to the other games they made, but tbh I'm not the type of person to replay anything so I don't have much say in the matter. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!!
(for context I'm not using any ranged magic, any summons, any spirits, non-flask consumables or any ash of wars in fights.) I'm still struggling with Radhan. I think Elden ring suffers from the same issues as the base game for the most part. I think Melenia and Radhaan are similar difficulty, and they assume you've done everything else first, so they're the most balanced fights. Everything else is kind of a mess in my opinion because they don't know how strong you'll be. In order to avoid getting unintentionally OP like i did in the main game, I did all non-radhan dlc bosses with less than 6 scadu blessings, Messmer felt kind of ridiculous when fighting without any blessings so I buffed up to 5, but Radhaan still feels ridiculous with 15 blessings. I'm not a fan of forcing players to pick their own difficulty with the scadu fragments, but I'm also not a fan of the fact you can't level your blessing down. The things the game does well are art direction and gameplay, the things it does worst is balancing. I didn't feel like the fights were all too similar, I do agree that the game doesn't incentivise switching builds well enough, which would be easily fixed with a refund upgrade system. It also feels like runes as a concept were thrown by the wayside, it's hard to care about losing runes for the dlc because the numbers aren't any higher than the end game main game
Ohh, your point about leveling the blessings down sounds like a very interesting one. Just in general I think Fromsoft could do more with giving players more ability to customise, not just their loadout, but also how we approach the game. Stuff like difficulty level scaling or umm those seeds from DS2 that "reset" the area into NG+, that was so dope. I think your point about not knowing what scadutree level you're EXPECTED to be is so valid and another reason why the game could benefit from a more concrete guide system maybe? I also agree that runes feel basically pointless which is a shame. It would be cool if we had a separate "shadowtree rune" currency and use that only in the shadow world. It could stack levels on top of our current ones and increase the difficulty more linearly without having to "guess" how many scadutree fragments you need. Just a few ideas! Thanks for sharing your view :)
theres not a huge difference for the last few scadutree blessing levels.... no need to hit 20. also i didnt miss a single fragament. missing some spirit ashes is all. missing some weapons too i believe
You're right! I'm basing it off and a friend's experience because while diligently exploring (or so I thought), I had 15 levels, and my friend was at level 12. While not as significant, those 5 levels made a difference. I did look up a guide and got myself to level 19 because with my light build the PvP part was basically one shotting me - you're right though that the player doesn't need to find every fragment
Tbh i did find a lot of the issues with the DLC are just Base game problems that weren't fixed. The open world making quests and upgrading a lot more annoying to me is something the base game suffered, and while it isn't quite as bad with the DLC it's still not great. The new weapon types are also disapointing in the sense that so few of the new weapons belong to the the new weapon types. Instead of a dozen new colossal weapons why not make more than 3 light greatswords for example? Sorceries are also very limited in this dlc, and overrall spell balance (and weapon balance honestly) still seems to suffer from some wild balance decisions. Dragon claw and dragonmaw are pretty much just as good as bayle's spells for exmaple. I feel like in not wanting to overshadow base game stuff they went to far the other way and many weapons just feel bad compared to their default versions. Devonia's hammer is just a worse version of ordovis greatsword. But all of that to me isn't really what brings down the DLC. The performance problems on PC are just ridiculuous. Even if you didn't have the Ray tracing turned on by default bug. From transforms from a AAA company capable of developing some absolutely amazing games but as soon as they try and make a pc port suddenly they're imcopetent. Not getting to use PS controller inputs on pc for example. Or the aforementioned performance issues.
I agree with a lot of your points. I think some things are just impossible to tackle - how do you balance hundreds of weapons and spells. You realistically can't, which really sucks if you want to use a certain weapon and still experience a power fantasy. I wanted to feel like a mighty kung fu monk, but instead my DLC experience was a designated fly swatter for big mean dragons :') (I enjoyed it, don't get me wrong, but it would've been cool if I could have gone HAM) There's nothing else to say about the performance issues though. I know game dev isn't easy, with ever tighter deadlines and larger scopes of project, the line is drawn - and people are willing to put up with unstable games for the sake of the overall experience. I don't enjoy this trajectory at all, I know this game has the potential to be optimised. I also understand it might not be financially viable for the studio to do so. I would be the happiest gamer if studios poured even more effort into make their games stable because there is nothing that reminds you that you're playing the game more (and preventing you to do so) as random fps drops, stutter and crashes. I heard that some PS5 players also had a ton of issues so it just seems to be a global problem at this point :/ Thank you for your thoughts!
(EDIT: After finishing the video I appreciate your stance much more. This was a well put together video/opinion piece & you have my subscription.) I really don’t understand the ‘force exploration’ point even slightly. It’s a DLC, with (funnily enough) new content? So surely wouldn’t every player be NATURALLY incentivised already to want to explore?!? & I think people being upset about the Scudutree fragments not being clear about their importance are just unwilling to admit that they weren’t paying attention when they got them. The game clearly expresses to you upon picking up that first one that they increase your strength. Also the fragments are really a very fair way to ensure a new DLC is well balanced between people on fresher runs & those with already completed or very late game runs. Honestly for me the majority of Shadow of The Erdtree’s criticism boils entirely down the standard Fromsoftware’s CHARACTERISTICALLY hard games being ‘too hard’ for people. Just GitGud fools, if you want a fun, enjoyable & stress free time then go & play Nintendo game. & stay away from ANYTHING made by Fromsoftware. Rant over, now Nera may Sleep once more…
Thank you for reconsidering your thoughts and watching the video in full! I appreciate that :) The forced exploration comment was coming from someone who intrinsically LIKES exploring, I just like to do it at my own pace. The DLC felt like it had forced me to explore, but I'd rather have done it on my own terms, seeing what I wanted to see and engaging with what I wanted to engage instead of the game saying "yeah you gotta watch out bcus if you miss a scooby doo snack you're gonna suffer" (which might not have been true, but that's how it felt bcus of the message Fromsoft & others have put out). It's like.. I enjoy eating a muffin, but if someone tells me I have to do it, I'll enjoy it less, if that makes sense? I agree that the game clearly expresses that they are important, but I don't think it clearly expresses HOW important and impactful they are (especially after the change since it's non-linear now). I also agree that it's a good way to "reset" the player difficulty and basically give us all a fresh start regardless of skill level :) Personally, I didn't think it was too hard, my main point was that I think the game breaks immersion with some of its choices (mainly repetition) that makes it less fun, but not bad by any means! Thank you for your thoughts and for sharing your opinions!
Everything in the dlc naturally comes to you as you naturally explore if you follow the story the npcs are telling you. I didn’t really use any guides and was able to complete a few npc questlines naturally myself according to what they were telling me. I got to 15 scadu tree without searching for them 💀 had fun with a few bosses and learned their movesets after a few deaths. Read the flavor texts for many items to see if there was any hidden info. Pretty much every boss in the dlc is cool. It makes sense there would be multiple dragons, golems, and 1 ghost flame bird. Radahn being the vessel for Elden lord makes sense lore wise if you are paying attention as wel, however you do have a point about the moveset and id have made him more an abomination after his second phase maybe becoming tainted by the formless mother and rejecting miquellas compassion power. The game is meant to be played for the story really. You need to immerse yourself and enjoy the world. But opinions are opinions. I’d give it a 8.8/10
While I had little trouble following the story and plot of Dark Souls 1, 2, 3 and even Sekiro, Elden Ring's overarching plot was DEFINITELY lost on me. I think the reason lies in the fact that there are so many plots and threads that I never really unraveled, partially also because I knew because of the size of the world, I am inevitably going to miss some things. By the DLC, I was completely checked out and was here mostly for the sights and the visuals and of course the gameplay experience. I felt like I busted ass to try and find the scadutree fragments and also amassed about 15 levels :') Your point rings true, I hadn't really engaged with the story that much and if I had, I wonder if I would've had a way different experience or if that would be enough to offset some of my mechanical gripes with the game. They did not make Elden Ring's story an easy one to get into though lol Thanks for your opinion and I'm glad it hit all those high notes for you!
I severely disagree here for 1 reason. I think players are seriously forgetting the community experience at the start of the game. The big flag in this video is when you talked about the scadu fragments. When elden ring came out players whined just as bad if not worse than they did now. Then it was discovered that these players were trying to fight Mohg with 25 vigor, light armor and no defense talismans. There is no other way to say it but the average player is simply not smart/understanding what they are playing. On top of that you very simply do not need that many scadutree fragments. I dont have the exact numbers but in short after 12 they give a very low bonus. Scadutree fragments were not why people were struggling. this DLC actually required understanding of the game. Things like forcing you to stop rolling away from the boss and to use jumps and crouches to dodge attacks. Then i watch players (not you) cheesing every boss then saying the game wasn't fun. Heavy armor with a great shield and spear will be far less engaging than other styles. This would be fine but most people are putting completion over playing then criticizing the gameplay. Through your gameplay alone you are not one of these players. I even agree with the radahn fight being disappointing on reveal. I played his game with Sacred Dryleaf as my main weapon wearing relatively light armor and my big rule is no bleed/cold as i think its still overtuned. the light armor was mainly to force myself to have to learn the boss attacks .These restriction are not something i think every player has to do but the reasoning i think is needed. I wanted to beat the game in a way that I could be proud of, simple as that. I dont sympathize with people who say they "needed" to do this or that cuz straight up I havent found that to be the case. If you are respecting the game and understand what youre getting into when picking a build ( which you really should since the game has been out 2 years) the most you should have to swap is ur ash of war and the affinity to your weapon. Too many times i find someone struggling with the dlc then I find out they hadnt touched the game since their first time those years back then came back and ran the dlc on NG+2 -_- . Idk I get the dlc wasnt perfect but alot of the complaints come from people who never even sorta prepared then got surprised when they couldnt 1 shot azur comet the bosses. There are bosses like Gaus that legit are designed poorly but like I said thats not the conversation thats being had IMO.
I agree with you when it comes to assessing HOW people are playing the game. I don't think there are actually that many players (proportionally) who are looking to punish bosses and take advantage of all the windows. I see people complaining that the bosses offer "no" windows and that's just simply not true. It is true they are tighter and more punishing, sometimes they are even spaced apart beyond reason (imo), but there are plenty of ways to take advantage of bosses, especially with the improved moveset of the player. I think a part of the blame here lies on the messaging too then, because the game again doesn't make it clear HOW (or if) scadutree fragments are important, yet outside the game the general consensus was to "get more scoobydoo fragments". But I think the game also doesn't try to signal what the "right" way to play is. I think it's completely reasonable that if a player had fun and went through the base game using azur comet 1 shotting bosses as you say, that they would expect or wanted to continue playing in the way they found fun. There's still other cheese strategies, but I do think the DLC reduced the options for those players - while simultaneously increasing the barrier for players like us who enjoy learning the boss movesets etc. There's just a lot of nuance to unpack, I think every player's experience is so vastly different that it's hard to draw broad conclusions. I do think you are right in saying that a lot of people didn't engage in a way that would be fun for them OR in the way that the game is trying to show them how to engage (this goes both for players who intentionally struggle but can't make any headway on bosses as well as those who cheese and find the game unfun). In the end, we are the arbitrers of our fun, it's just up to the game if it can set the groundwork for us to maximise it. Thank you for your thoughts!! :)
@@Eufuu you brought up a group that is hardly mentioned and i even forgot about being those players that try to make it hard and then fail but don’t adapt. Overall great points
I agree with all the points you made here and I feel like 7/10 is a fair score. I'm not sure where all the 10/10s are coming from. No where near the same level of memorable bosses that the ringed city and old hunters had. I really hope fromsoft move away from the open world stuff as I feel it takes away more than it adds. I really prefer Sekiro's progression system where leveling up your character is mostly tied to beating bosses/minibosses because it actually forces you to engage with the game mechanics and I was hoping for something similar when I initially heard the DLC would have a different progression system seperate to the base game. Also huge parts of the map are kinda empty? When you finish it you're left with a "was that it?" feeling.
I am going in a completely different direction, but I think it would be even cool to have one central location where the big main boss is and then you are forced to go to each corner of the map where the other big bosses are. They would each increase your overall strength so you can fight the boss in the middle. That could've been so climactic if done well :D
Although I agree with your rating on the dlc, I do have some different complaints compared to yours: 1- the new weapon types were heavily advertised, shown a lot in the promotional materials, only for us to get so few of them (like every new weapon type only gets 2-3 weapons except the perfume bottles) at the same time we get like 5 new greatswords. Why not put effort into making more of the new weapon types that were advertised and something that was very unique when compared to other fromsoft dlcs? Also most of them feel underpowered for some reason : beastclaws, and martial arts do low damage, perfume bottles suffer from just being slow and surprisingly lack of range, and the throwing daggers are just awful, and the thrusting shield moveset is kinda limited. Only 3 out of the 8 weapon types are good but even then u get like 2-3 options only. The smithscript weapons also consumes way too much stamina and for some reason have damage falloff. 2- the bosses imo are mechanically fine but but imo have 3 issues: 1) they could have added bosses that were hinted at in the main game, instead they gives us new bosses which were never mentioned the main game. Like rellana. It’s like “oh yea she’s the carian queen sister that had a role in the carian manor and left for messmer” and I’m like where was that in the main game. 2) the bosses lack lines/ cutscenes/ dialogue/ lore. One the best moments imo was when maliketh transformed in the main game and his dialogue was very good. Why can’t we have that in the dlc?, also messmer was barely in the dlc for someone who was heavily advertised and put on the front for any promotional material for this dlc. He feels like a morggot 2.0 in terms of character (child of markia who was abandoned by her for having a curse and hating himself for it) they could have made him an usurper of some sorts that plans to overthrow marika. Where is Melina? Where is the gloam eyed queen? 3) the last boss being radahn just left a sour aftertaste in my mouth. I wanted godwyn (I know some lore buff will tell me we can’t have godwyn because his soul is dead, but they could have us made him fight his corpse and then miqullea fuses with him,like a reverse twin princes) but also any other option than an already established boss in the main game. 3-some areas were just empty. The finger ruins had nothing in them, jagged peak had all repeat bosses. The abyssal woods were very empty My opinion is as follows: the dlc is a 7/10 the main game is a 10/10, not because it didn’t have flaws, it definitely had, but the positives were so good that they made me forget about the bad parts of the game. The dlc doesn’t do that.
I have a hard time commenting on the first point because I didn't use that many different weapons, but I think I saw that some of the new weapons are REALLY different. As in, they're not just reused skins with the same animations, but actually have different animations. Is maybe that why there's less new weapon types? I agree with kung fu weapons though, I wish there were more:( I wish Rellana had some sort of introduction too! She just kind of appeared and I was like oh I guess I gotta fight her "wait wtf why is she so fucking hard" lol I generally agree with you though. I think the design is obviously there, but it's missing that emotional punch of the base game. Something about it feels a little half-baked and I have a hard time putting my finger on it.
@@yjoltetepique8555 I would have given it 8-8.5/10 if they made more new weapons of the new weapon types and also the fact that 5 of the 8 weapon types are below average in terms of effectiveness. If they were planning on making so few of them, then they shouldn’t have advertised them so much, made us think that they were a big focal point in the dlc and they should have kept them as surprise.
@@bruh7170 I can fully agree. When i found out they added new weapons types and over 100 weapons i figured atleast 30 would be of the new weapons. 8 is crazy
@@yjoltetepique8555 there seems to be misunderstanding. There are 8 new weapon types, each of them having 2-3 option (expect for perfume bottle (5) and throwing daggers (1) ) I think there are a total of 19 weapons of the new weapon types. Tbh I expected like half or 40 the 100 new weapons to be the new weapon types because of how much they were advertised. And even then only 9 of them are good/great. Most of them imo need buffs.
The thumbnail drew me in. I hate those grave birds and the structures they are attached to. They became such an eyesore in the DLC after a while, much like the translucent graves at the beginning. The graves well overstayed their welcome on the map and those bird things are just peppered everywhere on the map. It's like they scrambled to find something to fill up the vast emptiness that they themselves had created and the grave birds seemed to be their solution in many parts of the map. Even the Impaling Spears in the campsite before Castle Ensis were placed without any care at times since some of them are jabbed right into a cliff with some parts of the corpse model clipping through the rock itself. Very immersive indeed. The open-world exploration aspect of this DLC is easily the worst part of it, especially when compared to the base game. In the base game there's usually at least two routes to reach parts of the open world. Like how in Caelid you can veer hard left and reach the Divine Tower quite quickly, or how upon arriving into Liurnia you can drop down the gravestones jutting out of the cliffside on the right or head left down the slope. Altus Plateau has two distinct ways to enter it, Weeping Peninsula you can approach in a few ways and so on. In the DLC map the open-world exploration feels very.. restrictive. There's layers upon layers to the map but most areas have only one single access point, some of which are unnecessarily obtuse. I'm no stranger to hidden walls and areas in Fromsoft games but simply reaching an overarching area on the open-world map should not be some cryptic puzzle to be solved. And the open-world areas themselves are exhausting to explore. There's so much vast, expansive emptiness that it's dizzying at times. The scenery is beautiful but there's just simply too much land to cover without it getting boring. The southern part of the map especially is just an embarrassment with the lack of content within it. Shadow Keep is gorgeous and fun to explore but Belurat was very mid. My preferred way to play these games after my initial playthrough is with an item and enemy randomizer mod. I am looking forward to having the DLC enemies and items in the randomization pool but I don't see myself thoroughly exploring the DLC map ever again, whereas the base game map I've scoured through like six times at this point. I don't ever get tired of exploring the Lands Between but the DLC bored me on my very first playthrough.
I think for me there are some very beautiful parts of the map, but other parts are like you said, the damn BIRDS (or other repeat enemies) that become an eyesore. It's that unpredictability that made me feel a little unsure. Am I going to find something really cool or just more of the same enemy after I beat this boss I've been struggling for 10 hours on. I think the DLC map is even more open. Apparently you can reach any boss (outside the gated bosses) from the start, but because of how convoluted it is, it also seems like those maps are a bit more hidden. I'm sure once people figure them out, pathing will become easier. I would agree with you about the map being more convoluted though. Pathing and finding ways was MUCH harder. Even when I knew where I wanted to go and even if I tried to take into account the geography, sometimes it's just not possible because the actual entrance is on completely other side of the map. It does add a bit of charm that way because the world feels more real, but navigating it was a pain. Especially because so much of it is just open "Nothingness" so you're supposed to be looking for every little corridor and that gets exhausting (at least it did for me). Thank you for your thoughts!! :)
Well, I didn't hate my experience or anything like that. In fact I still mostly enjoyed it (7/10 is still good, I think), but I definitely didn't enjoy it AS much as the base game, for example. Nor as much as the other games. I'm trying to see if maybe with a different mindset I could've enjoyed it more or if this is just a lost cause and maybe the DLC is fundamentally different to the base game. I feel like I SHOULD HAVE enjoyed it, but I didn't, and that's why I'm perplexed
Honestly balance wise for humanoid bosses to me feel very poor sense almost every DLC humanoid boss is an actual wall, all of them has a Nameless King Poise\AKA no actual stagger animation just stance break and the worst part is for me is every last of these humanoid bosses are much faster then the Nameless King like so fast to the point honestly way past the limit the elden ring protagonist can even handle. Like it feels so stressful to try a dodge all the attacks while left almost no stamina despite having way over 40 endurance this point. And this is why I like previous soulsborne bosses better in general because the fact their attacks are way more well better telegraphed and they rarely go past the players very limits to react to the bosses attacks, which honestly feels like a damn shame they take more inspiration from the nameless king then actually one of the most top tier humanoid bosses Slave Knight Gael in the Ringed City DLC because of the fact even though he fights very ferociously and fast but he's not a tank he can actually get staggered normally like actually will stop for a few seconds for getting smacked by a heavy weapon none of that stance break nonsense. And because the fact he actually does get pushed by attacks he actually feels like a living creature you're fighting not some robot pre-programmed to just randomly get stun and kneel when you hit them at a certain amount of times. Is a darn shame we don't get to have humanoid bosses like that anymore...
I also find it strange that the human summons have unlimited poise and stamina sometimes! You make a good point that enemies getting staggered isn't just for the sake of difficulty, but also immersion. If the bosses react like you do, it makes them feel more real and less just like gamey obstacles that were put in your way. I think it'd make a big difference! Thank you for your thoughts :)
I do want to thank you for putting your voice out like this, knowing it will face serious pushback from others, myself included. I can never take away how you personally feel about the DLC, so I at least want you to hear from someone who does think highly of it. The complaint about the Scadutree fragments fell flat with me because it served towards the larger purpose of encouraging players to explore the world, which had always been the case with the base game itself. Players who ignored it were basically invalidating the reason for an expansion in the first place, and did so at their own peril. It was also an answer to players with endgame builds who would need so many runes just to level up even once for very diminished return due to softcaps. I do agree that the world feels a little emptier compared to base, but i would argue that has more to do with wanting to retain the breath and scope of the open world while technically reducing its actual size. Not a flaw of the DLC itself, just a sign that you prefer the bespoke levels of past games (which is still present in ER’s legacy dungeons) over open-world exploration. Your complaint about not being able to experiment with new weapons also doesn’t sit right with me, because it relates to the DLC’s assumption mentioned above that players will be going in with endgame builds. The DLC can only be accessed by beating Radahn and Mohg in the base game, bosses geographically distant from each other, so making a beeline for the two and ignoring the shop bells that make smithing stones buyable is both unreasonable and not expected of the player. And for the runes needed to buy the upgrade materials, the encounters in the DLC noticeably won’t give a lot of runes to raise a level 150+ character up a lot, but will go plenty towards buying smithing stones. That, in addition to basic mobs dropping mid-tier stones, meant maxing out the new weapons and experimenting was a non-issue for me. Not going to fight your experience with the bosses, as it is extremely subjective and what I found engaging with them may not apply to you, though I personally found myself always shifting gears and weapons when necessary. The final boss in particular was a desperate scramble, but I found more than few avenues to improve upon for when I inevitably do this DLC a second time and can’t wait. Even so, I do hope FS’ next game will appeal more directly to you. Having a new ER with every release just isn’t going to work, and the DLC has proven with some of the more esoteric additions to your toolkit like the parrying hardtear and the new weapon movesets that they are open to further experimentation. So it might not even be long before that happens.
Thank you for your kind and polite comment! I did expect people disagreeing, but I also know I'm not the only one feeling this way, so I just wanted to facilitate a discussion about our different experiences. I get your point about scadutree fragments. I think, once you realise their importance, they succeed in achieving the goal of motivating the player to explore more when they are struggling with an obstacle. If you're hitting your head against the boss -> explore some more -> get stronger -> come back. This is the same loop as the base game. I think the difference, for me, arises when I say "ok I gotta explore some more and find ~cool stuff~ that will improve my build" versus "ok I gotta find scadutree fragments specifically". The latter feels worse, mostly because at that point I'm not really open or expecting anything else. And at the same time, it's the only way for me to reasonably get stronger in the DLC, whereas the base game featured different kind of power ups - seeds, weapons, stones, runes, etc. I also didn't feel that sense of tension in the base game that I have to absolutely check and engage with every part of the map. There was enough stuff littered around that I could keep up with the game's pace even if I wasn't turning over every nook and cranny. This feeling wasn't present in the DLC because every scadutree fragment carries so much power - I think if they had made them more aligned with the mainline paths or even simply reduced their individual power and scattered like 500 of them, it would've gone a long way to alleviating that. I would agree that this isn't necessarily a flaw, and people who enjoy that type of exploration are going to be extremely rewarded by how powerful the scadutree fragments are! But I do think that the base game exploration and the DLC exploration are different enough to have thrown me off. It is also true that I prefer the tighter level designs of the previous game, you got me there:) I will concede the point about upgrading weapons. I was always hesitant to upgrade weapons because I didn't know if it was worth it, but also because there are a limited amount of ancient dragon stones. In my mind, if I couldn't upgrade a weapon to its max level, there wasn't a point, but it would've been perfectly fine to upgrade it to one level lower, at least to get a feel for it. I think my apprehension for not switching builds more often is a curse of expectation, but also stems from the way I enjoyed playing previous games. By learning one particular weapon "strategy" and then trying to apply it to different bosses. The fun in that was that some bosses would be well suited and would be easy, while others would be way more difficult, but this variance was exactly what makes this playstyle fun for me. I had the same experience with the fists actually! But there was just a higher proportion of bosses that were on that "difficult" side of variance which made it tedious. I think I just wasn't really primed for Elden Ring to be so RPG-esque so I'll reiterate my finishing thoughts - just because they had tried to make almost every playstyle viable, doesn't mean that it's fun. If I had been more willing to switch things up and hadn't been so afraid of trying new weapons, my combat experience would've been more varied and enjoyable. Hopefully I can take these lessons into the next game Fromsoft makes :) (but also please give me another game like Sekiro
you can fight mohg really early with the white mask quest and radahn is pretty early as well being a cake walk by endgame the only real indication that the dlc was meant to be endgame was it being a mohg technically and even then if you watched the trailer and beelined it you don't even have to be at farum azula where half the bearing are at, scadufragments shouldn't be necessary because "people have endgame builds" in fact I'd argue there's no such thing its just having a overpowered build or not, because you can beat the main game just as easily as people were claiming you'd beat the dlc with a "endgame build" also if that was the real issue it never should've been endgame content
@@pricefieldxI know there are ways to expedite the process of actually getting there, but you’re looking from the angle of somebody who wants to start up the DLC immediately after creating a new save file; the average player is not expected to speedrun the game to meet the DLC’s minimum requirements. Most will be booting the game up with the builds they’ve used to beat it. That, in addition to the disparate geography needed to travel, Mohg’s status as an endgame boss (with the HP/Damage scaling that entails), the fact it’s been 2 full years since the game’s initial release, and Fromsoft’s previous track record with DLC (which have all been consistently a step up to their base games in challenge) should be more than enough to tell players to come in with fully prepared setups. It’s ultimately healthier this way; I bet if The Old Hunters DLC with its notoriously short distance from the starting area was released to an audience the scale of ER’s, you will get even more complaints than SotE about being stonewalled by difficulty. Your remark about how scadutree fragments shouldn’t be necessary also ignores the interview with Miyazaki explaining directly why they implemented it in the first place: it gives lategame builds an incentive to explore, both for exploration’s sake and to still feel a sense of progression. Not leveling up often in previous FromSoft DLCs isn’t as much of an issue because they tend to be beaten in the span of a few hours, but SotE’s massive scope means you will be struggling to feel an improvement on damage and survivability throughout tens of hours. This is as much a method to tackle stagnation as it is a pointed encouragement to explore all the new map has to offer.
I must've missed it then! For me it dropped when I beat the npc summon boss against Lena and Dryleaf Dane and co., that's where I found his kicks :O maybe that was just a pity drop in case I missed it
Tree fragments really aren’t as tedious as you’re making it out to be. They’re very visible in the areas they’re in and they are “rewards” for exploring the area fromsoft spent 2 years making for us to enjoy. Did you want to walk into the dlc and steamroll it??? This resets the game for you so it’s as if you’re level 1 in what is essentially Elden ring 2. And yes you should try new builds and it does incentives you do it, there’s a LOT of larval tears in the game not counting subsequent playthroughs
@@TheRealFlapSlapper Thanks for your comment and your follow-up. Just in general for even watching and considering my points :) I didn't really have any issue with the difficulty of the DLC, my hangup is more with the fact that I think the exploration isn't as engaging because of scadutree fragments. Now that you said it, maybe me thinking that finding scadutree fragments are tedious is me actually finding the overall exploration tedious. To some extent I would say that this is true because outside of a few areas, there was a lot of "dead ends" or things that I expected to be behind waterfalls for example, or the finger ruins etc. that felt very unrewarding. I still think I mind scadutree fragments because they felt very "distracting" to me, or rather, I hyperfocused on them because I knew there was a limited amount and because of how important they were to the overall progression - I was constantly worried that I was going to miss some, especially because my general approach with these games is that I don't tend to really collect EVERYTHING (one of my biggest pet peeves in gaming is random collectables). I agree with your point about larval tears, mostly because changing a build doesn't necessarily even constitute using a larval tear, but just using smithing stones and since there are an unlimited amount of those, you basically just need to find a different weapon and spend some time upgrading a few of them. A low barrier of entry, even if a little out of the way - I was just inherently stubborn in the way I was playing which means I experienced less of the fun stuff (mostly new weapons) than I could have. Thank you for your insights! Also about your note of difficulty, I think it would be cool if the difficulty ramped up a bit differently. The way I experienced it is that the lion and Renalla were by far the hardest bosses until Radahn, the bosses in between (outside of Bayle) were comparatively easier and more approachable. And since they are the first 2 bosses that most people encounter, I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that people are perceiving it to be more difficult than it is or if this is just a Fromsoft attempt to coax people into exploring the area for more fragments 🤔
i also think they did wrong with the fragments, i hate collecting sutff like, it's a way to make the game longer or harder artificially, they sould come with something like a simpler version of the paragon system form diablo, by using separate Runes of the DLC to level up damage up or damage negation, 1% by 1% becouse besides the first time, i ain't gonna explore everything and remmenber every single fragment on my new character.
I'm with you that collecting stuff just isn't an engaging mechanic for me personally, but I do think scadutree fragments have a place in the game. I don't think the system is elegant, but I think it gets the job done. It just does it with a sledgehammer instead of a precision missile :D It would be cool if after you collect them once, you could hand-pick how many scadutree fragments you have before a particular boss. That'd be cool for challenge runs and customisation!
I'm curious what encompasses "everything" or what you have in mind when you say that. Would you say the boss design is better overall? Exploration? Variety? Because these are the 3 points where I would say that the base game is better than the DLC. Of course it's mostly subjective, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts!
the biggest mistake of the dlc was making it endgame content, if they didn't have to force exploration which the base game never had to then it would've been 10x better
@@Eufuu it wasn't as forced as in not at all really, genuinely think about it, nothing about the base game ever really made it mandatory for you to go on essentially a scavenger hunt, you got the golden seeds and and levels from just the main path there was nothing other than natural wonder and curiosity that drove the exploration, seeing something and going "WOW That's so cool I want to go there!", and not "damn everything is 1 shotting me I got to go find these specific items hidden around the map to be able to even compete let me pull up a wiki or video on how to get all of them"
Yeah, I agree with your point! It's the difference between "exploring and getting stronger" and "trying to find this one specific item in a sea of items". The first one feels rewarding and the second one less so.
We had this conversation in another comment thread, but I agree with you on this one. It isn't guaranteed that a person will find the items necessary for infinite stones, my reaction was based on maxing out the weapon - which of course you don't need to do, but I tunnel visioned on it because in my mind it's either +25 or it's useless (bcus why would I play with something suboptimal). If I ever replay, I'll upgrade to +24 and save those precious ancient dragon stones for the really good weapons!
@Eufuu Juat make a weapon +24 and if you like it then make it +25 (or +10 if somber) I guess everyone can have their own opinion but the game is more like a 9 or 10. They found a way to challenge us again which is no small feat. My only complaint is how empty the finger ruins and the ceurulan coast are and how easy the mother of fingers was. The best bosses and dungeons in the whole series.
Yeah, see, that's the part that flew over my head due to my perfectionism (which is my own bias and not a fault of the game) because +24 is NOT optimal!! I liked the Cerulean coast a little empty, but I was severely disappointed with finger ruins - what a cool area for basically nothing :(
I liked the dlc quite a bit,8/10 for me, but admittedly it has some problems. 1:Some enemies such as the fire knights and furnace golems, their cool at first but stink to fight(mainly the dagger knights) 2:Bosses,mainly with fights like having some unfair attacks(mainly putrescent knight and his area blue flame move and horse) Lastly:rewards,for some.rememberaces, the rewards felt sucky, like with the putrescent knights cleaver(ash of war specifically) or the divine beast with the talisman. Luckily their are good bosses with good rewards like messmer and rellanna, so overall, good dlc (Pvp is absolutely ruined tho so rip)
I think to your point 2, I don't think any attack is unfair but I do think the game doesn't make it clear how you can evade an attack. Sometimes you can jump over when it doesn't seem like you can for example. I think that can create a lot of frustration when trying to learn the bosses. It feels a little janky to what is otherwise a great overall effort in presentation and map execution. I'm glad you enjoyed it so much! Did you find it more or less enjoyable than base game Elden Ring?
Personally I would give the DLC a 9.5 out of 10. Granted, I think I had basically the perfect experience. I was able to get through most of the bosses with 2-3 attempts, found enough fragments that I could just naturally keep up, and didn’t really ever have to switch up my build (god bless the Milady). I am a little bit confused about your point with Scadutree fragments, it seems like the same criticism applies to smithing stones in the base game. I would initially have agreed with you on Radahn, but the fight really redeemed itself to me by being one of the most dynamic, intuitive, and intense fights in the series. It really reminded me of fighting Godfrey at RL1 which was my favorite experience in any of these games. Overall, though I have some complaints about the story feeling unpolished, I would say that Shadow of the Erdtree is probably tied with Sekiro for the best Soulslike content that fromsoft have produced. Even though I disagree, I’m glad that you put this video out and shared your opinion.
Thank you for the kind and considered comment! I think it's important to remember that for every good experience there will be a bad one and vice versa. There's just so many things to account for!! TBH, I never liked collecting smithing stones, but at the very least you can buy them at some point and with that, the game makes sure you're never "too weak" to handle whatever difficulty level you are currently facing. Plus because there are way more to collect, they were a more common drop so I never felt like I had to really hunt them down. I think every boss fight has two distinct phases - the learning phase and the execution phase. I feel like if I had gotten through that learning phase better, I would've really enjoyed the execution phase because he does seem like a dynamic/fun boss fight. I think it's surprising (but also cool!) you view it as highly as Sekiro, but like yourself, I am glad you shared your opinion and I'm really glad that you enjoyed it so much :) here's to the next game being just as awesome!
Second phase of Consort Radahn is the farthest removed thing from intuitive. "tied with Sekiro for the best Soulslike" is crazy to be honest, but to each their own of course.
@@_ghostman what I meant about second phase Radahn is that the pillars of light specifically force you to dodge in the right direction for each type of sword swing. Since the light spawns at the edge of his blade, you can tell which way you must dodge by what type of swing you’re trying to avoid. This also forces you to be in the correct place to punish him. I think that Malenia and him are on similar tiers of difficulty but I much prefer his fight. He’s hyper aggressive like Godfrey, but still has frequent opportunities to punish due to some of his slower swings. It legitimately pains me that so many people beat him using great shield face-tanking because the boss is so clearly trying so hard to force you to fight him in the right and most fun way.
I think this positioning and position-based dodging is something relatively unique to Radahn. I don't think there's any boss where that's mandatory, so it makes sense to me that people, who aren't used to that, are resorting to using an easier method to beat him. 🤔
If elden ring was the first game in the genre, would people really be 'no summon' by default? What does fromsoftware need to do for people to accept summoning as the intended way to play?
It's definitely not the "intended" way to play. It's an option to make them easier. You can tell the bosses are not designed around summoning because their AI goes absolutely retarded when more than one person is attacking them.
That's a good question! I do think that summoning is a default for many players, but there are still a few out there (like me) who enjoy playing the game without. Like the other commenter said, it's just a different game when you are playing without summons that demands a lot more from you and requires you to internalise the boss' moveset. That is fun to me, but I understand that other players enjoy a different kind of challenge, which is completely ok! Elden Ring tries to cater to both crowds and IMO bcus it walks the middle path, it kind of sacrifices a bit on both ends.
i mean i do think this take went in with the expectation of an all new experience rather than an expansion to an existing game, which the game is nothing more nothing less. Some points are valid, like a lot of the armors being underwhelming in stats (or even looks), a lot of weapons suck but theres a small handful that are stupidly op that everyone and their grandma will use. Repeat bosses is nothing new for the series this is such a tired complain I hate seeing, and of course you're going to have more in a game where the map is very large, dlc included.
After thinking about it for a bit, I think you're right! My expectation was that this is going to be an incredible expansion, but in my defense that's how the early game critics and journalists presented it. It was touted as "the world's best DLC", but it is very much more of the same (if not slightly worse) with all the Elden Ring's faults and successes. The pacing of the DLC is definitely different which is I think an objective critique on my part, but I'm not willing to concede my point about repetition. It's something that has bothered me in previous games and will continue to bother me. Is it reasonable that a game as large as Elden Ring will have repeats? of course, I'd probably include repeats too if I was making the game as large as this! But as a player, for me at least, it's one the most immersion breaking elements. I think my issue is not so much that the repeats are there, but that they don't feel very thought-out, which again feels like is because the studio was stretched thin due to the size of the game they were trying to make. Understandable of course, but still a bummer. If I could wave a magic wand I'd make the studio 10x bigger and make the game cost 10x less to make :))) We'd all win then!
The final boss was quite a big let down for me. The fact that it was just another version of a boss that we had already fought was quite disappointing. Also, The ending of the DLC felt weirdly empty to me. After the cutscene played, I just stood there and was like “huh, that was it?” I genuinely can’t tell if I missed something about the ending because it felt so incomplete to me.
I completely agree with you, it felt like it was missing some kind of connective plot that would lead up to the final boss and then resolve - almost every other game had that to some extent. And unlike DS3 where the final boss was an homage, DLC Radahn feels more like a "we have Radahn at home" type of deal, especially because of how different and unique the base game's fight is. It's this huge sprawling arena against a demigod that you fight with a ton of NPC friends and here he's just .. a guy. It really does feel like the team was spread thin so they couldn't have refined those last details that would have made it *pop*.
Yes! I was seriously dissatisfied with the ending. No new rune ending? No major story changes or reveals at all?!?!? It kinda was a let down. I wanted a miquella based ending as part of the dlc.
i thought the game overall is a 6 the scadutree frags wasn’t that hard to find they were mostly around grace sites , but i think the world was kind of emptier than limgrave. the reused bosses and enemies were annoying and the aggro was annoying as well. i think i would like the game more if enemies abode by the same rules as the player and had stamina health and fp penalties bc the successive movesets they have is ridiculous. and it’s 2024 why don’t enemies have a visible poise meter, or at least the option to turn it on . also locking the best tear (deflecting hardtear) behind the first furnace golem dropped the game 2 points for me. it’s the worst mini boss fight in the whole game and the tear should’ve been a talisman
The world definitely felt emptier! One reason is that I think it is objectively less dense, but also that there are just less "fun" things to find when you're already in the late game when your build is pretty much complete. The lack of a poise meter really baffles me because it feels like such a fundamental mechanic? But maybe the idea was that they didn't want players to FOCUS on it? In that case maybe a solution where an enemy enters a sort of "pre-stagger" state would work better visually and thematically hm. I don't think I mind big boss enemies not abiding by the same rules, but what drives me crazy is the ghosts that invade your world not abiding by them! having infinite stamina or poise but they're just like us, that feels so contrived lol. I get your complaint though and I think ultimately a game designed with that in mind would be more engaging (like Sekiro)
That's a good idea and absolutely a way to experience the game - but it is a fundamentally different way to engage which I don't particularly enjoy. I think if I learned to enjoy it, I would've had a better experience with the DLC though, but I'm so eager to experience novelty that reloading etc feels like I'm not really "playing" the game if that makes sense
Dude, I wish I had tried out parrying more in general! It seems like a fun way to play, but it flew over my head. If I ever replay, I'll try a parry build:D
I never had much trouble with the bosses or the flask level luckily :) it didn't feel like I was losing out on healing or that was the reason why I was losing fights
I hear you man, having information is the best way to beat any game. I also think that gaming has become an "open" experience with all the live streaming/youtube etc. Playing a game and looking things up, or learning about them from the people we watch, is just how we experience games in 2024. But the philosophy is that you're only able to play the game blindly once and if I look (too many) things up, I'm robbing myself of the experience. If I did look up more things, I'd have enjoyed certain parts more, but I would also enjoy certain parts less, so I don't think it's a silver bullet that would address and fix every one of my "problems". If I'm looking things up, where does the line end? Do I also copy great builds? Do I look up glitches? Strats? Every person has their own line , but to me games (especially games like Elden Ring) are about my own experience and discovery - not retreading the path someone else has already taken. I hope that makes sense :)
@@chicken.8189 Here's the thing, my goal with the video wasn't to complain, but to provide an empathetic perspective of how I experienced the game - perhaps this wasn't the "optimal" experience, but it was how I engaged with the game. I wasn't intentionally trying to make myself have less fun, I was just engaging in what I thought WOULD be the most fun, but it turns out that wasn't the case, especially after thinking about it. The argument that we can only share our experience if a specific set of circumstances is met is troublesome because a) who decides what these circumstances are? and b) that doesn't really change what my experience was, I think it's valid to talk about There is also a difference between the validity of a complaint, but you used much stronger language "can't". I invite you to reassess what I'm trying to say here, but if you can't bring yourself to do that, we can just agree to disagree!
I thought that the dlc was good, it had some of my favourite moments in the game.
Exploring the abyssal woods and the mansion afterward were great. The atmosphere of terror and fear it created with those messages at the entrance and the ruined state of the house was very engaging.
Exploring the shaman village and seeing the beautiful flowers only to realise what had happened to marikas home was a very somber moment too.
However, I think it went wrong with the bosses and some of the design decisions. I know souls games are known for having very elaborate quests but one felt too much in the dlc. I would never have thought to do the gesture in front of the statute to move it, especially given the area beyond its beauty.
For the bosses, I think it has some of the best but also some of the worst in the game.
I liked the dancing lion and mesmer, and rellana was alright.
The frenzied flame guy was my favourite fight but I thought the saint of rot was good as well, alongside the avatar.
However, commander gauis is the worst boss in the game in my opinion. The fight just felt frustrating and it didn’t feel like I was making mistakes when I died. I ended up winning but it felt like chance from a war of attrition.
I thought the final boss was a bit of a disappointment. I had accidentally seen that radhan was the final boss and it was nice seeing the few mentions of him before that.
The boss fight was very difficult and when I finally beat it, it felt like I had overcome a great challenge.
The memory made some sense to me, but I was surprised that it just ended there.
The gate of divinity, a gate of corpses just stood there. I expected it to be intractable somehow.
The rewards were also kind of lacklustre. The headpiece seemed cool and it is a nice reward but it fells like for the final reward of the game, it should raise the stats it does by more than 1.
Radhans swords were also cool but didn’t feel great.
Not having any new ending or ending for the dlc was also disappointing. I killed the final boss and all of the npcs were dead and it felt like I had no grand reward for such a difficult fight, the memory didn’t really feel like one.
Overall, I would give it an 8/10
Every Fromsoft game has been very cryptic, I think this is just something that we have to accept and I don't see how a person is reasonably supposed to figure some stuff out. I assume the statue thing is why there's so few scadutree fragments on that part of the map - they knew most people won't find it, and I suppose most people weren't "meant" to find it.
I'd agree with you that Gaius was not a very engaging fight. For me the charge wasn't so bad (I think I had an easier time dodging because I had a light roll), but the fight itself was kind of mundane. It seems overall you had a better time than I did and I'm really glad that's the case! The DLC was some of the best Fromsoft has ever done, but I also think some of the worst - at least when it comes to understanding what people enjoy. I suppose you just can't cater to 5 or so million people though. Good analysis, thank you!!
I found the hidden way because of messages. Messages are pretty much the only you can possibly find all the secrets without looking them up.
I personally really like Gaius. The charge is a bit annoying but other than that I thought the moveset is really fun.
Commander Gaius was impossible for me at first. He made me switch my build for the first time. If you just use a shield and guard counter at the right times he’s easy. It took me so many tries before thinking of changing my weapons and style 🤣
@@certifiedcib7958 Guard counters seem like they'd do a really sick job against boar man. His charge attack has such a wacky hitbox lol
@@Eufuu dude that charge attack is almost undodgeable you absolutely need bloodhounds step and you still might get hit 🤣
Yeah man, with my usual build i could barely get him to half life but when I switched to guard counter i got him first try. He staggers after 2 or 3 and you get a free crit 🔥
The lore of the birds is they are the new Godskins.
Are you talking about the deathbirds or the ones that I have on my thumbnail? I assume you mean the deathbirds 🤔
I think my main counter to many of your points is that this is at heart a dlc and not a new game. I think a lot of people had unrealistic expectations for something that was at heart an expansion of the core game and not meant as an entirely new experience. Many of the repeat enemies had new twists that made it a little less samey to fight, though I do agree that it got a bit much at times. I disagree with your point about the scadutree fragments though as they are presented in a very similar way to golden seeds, sacred tears and the wondrous physic in the base game. I think its very reasonable to assume that players make the link between scaling in the dlc being based on this rather than on levels to try and avoid stringent level requirements to enter the dlc. Also, it might be a personal thing but I don't think your points about the rewards for exploration make much sense. There are plenty of powerful talismans and rune rewards for exploring, similar to the base game, and even if you didn't make use of the weapons you found many people did, and a lot of them were unique or had interesting aow's. It's true that a lot of the armour was lackluster stats wise, but many of them had buffs to certain playstyles which I think is more engaging. I do agree with a lot of people about the lackluster final boss but don't really understand your point about the boss fights feeling like your doing the same thing. Basically, in my opinion, I think this is a 9/10 or even 10/10 dlc, but if you were to rate it in isolation I agree that it would probably be a 6-7/10
I think your main counter is why I am so perplexed I didn't enjoy it. I expected it to be like the base game and I engaged with it in the same way I did with the base game - but my experience felt fundamentally different and less enjoyable.
I think you also illustrate my point about scadutree fragments - in the DLC you have just the scadutree fragments, in the main game there were so many more things to "stumble" upon. I never felt like I was explicitly searching for golden seeds for example, I expected the game would provide me with a smattering of those if I was dilligent enough.
I agree though that rewards are conditioned to my playstyle and just because I didn't find them rewarding doesn't mean they weren't. I was basing this off my completely subjective experience (whereas my point about exploration and how scadutree fragments make you feel on "edge" is a more objective one, at least in my mind).
To expand on the boss fights, I think the major difficulty for me here is that a lot of bosses fall into the pattern of dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, exploit an opening. Dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge... as in, the rhythm of the fight feels similar. Compared to something like scadutree avatar which has a fundamentally different rhythm with way more openings, but still feels like a challenging fight, I enjoyed it way more (also because of its twist on having 3 phases and also a story with how its using up more energy and getting worn down over time, that was super cool! :D)
Thank you for your thoughts, I'll try to engage with the game a bit more on my next go around (or when the next one comes along) and try to at least internalise the rewards more. Use them, experiment etc. I think that would have helped a lot!
My major criticism for the DLC is still the same one I had for the main game. Open world takes too much space with barely anything in it.
The shadow fragments would be a cool mechanic if the open world wasn't so big and confusing to traverse.
It's one hell of a first experience but Im finding it difficult to go through it a 2nd time
Oh really, you also thought the main world was empty? Do you know any other game that you think had a good, full open world?
I think in general I feel very hesitant of open worlds. They are spectacular, yes, and atmospheric - and maybe that's reason enough. But when I'm riding through the empty plains with nothing to interact, it really gets to me. I didn't mind it as much in Elden Ring, I don't think it was THAT bad, but in something like Starfield. Oh boy, running on the empty planets for quests made me want to rip my hair out :')
I would agree that I'm finding it harder to replay Elden Ring compared to the other games they made, but tbh I'm not the type of person to replay anything so I don't have much say in the matter.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!!
Can you name an open world game that has more density?
If it was more dense it would be like a theme park lmao
@@jimbobu Elden Ring theme park when though???
(for context I'm not using any ranged magic, any summons, any spirits, non-flask consumables or any ash of wars in fights.) I'm still struggling with Radhan. I think Elden ring suffers from the same issues as the base game for the most part. I think Melenia and Radhaan are similar difficulty, and they assume you've done everything else first, so they're the most balanced fights. Everything else is kind of a mess in my opinion because they don't know how strong you'll be. In order to avoid getting unintentionally OP like i did in the main game, I did all non-radhan dlc bosses with less than 6 scadu blessings, Messmer felt kind of ridiculous when fighting without any blessings so I buffed up to 5, but Radhaan still feels ridiculous with 15 blessings. I'm not a fan of forcing players to pick their own difficulty with the scadu fragments, but I'm also not a fan of the fact you can't level your blessing down. The things the game does well are art direction and gameplay, the things it does worst is balancing. I didn't feel like the fights were all too similar, I do agree that the game doesn't incentivise switching builds well enough, which would be easily fixed with a refund upgrade system. It also feels like runes as a concept were thrown by the wayside, it's hard to care about losing runes for the dlc because the numbers aren't any higher than the end game main game
Ohh, your point about leveling the blessings down sounds like a very interesting one. Just in general I think Fromsoft could do more with giving players more ability to customise, not just their loadout, but also how we approach the game. Stuff like difficulty level scaling or umm those seeds from DS2 that "reset" the area into NG+, that was so dope. I think your point about not knowing what scadutree level you're EXPECTED to be is so valid and another reason why the game could benefit from a more concrete guide system maybe?
I also agree that runes feel basically pointless which is a shame. It would be cool if we had a separate "shadowtree rune" currency and use that only in the shadow world. It could stack levels on top of our current ones and increase the difficulty more linearly without having to "guess" how many scadutree fragments you need.
Just a few ideas! Thanks for sharing your view :)
theres not a huge difference for the last few scadutree blessing levels.... no need to hit 20. also i didnt miss a single fragament. missing some spirit ashes is all. missing some weapons too i believe
You're right! I'm basing it off and a friend's experience because while diligently exploring (or so I thought), I had 15 levels, and my friend was at level 12. While not as significant, those 5 levels made a difference. I did look up a guide and got myself to level 19 because with my light build the PvP part was basically one shotting me - you're right though that the player doesn't need to find every fragment
thats only after the patch though
Tbh i did find a lot of the issues with the DLC are just Base game problems that weren't fixed. The open world making quests and upgrading a lot more annoying to me is something the base game suffered, and while it isn't quite as bad with the DLC it's still not great.
The new weapon types are also disapointing in the sense that so few of the new weapons belong to the the new weapon types. Instead of a dozen new colossal weapons why not make more than 3 light greatswords for example?
Sorceries are also very limited in this dlc, and overrall spell balance (and weapon balance honestly) still seems to suffer from some wild balance decisions. Dragon claw and dragonmaw are pretty much just as good as bayle's spells for exmaple. I feel like in not wanting to overshadow base game stuff they went to far the other way and many weapons just feel bad compared to their default versions. Devonia's hammer is just a worse version of ordovis greatsword.
But all of that to me isn't really what brings down the DLC. The performance problems on PC are just ridiculuous. Even if you didn't have the Ray tracing turned on by default bug. From transforms from a AAA company capable of developing some absolutely amazing games but as soon as they try and make a pc port suddenly they're imcopetent. Not getting to use PS controller inputs on pc for example. Or the aforementioned performance issues.
I agree with a lot of your points. I think some things are just impossible to tackle - how do you balance hundreds of weapons and spells. You realistically can't, which really sucks if you want to use a certain weapon and still experience a power fantasy. I wanted to feel like a mighty kung fu monk, but instead my DLC experience was a designated fly swatter for big mean dragons :') (I enjoyed it, don't get me wrong, but it would've been cool if I could have gone HAM)
There's nothing else to say about the performance issues though. I know game dev isn't easy, with ever tighter deadlines and larger scopes of project, the line is drawn - and people are willing to put up with unstable games for the sake of the overall experience. I don't enjoy this trajectory at all, I know this game has the potential to be optimised. I also understand it might not be financially viable for the studio to do so. I would be the happiest gamer if studios poured even more effort into make their games stable because there is nothing that reminds you that you're playing the game more (and preventing you to do so) as random fps drops, stutter and crashes. I heard that some PS5 players also had a ton of issues so it just seems to be a global problem at this point :/
Thank you for your thoughts!
(EDIT: After finishing the video I appreciate your stance much more. This was a well put together video/opinion piece & you have my subscription.)
I really don’t understand the ‘force exploration’ point even slightly. It’s a DLC, with (funnily enough) new content? So surely wouldn’t every player be NATURALLY incentivised already to want to explore?!?
& I think people being upset about the Scudutree fragments not being clear about their importance are just unwilling to admit that they weren’t paying attention when they got them. The game clearly expresses to you upon picking up that first one that they increase your strength.
Also the fragments are really a very fair way to ensure a new DLC is well balanced between people on fresher runs & those with already completed or very late game runs.
Honestly for me the majority of Shadow of The Erdtree’s criticism boils entirely down the standard Fromsoftware’s CHARACTERISTICALLY hard games being ‘too hard’ for people.
Just GitGud fools, if you want a fun, enjoyable & stress free time then go & play Nintendo game. & stay away from ANYTHING made by Fromsoftware.
Rant over, now Nera may Sleep once more…
Thank you for reconsidering your thoughts and watching the video in full! I appreciate that :)
The forced exploration comment was coming from someone who intrinsically LIKES exploring, I just like to do it at my own pace. The DLC felt like it had forced me to explore, but I'd rather have done it on my own terms, seeing what I wanted to see and engaging with what I wanted to engage instead of the game saying "yeah you gotta watch out bcus if you miss a scooby doo snack you're gonna suffer" (which might not have been true, but that's how it felt bcus of the message Fromsoft & others have put out). It's like.. I enjoy eating a muffin, but if someone tells me I have to do it, I'll enjoy it less, if that makes sense?
I agree that the game clearly expresses that they are important, but I don't think it clearly expresses HOW important and impactful they are (especially after the change since it's non-linear now). I also agree that it's a good way to "reset" the player difficulty and basically give us all a fresh start regardless of skill level :)
Personally, I didn't think it was too hard, my main point was that I think the game breaks immersion with some of its choices (mainly repetition) that makes it less fun, but not bad by any means! Thank you for your thoughts and for sharing your opinions!
Everything in the dlc naturally comes to you as you naturally explore if you follow the story the npcs are telling you. I didn’t really use any guides and was able to complete a few npc questlines naturally myself according to what they were telling me. I got to 15 scadu tree without searching for them 💀 had fun with a few bosses and learned their movesets after a few deaths. Read the flavor texts for many items to see if there was any hidden info. Pretty much every boss in the dlc is cool. It makes sense there would be multiple dragons, golems, and 1 ghost flame bird. Radahn being the vessel for Elden lord makes sense lore wise if you are paying attention as wel, however you do have a point about the moveset and id have made him more an abomination after his second phase maybe becoming tainted by the formless mother and rejecting miquellas compassion power.
The game is meant to be played for the story really. You need to immerse yourself and enjoy the world. But opinions are opinions. I’d give it a 8.8/10
While I had little trouble following the story and plot of Dark Souls 1, 2, 3 and even Sekiro, Elden Ring's overarching plot was DEFINITELY lost on me. I think the reason lies in the fact that there are so many plots and threads that I never really unraveled, partially also because I knew because of the size of the world, I am inevitably going to miss some things. By the DLC, I was completely checked out and was here mostly for the sights and the visuals and of course the gameplay experience. I felt like I busted ass to try and find the scadutree fragments and also amassed about 15 levels :')
Your point rings true, I hadn't really engaged with the story that much and if I had, I wonder if I would've had a way different experience or if that would be enough to offset some of my mechanical gripes with the game. They did not make Elden Ring's story an easy one to get into though lol Thanks for your opinion and I'm glad it hit all those high notes for you!
I severely disagree here for 1 reason. I think players are seriously forgetting the community experience at the start of the game. The big flag in this video is when you talked about the scadu fragments. When elden ring came out players whined just as bad if not worse than they did now. Then it was discovered that these players were trying to fight Mohg with 25 vigor, light armor and no defense talismans. There is no other way to say it but the average player is simply not smart/understanding what they are playing. On top of that you very simply do not need that many scadutree fragments. I dont have the exact numbers but in short after 12 they give a very low bonus. Scadutree fragments were not why people were struggling. this DLC actually required understanding of the game. Things like forcing you to stop rolling away from the boss and to use jumps and crouches to dodge attacks. Then i watch players (not you) cheesing every boss then saying the game wasn't fun. Heavy armor with a great shield and spear will be far less engaging than other styles. This would be fine but most people are putting completion over playing then criticizing the gameplay.
Through your gameplay alone you are not one of these players. I even agree with the radahn fight being disappointing on reveal. I played his game with Sacred Dryleaf as my main weapon wearing relatively light armor and my big rule is no bleed/cold as i think its still overtuned. the light armor was mainly to force myself to have to learn the boss attacks .These restriction are not something i think every player has to do but the reasoning i think is needed. I wanted to beat the game in a way that I could be proud of, simple as that. I dont sympathize with people who say they "needed" to do this or that cuz straight up I havent found that to be the case. If you are respecting the game and understand what youre getting into when picking a build ( which you really should since the game has been out 2 years) the most you should have to swap is ur ash of war and the affinity to your weapon.
Too many times i find someone struggling with the dlc then I find out they hadnt touched the game since their first time those years back then came back and ran the dlc on NG+2 -_- . Idk I get the dlc wasnt perfect but alot of the complaints come from people who never even sorta prepared then got surprised when they couldnt 1 shot azur comet the bosses. There are bosses like Gaus that legit are designed poorly but like I said thats not the conversation thats being had IMO.
I agree with you when it comes to assessing HOW people are playing the game. I don't think there are actually that many players (proportionally) who are looking to punish bosses and take advantage of all the windows. I see people complaining that the bosses offer "no" windows and that's just simply not true. It is true they are tighter and more punishing, sometimes they are even spaced apart beyond reason (imo), but there are plenty of ways to take advantage of bosses, especially with the improved moveset of the player.
I think a part of the blame here lies on the messaging too then, because the game again doesn't make it clear HOW (or if) scadutree fragments are important, yet outside the game the general consensus was to "get more scoobydoo fragments".
But I think the game also doesn't try to signal what the "right" way to play is. I think it's completely reasonable that if a player had fun and went through the base game using azur comet 1 shotting bosses as you say, that they would expect or wanted to continue playing in the way they found fun. There's still other cheese strategies, but I do think the DLC reduced the options for those players - while simultaneously increasing the barrier for players like us who enjoy learning the boss movesets etc.
There's just a lot of nuance to unpack, I think every player's experience is so vastly different that it's hard to draw broad conclusions. I do think you are right in saying that a lot of people didn't engage in a way that would be fun for them OR in the way that the game is trying to show them how to engage (this goes both for players who intentionally struggle but can't make any headway on bosses as well as those who cheese and find the game unfun). In the end, we are the arbitrers of our fun, it's just up to the game if it can set the groundwork for us to maximise it. Thank you for your thoughts!! :)
@@Eufuu you brought up a group that is hardly mentioned and i even forgot about being those players that try to make it hard and then fail but don’t adapt. Overall great points
I agree with all the points you made here and I feel like 7/10 is a fair score. I'm not sure where all the 10/10s are coming from. No where near the same level of memorable bosses that the ringed city and old hunters had.
I really hope fromsoft move away from the open world stuff as I feel it takes away more than it adds. I really prefer Sekiro's progression system where leveling up your character is mostly tied to beating bosses/minibosses because it actually forces you to engage with the game mechanics and I was hoping for something similar when I initially heard the DLC would have a different progression system seperate to the base game.
Also huge parts of the map are kinda empty? When you finish it you're left with a "was that it?" feeling.
I am going in a completely different direction, but I think it would be even cool to have one central location where the big main boss is and then you are forced to go to each corner of the map where the other big bosses are. They would each increase your overall strength so you can fight the boss in the middle. That could've been so climactic if done well :D
Messmer, Rellana, Radahn, Shadowtree Avatar, Gaius, Liondancer, Midra, Bayle. More memorable bosses than both of thosd dlcs combined actually.
Although I agree with your rating on the dlc, I do have some different complaints compared to yours:
1- the new weapon types were heavily advertised, shown a lot in the promotional materials, only for us to get so few of them (like every new weapon type only gets 2-3 weapons except the perfume bottles) at the same time we get like 5 new greatswords. Why not put effort into making more of the new weapon types that were advertised and something that was very unique when compared to other fromsoft dlcs? Also most of them feel underpowered for some reason : beastclaws, and martial arts do low damage, perfume bottles suffer from just being slow and surprisingly lack of range, and the throwing daggers are just awful, and the thrusting shield moveset is kinda limited. Only 3 out of the 8 weapon types are good but even then u get like 2-3 options only. The smithscript weapons also consumes way too much stamina and for some reason have damage falloff.
2- the bosses imo are mechanically fine but but imo have 3 issues:
1) they could have added bosses that were hinted at in the main game, instead they gives us new bosses which were never mentioned the main game. Like rellana. It’s like “oh yea she’s the carian queen sister that had a role in the carian manor and left for messmer” and I’m like where was that in the main game.
2) the bosses lack lines/ cutscenes/ dialogue/ lore. One the best moments imo was when maliketh transformed in the main game and his dialogue was very good. Why can’t we have that in the dlc?, also messmer was barely in the dlc for someone who was heavily advertised and put on the front for any promotional material for this dlc. He feels like a morggot 2.0 in terms of character (child of markia who was abandoned by her for having a curse and hating himself for it) they could have made him an usurper of some sorts that plans to overthrow marika. Where is Melina? Where is the gloam eyed queen?
3) the last boss being radahn just left a sour aftertaste in my mouth. I wanted godwyn (I know some lore buff will tell me we can’t have godwyn because his soul is dead, but they could have us made him fight his corpse and then miqullea fuses with him,like a reverse twin princes) but also any other option than an already established boss in the main game.
3-some areas were just empty. The finger ruins had nothing in them, jagged peak had all repeat bosses. The abyssal woods were very empty
My opinion is as follows: the dlc is a 7/10 the main game is a 10/10, not because it didn’t have flaws, it definitely had, but the positives were so good that they made me forget about the bad parts of the game. The dlc doesn’t do that.
I have a hard time commenting on the first point because I didn't use that many different weapons, but I think I saw that some of the new weapons are REALLY different. As in, they're not just reused skins with the same animations, but actually have different animations. Is maybe that why there's less new weapon types? I agree with kung fu weapons though, I wish there were more:(
I wish Rellana had some sort of introduction too! She just kind of appeared and I was like oh I guess I gotta fight her "wait wtf why is she so fucking hard" lol
I generally agree with you though. I think the design is obviously there, but it's missing that emotional punch of the base game. Something about it feels a little half-baked and I have a hard time putting my finger on it.
I agree alot with this. I think 8.5/10 as a lore nerd but your complaints I share
@@yjoltetepique8555 I would have given it 8-8.5/10 if they made more new weapons of the new weapon types and also the fact that 5 of the 8 weapon types are below average in terms of effectiveness. If they were planning on making so few of them, then they shouldn’t have advertised them so much, made us think that they were a big focal point in the dlc and they should have kept them as surprise.
@@bruh7170 I can fully agree. When i found out they added new weapons types and over 100 weapons i figured atleast 30 would be of the new weapons. 8 is crazy
@@yjoltetepique8555 there seems to be misunderstanding. There are 8 new weapon types, each of them having 2-3 option (expect for perfume bottle (5) and throwing daggers (1) )
I think there are a total of 19 weapons of the new weapon types. Tbh I expected like half or 40 the 100 new weapons to be the new weapon types because of how much they were advertised. And even then only 9 of them are good/great. Most of them imo need buffs.
The thumbnail drew me in. I hate those grave birds and the structures they are attached to. They became such an eyesore in the DLC after a while, much like the translucent graves at the beginning. The graves well overstayed their welcome on the map and those bird things are just peppered everywhere on the map. It's like they scrambled to find something to fill up the vast emptiness that they themselves had created and the grave birds seemed to be their solution in many parts of the map. Even the Impaling Spears in the campsite before Castle Ensis were placed without any care at times since some of them are jabbed right into a cliff with some parts of the corpse model clipping through the rock itself. Very immersive indeed.
The open-world exploration aspect of this DLC is easily the worst part of it, especially when compared to the base game. In the base game there's usually at least two routes to reach parts of the open world. Like how in Caelid you can veer hard left and reach the Divine Tower quite quickly, or how upon arriving into Liurnia you can drop down the gravestones jutting out of the cliffside on the right or head left down the slope. Altus Plateau has two distinct ways to enter it, Weeping Peninsula you can approach in a few ways and so on.
In the DLC map the open-world exploration feels very.. restrictive. There's layers upon layers to the map but most areas have only one single access point, some of which are unnecessarily obtuse. I'm no stranger to hidden walls and areas in Fromsoft games but simply reaching an overarching area on the open-world map should not be some cryptic puzzle to be solved.
And the open-world areas themselves are exhausting to explore. There's so much vast, expansive emptiness that it's dizzying at times. The scenery is beautiful but there's just simply too much land to cover without it getting boring. The southern part of the map especially is just an embarrassment with the lack of content within it. Shadow Keep is gorgeous and fun to explore but Belurat was very mid.
My preferred way to play these games after my initial playthrough is with an item and enemy randomizer mod. I am looking forward to having the DLC enemies and items in the randomization pool but I don't see myself thoroughly exploring the DLC map ever again, whereas the base game map I've scoured through like six times at this point. I don't ever get tired of exploring the Lands Between but the DLC bored me on my very first playthrough.
I think for me there are some very beautiful parts of the map, but other parts are like you said, the damn BIRDS (or other repeat enemies) that become an eyesore. It's that unpredictability that made me feel a little unsure. Am I going to find something really cool or just more of the same enemy after I beat this boss I've been struggling for 10 hours on.
I think the DLC map is even more open. Apparently you can reach any boss (outside the gated bosses) from the start, but because of how convoluted it is, it also seems like those maps are a bit more hidden. I'm sure once people figure them out, pathing will become easier.
I would agree with you about the map being more convoluted though. Pathing and finding ways was MUCH harder. Even when I knew where I wanted to go and even if I tried to take into account the geography, sometimes it's just not possible because the actual entrance is on completely other side of the map. It does add a bit of charm that way because the world feels more real, but navigating it was a pain. Especially because so much of it is just open "Nothingness" so you're supposed to be looking for every little corridor and that gets exhausting (at least it did for me).
Thank you for your thoughts!! :)
I feel like you ruined it for yourself my friend
Well, I didn't hate my experience or anything like that. In fact I still mostly enjoyed it (7/10 is still good, I think), but I definitely didn't enjoy it AS much as the base game, for example. Nor as much as the other games. I'm trying to see if maybe with a different mindset I could've enjoyed it more or if this is just a lost cause and maybe the DLC is fundamentally different to the base game. I feel like I SHOULD HAVE enjoyed it, but I didn't, and that's why I'm perplexed
Naaaah dude, but you’re allowed to be wrong
Hey that's fair, if we were all right all the time, what fun would that be. What did you enjoy about the DLC the most? :D
@@Eufuu that it was more of the game I love
The scale
The quality
But then I’ve played all their other dlc
@@herbg4866 Solid, I agree that the scale and quality was dope!
Honestly balance wise for humanoid bosses to me feel very poor sense almost every DLC humanoid boss is an actual wall, all of them has a Nameless King Poise\AKA no actual stagger animation just stance break and the worst part is for me is every last of these humanoid bosses are much faster then the Nameless King like so fast to the point honestly way past the limit the elden ring protagonist can even handle.
Like it feels so stressful to try a dodge all the attacks while left almost no stamina despite having way over 40 endurance this point.
And this is why I like previous soulsborne bosses better in general because the fact their attacks are way more well better telegraphed and they rarely go past the players very limits to react to the bosses attacks, which honestly feels like a damn shame they take more inspiration from the nameless king then actually one of the most top tier humanoid bosses Slave Knight Gael in the Ringed City DLC because of the fact even though he fights very ferociously and fast but he's not a tank he can actually get staggered normally like actually will stop for a few seconds for getting smacked by a heavy weapon none of that stance break nonsense.
And because the fact he actually does get pushed by attacks he actually feels like a living creature you're fighting not some robot pre-programmed to just randomly get stun and kneel when you hit them at a certain amount of times.
Is a darn shame we don't get to have humanoid bosses like that anymore...
I also find it strange that the human summons have unlimited poise and stamina sometimes! You make a good point that enemies getting staggered isn't just for the sake of difficulty, but also immersion. If the bosses react like you do, it makes them feel more real and less just like gamey obstacles that were put in your way. I think it'd make a big difference! Thank you for your thoughts :)
@@Eufuu no problem (-:
I do want to thank you for putting your voice out like this, knowing it will face serious pushback from others, myself included. I can never take away how you personally feel about the DLC, so I at least want you to hear from someone who does think highly of it.
The complaint about the Scadutree fragments fell flat with me because it served towards the larger purpose of encouraging players to explore the world, which had always been the case with the base game itself. Players who ignored it were basically invalidating the reason for an expansion in the first place, and did so at their own peril. It was also an answer to players with endgame builds who would need so many runes just to level up even once for very diminished return due to softcaps. I do agree that the world feels a little emptier compared to base, but i would argue that has more to do with wanting to retain the breath and scope of the open world while technically reducing its actual size. Not a flaw of the DLC itself, just a sign that you prefer the bespoke levels of past games (which is still present in ER’s legacy dungeons) over open-world exploration.
Your complaint about not being able to experiment with new weapons also doesn’t sit right with me, because it relates to the DLC’s assumption mentioned above that players will be going in with endgame builds. The DLC can only be accessed by beating Radahn and Mohg in the base game, bosses geographically distant from each other, so making a beeline for the two and ignoring the shop bells that make smithing stones buyable is both unreasonable and not expected of the player. And for the runes needed to buy the upgrade materials, the encounters in the DLC noticeably won’t give a lot of runes to raise a level 150+ character up a lot, but will go plenty towards buying smithing stones. That, in addition to basic mobs dropping mid-tier stones, meant maxing out the new weapons and experimenting was a non-issue for me.
Not going to fight your experience with the bosses, as it is extremely subjective and what I found engaging with them may not apply to you, though I personally found myself always shifting gears and weapons when necessary. The final boss in particular was a desperate scramble, but I found more than few avenues to improve upon for when I inevitably do this DLC a second time and can’t wait. Even so, I do hope FS’ next game will appeal more directly to you. Having a new ER with every release just isn’t going to work, and the DLC has proven with some of the more esoteric additions to your toolkit like the parrying hardtear and the new weapon movesets that they are open to further experimentation. So it might not even be long before that happens.
Thank you for your kind and polite comment! I did expect people disagreeing, but I also know I'm not the only one feeling this way, so I just wanted to facilitate a discussion about our different experiences.
I get your point about scadutree fragments. I think, once you realise their importance, they succeed in achieving the goal of motivating the player to explore more when they are struggling with an obstacle. If you're hitting your head against the boss -> explore some more -> get stronger -> come back. This is the same loop as the base game. I think the difference, for me, arises when I say "ok I gotta explore some more and find ~cool stuff~ that will improve my build" versus "ok I gotta find scadutree fragments specifically". The latter feels worse, mostly because at that point I'm not really open or expecting anything else. And at the same time, it's the only way for me to reasonably get stronger in the DLC, whereas the base game featured different kind of power ups - seeds, weapons, stones, runes, etc. I also didn't feel that sense of tension in the base game that I have to absolutely check and engage with every part of the map. There was enough stuff littered around that I could keep up with the game's pace even if I wasn't turning over every nook and cranny. This feeling wasn't present in the DLC because every scadutree fragment carries so much power - I think if they had made them more aligned with the mainline paths or even simply reduced their individual power and scattered like 500 of them, it would've gone a long way to alleviating that. I would agree that this isn't necessarily a flaw, and people who enjoy that type of exploration are going to be extremely rewarded by how powerful the scadutree fragments are! But I do think that the base game exploration and the DLC exploration are different enough to have thrown me off. It is also true that I prefer the tighter level designs of the previous game, you got me there:)
I will concede the point about upgrading weapons. I was always hesitant to upgrade weapons because I didn't know if it was worth it, but also because there are a limited amount of ancient dragon stones. In my mind, if I couldn't upgrade a weapon to its max level, there wasn't a point, but it would've been perfectly fine to upgrade it to one level lower, at least to get a feel for it. I think my apprehension for not switching builds more often is a curse of expectation, but also stems from the way I enjoyed playing previous games. By learning one particular weapon "strategy" and then trying to apply it to different bosses. The fun in that was that some bosses would be well suited and would be easy, while others would be way more difficult, but this variance was exactly what makes this playstyle fun for me. I had the same experience with the fists actually! But there was just a higher proportion of bosses that were on that "difficult" side of variance which made it tedious.
I think I just wasn't really primed for Elden Ring to be so RPG-esque so I'll reiterate my finishing thoughts - just because they had tried to make almost every playstyle viable, doesn't mean that it's fun. If I had been more willing to switch things up and hadn't been so afraid of trying new weapons, my combat experience would've been more varied and enjoyable. Hopefully I can take these lessons into the next game Fromsoft makes :)
(but also please give me another game like Sekiro
you can fight mohg really early with the white mask quest and radahn is pretty early as well being a cake walk by endgame the only real indication that the dlc was meant to be endgame was it being a mohg technically and even then if you watched the trailer and beelined it you don't even have to be at farum azula where half the bearing are at, scadufragments shouldn't be necessary because "people have endgame builds" in fact I'd argue there's no such thing its just having a overpowered build or not, because you can beat the main game just as easily as people were claiming you'd beat the dlc with a "endgame build" also if that was the real issue it never should've been endgame content
@@pricefieldxI know there are ways to expedite the process of actually getting there, but you’re looking from the angle of somebody who wants to start up the DLC immediately after creating a new save file; the average player is not expected to speedrun the game to meet the DLC’s minimum requirements. Most will be booting the game up with the builds they’ve used to beat it. That, in addition to the disparate geography needed to travel, Mohg’s status as an endgame boss (with the HP/Damage scaling that entails), the fact it’s been 2 full years since the game’s initial release, and Fromsoft’s previous track record with DLC (which have all been consistently a step up to their base games in challenge) should be more than enough to tell players to come in with fully prepared setups. It’s ultimately healthier this way; I bet if The Old Hunters DLC with its notoriously short distance from the starting area was released to an audience the scale of ER’s, you will get even more complaints than SotE about being stonewalled by difficulty.
Your remark about how scadutree fragments shouldn’t be necessary also ignores the interview with Miyazaki explaining directly why they implemented it in the first place: it gives lategame builds an incentive to explore, both for exploration’s sake and to still feel a sense of progression. Not leveling up often in previous FromSoft DLCs isn’t as much of an issue because they tend to be beaten in the span of a few hours, but SotE’s massive scope means you will be struggling to feel an improvement on damage and survivability throughout tens of hours. This is as much a method to tackle stagnation as it is a pointed encouragement to explore all the new map has to offer.
the second kung fu weapon with the kicks you dont have to kill one boss to get.... how is that the end?
I must've missed it then! For me it dropped when I beat the npc summon boss against Lena and Dryleaf Dane and co., that's where I found his kicks :O maybe that was just a pity drop in case I missed it
you are confusing the weapon he is using. You get 1 from dryleaf and the other after the leda fight. no other way
@@yjoltetepique8555 Thanks for the clarification!! :)
Tree fragments really aren’t as tedious as you’re making it out to be. They’re very visible in the areas they’re in and they are “rewards” for exploring the area fromsoft spent 2 years making for us to enjoy.
Did you want to walk into the dlc and steamroll it??? This resets the game for you so it’s as if you’re level 1 in what is essentially Elden ring 2.
And yes you should try new builds and it does incentives you do it, there’s a LOT of larval tears in the game not counting subsequent playthroughs
That being said 7/10 is a fair score
@@TheRealFlapSlapper Thanks for your comment and your follow-up. Just in general for even watching and considering my points :)
I didn't really have any issue with the difficulty of the DLC, my hangup is more with the fact that I think the exploration isn't as engaging because of scadutree fragments.
Now that you said it, maybe me thinking that finding scadutree fragments are tedious is me actually finding the overall exploration tedious. To some extent I would say that this is true because outside of a few areas, there was a lot of "dead ends" or things that I expected to be behind waterfalls for example, or the finger ruins etc. that felt very unrewarding. I still think I mind scadutree fragments because they felt very "distracting" to me, or rather, I hyperfocused on them because I knew there was a limited amount and because of how important they were to the overall progression - I was constantly worried that I was going to miss some, especially because my general approach with these games is that I don't tend to really collect EVERYTHING (one of my biggest pet peeves in gaming is random collectables).
I agree with your point about larval tears, mostly because changing a build doesn't necessarily even constitute using a larval tear, but just using smithing stones and since there are an unlimited amount of those, you basically just need to find a different weapon and spend some time upgrading a few of them. A low barrier of entry, even if a little out of the way - I was just inherently stubborn in the way I was playing which means I experienced less of the fun stuff (mostly new weapons) than I could have. Thank you for your insights!
Also about your note of difficulty, I think it would be cool if the difficulty ramped up a bit differently. The way I experienced it is that the lion and Renalla were by far the hardest bosses until Radahn, the bosses in between (outside of Bayle) were comparatively easier and more approachable. And since they are the first 2 bosses that most people encounter, I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that people are perceiving it to be more difficult than it is or if this is just a Fromsoft attempt to coax people into exploring the area for more fragments 🤔
i also think they did wrong with the fragments, i hate collecting sutff like, it's a way to make the game longer or harder artificially, they sould come with something like a simpler version of the paragon system form diablo, by using separate Runes of the DLC to level up damage up or damage negation, 1% by 1% becouse besides the first time, i ain't gonna explore everything and remmenber every single fragment on my new character.
I'm with you that collecting stuff just isn't an engaging mechanic for me personally, but I do think scadutree fragments have a place in the game. I don't think the system is elegant, but I think it gets the job done. It just does it with a sledgehammer instead of a precision missile :D It would be cool if after you collect them once, you could hand-pick how many scadutree fragments you have before a particular boss. That'd be cool for challenge runs and customisation!
It's better than the base game in every way except progression.
I'm curious what encompasses "everything" or what you have in mind when you say that. Would you say the boss design is better overall? Exploration? Variety? Because these are the 3 points where I would say that the base game is better than the DLC. Of course it's mostly subjective, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts!
the biggest mistake of the dlc was making it endgame content, if they didn't have to force exploration which the base game never had to then it would've been 10x better
Oh, you think that the base game didn't have as much exploration? or do you just think that the exploration wasn't as forced?
How was exploration forced? You’re playing an open world game… you’re gonna explore things. Genuinely don’t understand this comment someone lmk
@@Eufuu it wasn't as forced as in not at all really, genuinely think about it, nothing about the base game ever really made it mandatory for you to go on essentially a scavenger hunt, you got the golden seeds and and levels from just the main path there was nothing other than natural wonder and curiosity that drove the exploration, seeing something and going "WOW That's so cool I want to go there!", and not "damn everything is 1 shotting me I got to go find these specific items hidden around the map to be able to even compete let me pull up a wiki or video on how to get all of them"
@@c2nder928 read my other reply
Yeah, I agree with your point! It's the difference between "exploring and getting stronger" and "trying to find this one specific item in a sea of items". The first one feels rewarding and the second one less so.
And the game isn't charitable with stones!? You literally have access to buy infinite stones lol
We had this conversation in another comment thread, but I agree with you on this one. It isn't guaranteed that a person will find the items necessary for infinite stones, my reaction was based on maxing out the weapon - which of course you don't need to do, but I tunnel visioned on it because in my mind it's either +25 or it's useless (bcus why would I play with something suboptimal). If I ever replay, I'll upgrade to +24 and save those precious ancient dragon stones for the really good weapons!
@Eufuu Juat make a weapon +24 and if you like it then make it +25 (or +10 if somber) I guess everyone can have their own opinion but the game is more like a 9 or 10. They found a way to challenge us again which is no small feat. My only complaint is how empty the finger ruins and the ceurulan coast are and how easy the mother of fingers was. The best bosses and dungeons in the whole series.
Yeah, see, that's the part that flew over my head due to my perfectionism (which is my own bias and not a fault of the game) because +24 is NOT optimal!! I liked the Cerulean coast a little empty, but I was severely disappointed with finger ruins - what a cool area for basically nothing :(
I liked the dlc quite a bit,8/10 for me, but admittedly it has some problems.
1:Some enemies such as the fire knights and furnace golems, their cool at first but stink to fight(mainly the dagger knights)
2:Bosses,mainly with fights like having some unfair attacks(mainly putrescent knight and his area blue flame move and horse)
Lastly:rewards,for some.rememberaces, the rewards felt sucky, like with the putrescent knights cleaver(ash of war specifically) or the divine beast with the talisman.
Luckily their are good bosses with good rewards like messmer and rellanna, so overall, good dlc
(Pvp is absolutely ruined tho so rip)
I think to your point 2, I don't think any attack is unfair but I do think the game doesn't make it clear how you can evade an attack. Sometimes you can jump over when it doesn't seem like you can for example. I think that can create a lot of frustration when trying to learn the bosses. It feels a little janky to what is otherwise a great overall effort in presentation and map execution. I'm glad you enjoyed it so much! Did you find it more or less enjoyable than base game Elden Ring?
@@Eufuu I'd say it was more fun due to the challenge and new weapons but I wish it lasted longer
I wish it had more dungeons like Shadow Keep! That would've been cool:)
Personally I would give the DLC a 9.5 out of 10. Granted, I think I had basically the perfect experience. I was able to get through most of the bosses with 2-3 attempts, found enough fragments that I could just naturally keep up, and didn’t really ever have to switch up my build (god bless the Milady). I am a little bit confused about your point with Scadutree fragments, it seems like the same criticism applies to smithing stones in the base game. I would initially have agreed with you on Radahn, but the fight really redeemed itself to me by being one of the most dynamic, intuitive, and intense fights in the series. It really reminded me of fighting Godfrey at RL1 which was my favorite experience in any of these games. Overall, though I have some complaints about the story feeling unpolished, I would say that Shadow of the Erdtree is probably tied with Sekiro for the best Soulslike content that fromsoft have produced. Even though I disagree, I’m glad that you put this video out and shared your opinion.
Thank you for the kind and considered comment! I think it's important to remember that for every good experience there will be a bad one and vice versa. There's just so many things to account for!!
TBH, I never liked collecting smithing stones, but at the very least you can buy them at some point and with that, the game makes sure you're never "too weak" to handle whatever difficulty level you are currently facing. Plus because there are way more to collect, they were a more common drop so I never felt like I had to really hunt them down.
I think every boss fight has two distinct phases - the learning phase and the execution phase. I feel like if I had gotten through that learning phase better, I would've really enjoyed the execution phase because he does seem like a dynamic/fun boss fight. I think it's surprising (but also cool!) you view it as highly as Sekiro, but like yourself, I am glad you shared your opinion and I'm really glad that you enjoyed it so much :) here's to the next game being just as awesome!
Second phase of Consort Radahn is the farthest removed thing from intuitive. "tied with Sekiro for the best Soulslike" is crazy to be honest, but to each their own of course.
@@_ghostman what I meant about second phase Radahn is that the pillars of light specifically force you to dodge in the right direction for each type of sword swing. Since the light spawns at the edge of his blade, you can tell which way you must dodge by what type of swing you’re trying to avoid. This also forces you to be in the correct place to punish him. I think that Malenia and him are on similar tiers of difficulty but I much prefer his fight. He’s hyper aggressive like Godfrey, but still has frequent opportunities to punish due to some of his slower swings. It legitimately pains me that so many people beat him using great shield face-tanking because the boss is so clearly trying so hard to force you to fight him in the right and most fun way.
I think this positioning and position-based dodging is something relatively unique to Radahn. I don't think there's any boss where that's mandatory, so it makes sense to me that people, who aren't used to that, are resorting to using an easier method to beat him. 🤔
Came here to say nah
That's completely fair! What did you like about it the most?
If elden ring was the first game in the genre, would people really be 'no summon' by default? What does fromsoftware need to do for people to accept summoning as the intended way to play?
It's definitely not the "intended" way to play. It's an option to make them easier. You can tell the bosses are not designed around summoning because their AI goes absolutely retarded when more than one person is attacking them.
That's a good question! I do think that summoning is a default for many players, but there are still a few out there (like me) who enjoy playing the game without. Like the other commenter said, it's just a different game when you are playing without summons that demands a lot more from you and requires you to internalise the boss' moveset. That is fun to me, but I understand that other players enjoy a different kind of challenge, which is completely ok! Elden Ring tries to cater to both crowds and IMO bcus it walks the middle path, it kind of sacrifices a bit on both ends.
elden ring players when someone has a different opinion 😠😠😠
the natural transformation of any online gamer:
😀🙂😐☹😢😠😡🤬🍅
i mean i do think this take went in with the expectation of an all new experience rather than an expansion to an existing game, which the game is nothing more nothing less. Some points are valid, like a lot of the armors being underwhelming in stats (or even looks), a lot of weapons suck but theres a small handful that are stupidly op that everyone and their grandma will use. Repeat bosses is nothing new for the series this is such a tired complain I hate seeing, and of course you're going to have more in a game where the map is very large, dlc included.
After thinking about it for a bit, I think you're right! My expectation was that this is going to be an incredible expansion, but in my defense that's how the early game critics and journalists presented it. It was touted as "the world's best DLC", but it is very much more of the same (if not slightly worse) with all the Elden Ring's faults and successes. The pacing of the DLC is definitely different which is I think an objective critique on my part, but I'm not willing to concede my point about repetition. It's something that has bothered me in previous games and will continue to bother me. Is it reasonable that a game as large as Elden Ring will have repeats? of course, I'd probably include repeats too if I was making the game as large as this! But as a player, for me at least, it's one the most immersion breaking elements. I think my issue is not so much that the repeats are there, but that they don't feel very thought-out, which again feels like is because the studio was stretched thin due to the size of the game they were trying to make. Understandable of course, but still a bummer. If I could wave a magic wand I'd make the studio 10x bigger and make the game cost 10x less to make :))) We'd all win then!
@@ORLY911 I agree tbh. i personally loved the dlc, its always intersting to hear the perspective of others
Very well spoken!
Thank you!! I went pretty off-script and decided to keep it more "natural" so I'm glad it didn't come off too goofy :D
The final boss was quite a big let down for me. The fact that it was just another version of a boss that we had already fought was quite disappointing. Also, The ending of the DLC felt weirdly empty to me. After the cutscene played, I just stood there and was like “huh, that was it?” I genuinely can’t tell if I missed something about the ending because it felt so incomplete to me.
I completely agree with you, it felt like it was missing some kind of connective plot that would lead up to the final boss and then resolve - almost every other game had that to some extent. And unlike DS3 where the final boss was an homage, DLC Radahn feels more like a "we have Radahn at home" type of deal, especially because of how different and unique the base game's fight is. It's this huge sprawling arena against a demigod that you fight with a ton of NPC friends and here he's just .. a guy. It really does feel like the team was spread thin so they couldn't have refined those last details that would have made it *pop*.
Yes! I was seriously dissatisfied with the ending. No new rune ending? No major story changes or reveals at all?!?!? It kinda was a let down. I wanted a miquella based ending as part of the dlc.
Did you complain when the Old Hunters DLC ended on a similarly muted note?
i thought the game overall is a 6 the scadutree frags wasn’t that hard to find they were mostly around grace sites , but i think the world was kind of emptier than limgrave. the reused bosses and enemies were annoying and the aggro was annoying as well. i think i would like the game more if enemies abode by the same rules as the player and had stamina health and fp penalties bc the successive movesets they have is ridiculous. and it’s 2024 why don’t enemies have a visible poise meter, or at least the option to turn it on . also locking the best tear (deflecting hardtear) behind the first furnace golem dropped the game 2 points for me. it’s the worst mini boss fight in the whole game and the tear should’ve been a talisman
The world definitely felt emptier! One reason is that I think it is objectively less dense, but also that there are just less "fun" things to find when you're already in the late game when your build is pretty much complete. The lack of a poise meter really baffles me because it feels like such a fundamental mechanic? But maybe the idea was that they didn't want players to FOCUS on it? In that case maybe a solution where an enemy enters a sort of "pre-stagger" state would work better visually and thematically hm.
I don't think I mind big boss enemies not abiding by the same rules, but what drives me crazy is the ghosts that invade your world not abiding by them! having infinite stamina or poise but they're just like us, that feels so contrived lol. I get your complaint though and I think ultimately a game designed with that in mind would be more engaging (like Sekiro)
It's okay to not get things. it isn't for you.
I still liked it! Elden Ring is one of my favourite games ever :) what do you think I didn't get?
make backup saves to create and test builds..... you can also drop trade max level weapons and then reload your backup save.
That's a good idea and absolutely a way to experience the game - but it is a fundamentally different way to engage which I don't particularly enjoy. I think if I learned to enjoy it, I would've had a better experience with the DLC though, but I'm so eager to experience novelty that reloading etc feels like I'm not really "playing" the game if that makes sense
try parrying rennala. makes the fight way better imo.
Dude, I wish I had tried out parrying more in general! It seems like a fun way to play, but it flew over my head. If I ever replay, I'll try a parry build:D
rellana * but facts
also get your flask to +12
I never had much trouble with the bosses or the flask level luckily :) it didn't feel like I was losing out on healing or that was the reason why I was losing fights
This guy has never heard of the wiki
I hear you man, having information is the best way to beat any game. I also think that gaming has become an "open" experience with all the live streaming/youtube etc. Playing a game and looking things up, or learning about them from the people we watch, is just how we experience games in 2024.
But the philosophy is that you're only able to play the game blindly once and if I look (too many) things up, I'm robbing myself of the experience. If I did look up more things, I'd have enjoyed certain parts more, but I would also enjoy certain parts less, so I don't think it's a silver bullet that would address and fix every one of my "problems".
If I'm looking things up, where does the line end? Do I also copy great builds? Do I look up glitches? Strats? Every person has their own line , but to me games (especially games like Elden Ring) are about my own experience and discovery - not retreading the path someone else has already taken. I hope that makes sense :)
@@Eufuu then you can’t complain if it’s just how you prefer to play the game
@@chicken.8189critiquing the game is not complaining especially when the game doesn’t tell you anything
@@chicken.8189 Here's the thing, my goal with the video wasn't to complain, but to provide an empathetic perspective of how I experienced the game - perhaps this wasn't the "optimal" experience, but it was how I engaged with the game. I wasn't intentionally trying to make myself have less fun, I was just engaging in what I thought WOULD be the most fun, but it turns out that wasn't the case, especially after thinking about it.
The argument that we can only share our experience if a specific set of circumstances is met is troublesome because a) who decides what these circumstances are? and b) that doesn't really change what my experience was, I think it's valid to talk about
There is also a difference between the validity of a complaint, but you used much stronger language "can't". I invite you to reassess what I'm trying to say here, but if you can't bring yourself to do that, we can just agree to disagree!
Who wants to ruin the experience for themselves by looking things up? Not how games are meant to be played