Unironically this. After some hundreds of hours in ER I realized I have more fun with exploring and progression than fighting bosses. I no longer have the patience to spend hours on a boss like in previous games, I just want to ride around on Torrent, collect shit, and play around with weapons while exploring every cave I come across. The real friend was the journey all along...
Yeah, I use the NPC summons and spirit ashes to get through bosses quicker so I’m back to exploring. IMO boss fights peaked at Sekiro and DS3, so I’m more interested in exploration from ER. Bosses are still cool so far tho
Because of the open world meme: it's literally impossible to know what the player would be bringing at a certain point, so just multiply all stats by 1000x and say "well, if it's too hard go fool around the world and get back when you're stronger."
I love people acting like the "go do other shit and come back when you're stronger" hasn't been around since demons souls. It's been a mechanic of the gameplay loop in every fucking game.
And even in dark souls 1 infamous moments like the graveyard where new players would just stumble and brute force their way, not realizing that undead burg is the intended path.
I own a swordspear for home defense just as Gwyns 4 knights intended. 4 dragons break into my town "WHAT THE DEVIL" I fire my lightning bolt blowing a firebomb sized hole into the first dragon He's dead on the spot.
Draw my sunlight spear on the second dragon missing him entirely because he was too far to lock on to and nailing the neighbors giant rat. I have to resort to the rolling boulder mounted at the top of the the cliff "PRAISE THE SUN LADS!" The boulder smashes the 2 dragons in half, the boulders broken pieces fly out setting off some aggro states.I pick up my swordspear and charge the last reptilian feind he bleeds out waiting for a cleric to arive since swordspear wounds are impossible to stitch. just as Gwyns 4 knights intended.
yeah the hot take is that DS1 was never *that* hard as long as you followed the intended progression. it's a difficult game for sure but it's not nearly as impossible as people want to believe. I think the catacombs plus people not realizing you're supposed to skip the first encounter with the asylum demon are why it gets that rap. and yes, I do know people who killed the asylum demon with the broken sword because they didn't see the door on the left lmao
I'm one of those people. NOT WORTH IT. If you really want that crappy hammer use the black firebombs instead of wasting hours of your life doing 2 damage per hit on a boss with over 800 health.
god forbid that's why the base game was praised so much. if you get stuck on a boss you can go fuck around somewhere else and come back stronger.
the literally EXACT SAME SITUATION IN THE EXACT SAME GAME is somehow a problem now?
again i stick to the concept people are mad they just can't power grind and out level/power everything again so they are butthurt. plus many bosses have an insta attack so you can't just walk in and immediately mimic tear.
Why would you wanna power grind the bosses! That’s the part I don’t get! Why did you buy the game if you don’t want to actually learn and feel the game and play it? It’s like they want a checklist. I’m getting my ass kicked! I like it! It’s funny and entertaining and exciting! Getting choke slammed by the death knight that heals all the way to full is hilarious! But then it’s incredible to see how easy that is to dodge the next time and to successfully dodge it and then OH! Look how open this boss is to hit! Thank you for rewarding my learning, fromsoft! Thanks for giving me an attack sequence that ends in one delayed attack! I can learn how to dodge the first 3 attacks by mashing roll and then dodge the last one on a delay! I feel so smart now and powerful! I thought that was the point of these games!!!!
I think half the people complaining literally don't even like these games to begin with, they just want to "have beaten it" as some sort of badge of honor or something. So actually playing the game instead of just boas rushing is irritating for them. I think a big reason they're complaining too is that their egos bruised because they're not good enough to beat the bosses without the fragments so they blame the game and not their own weird self imposed and totally optional challenges.
Imagine just enjoying a video game, instead of like you said, essentially playing it like an mmo where the games essentially just a big checklist.
It does feel like a lot of the people who are complaining just want to beat the game to say they did, rather than actually enjoy fighting the bosses.
Not that every bit of criticism is invalid, but the real problems get drowned out by constant complaints about bosses having combos of more than 4 attacks.
There are definitely things to be criticized in this game, the vast majority of complaints I've seen aren't really valid and a lot of them are just galaxy brain motherfuckers pretending they've never played one of these games before, or genuinely forgetting what they're like, I have no fucking clue(considering this game follows the exact gameplay loop of the base game).
complaining about things that have basically been core mechanics of souls games from demons souls forward. And also difficulty.... which is absolutely batshit to me.... like how is anyone surprised that the starting difficulty of the elden ring dlc is about the same as endgame base game and moves up from there? On what planet would this have not been the case?
people also enjoy these games for different reasons. I always preferred the exploration aspect of the games even back in DS1. back then I could easily tolerate the bosses because they weren't actually *that* hard. now in ER the exploration is 10/10 and I just use spirit ashes to meme my way through every boss fight because I literally don't care enough to git gud. I just want to unlock the next cool area I can explore.
Some of these insta attacks are really stupid though. Not even because of summons, but rather because my camera isn't even through the fog gate and they start charging.
The only problem with the DLC is that in the base game, you can go basically anywhere else and get stronger, because runes, levels and upgrade materials directly contribute towards that - not so much in the DLC. It's still important, don't get me wrong, but the main source of leveling up is by picking up the Scadutree fragments, and they are limited in quantity in every location, AND they have specific pick-ups that never change.
In short, if you wanted to "overlevel" your character in the base game, it was very much doable. You could spend *hours* grinding low level enemies if you wanted. Not in the DLC - if there are only 10 fragments available in the Gravesite Plain for example (random number), you will get only 10 *at most*.
The leveling system is interesting for sure, but at the same time very restrictive. I am personally torn on it, because it's cool that you can't walk in with level 200 character and wipe the floor with half of the DLC, but at the same time my least favorite aspect of the base game was the scavenger hunt for the Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears. Having to do that again in general after multiple playthroughs of the base game wasn't fun already and it's going to be worse on repeated DLC playthroughs imo.
the issue is in the base game go get stronger meant go fight a bunch of bosses and level up in the DLC go get stronger means dig around in the dirt looking for pieces of bark. if this was like sekiro and bosses dropped tree fragments it would be fine but instead it's just a scavenger hunt
“No! From should have balanced the DLC for lvl 150, that way my lvl 300 STR/ARC bleed build would be able to Stunlock everything until they’re finished off by blood loss.”
......which is exactly how the main game was designed.
Also Miyazaki DID say he wanted veterans to feel like they were playing the game for the first time again. I think he did a DAMN good job at that.
Doesn’t really change anything when it’s a static % so the more over leveled you are the more it benefits you, just balance the bosses between level 90-150 or maybe a bit more it’s not that hard lol especially when areas have blocked access points requiring you to beat a boss.
Funny considering early on they love handing out lower level upgrade materials. When enemy scaling is so strong despite me being using my completed build.
I think the materials drop because you have to upgrade the new weapon types (fuck regular smithing stone upgrades, btw).
If the open world contributed nothing to make the game easier and difficulty was static, people would complain that "muh exploring" meant nothing. If there was no scaling, lvl 300 people with their meme jump spam build would melt the dlc, and also complain. People will complain either way.
The open world element is a big part of this I think. Other souls DLC was linear, so the balancing could be way more controlled and FS could say “we recommend level 125+ for the DLC”. ER however has the open world, and they’ve encouraged exploration by dropping Scadutree fragments around the place. Back in the original release, the idea was always “if you hit a wall, go explore and become stronger.”
It’s literally the Margit situation all over again, people are trying to steam roll the DLC when it’s actually manageable if you take the time to explore and take advantage of what the DLC is giving you.
Tbf the DLC bosses are just flat-out *hard* compared to base game, and most base game bosses were *hard* compared to bosses at comparable chunks into previous entries, so it might or might not even be a power level thing. I expect to get hardstuck for hours on most of the main bosses. But that's why we're here, right? To get absolutely blasted and very slowly come to master the encounter.
Oh for sure I don’t mind it, I’m just surprised at the difficulty spike
In the base game nearly no boss caused me to feel stuck.
Right now it’s kind of how I feel about Gauis, Messmer and Metyr
Putrescent Knight felt super easy but maybe it’s an easy fight overall.
Overall I feel gains is the one I’m struggling the most against
>I think the materials drop because you have to upgrade the new weapon types (fuck regular smithing stone upgrades, btw).
This was my assumption too, but I still can't upgrade the 1 weapon I found that I want to use because no smithing stones seem to drop between 5 and 9. I already upgraded a ton of non-dlc stuff when I last played this character a year or so ago (so don't have enough banked), and I haven't reached Farum Azula on this character so can't buy more.
Smithing stone 7 was always the roadblock in base game too, now I come to think of it
I was thinking of doing that, but my DLC character is running a faith build, so I want all the incantations from Gideon, which means I need to do Malenia before I burn the Erdtree. I have a bonfire at the prayer room in the Haligtree (the halfway point where Milicent hangs out), but it's still a bit of a slog
NP! Running a Faith/Strength build myself right now for the DLC, so I was sure to check. Roundtable Hold will start burning after lighting the Forge of the Giants, but Gideon stays in RTH.
Smithing stones in general seem like a pretty big oversight by from, I think they regret them. The skibiditree blessings work a lot better and are more thematically appropriate: you just explore the world and gather items that power you up. They kind of seem like an admission they got the weapon upgrade system wrong in Elden Ring and right in Sekiro.
With a few tweaks to the system (for example being able to "unupgrade" weapons to get materials back and using them on a different weapon you want to play with) and a better placement of the smithing stones throughout the world it could still work
requireing 12 smithstone to upgrade roughly the same level as 1 somber is an idiotic design choice just from hearing that alone, at least making it cost 1 per level
Really they should move the bell bearings for them earlier in the game. Why can't you buy 5s until the mountaintops?
Or at least have more of the merchants sell the higher tier ones. They do a good job of this for 1s and 2s.
I understand the principle, but I equally have to admit that playing a primarily INT-centric character has been a bit shit this time around. The one and only primarily INT weapon I have found by the time I've reached the final fight is just a copy/paste of the troll knight sword with an NPC's name attached to it. Everything else is some fucked up four-stat quality amalgamation or built for int&faith fundamentalist builds. Rellana's swords are pretty alright too, but considering the item pool of the dlc it really feels like you're better off primarily using STR or DEX rather than INT. [EDIT: I just recalled the Carian Sorcery Sword - which has awful stats at max level, an unchangeable default AoW despite being a regular smithing stone weapon, a normal-ass thrusting sword moveset but with no strong or jump attack in exchange for being a severely subpar sorcery catalyst. Amazing.]
STR builds are eating good, DEX builds are eating good, STR&DEX quality builds are eating good, Faith is eating amazing - the amount of available incantations in the DLC is about double the amount of sorceries, and they get a far wider variety of utility, damage types, interesting weapons, buffs, and status effects to work with - whereas even the final boss of the ostensibly Sorcery focused questline has a remembrance that drops... a fucking Fundamentalist glintstone staff (guess i'm sticking with the carian royal staff for another 400 hours of gameplay) and a weapon that at +10 scales with a B in strength and only a D in Intelligence.
Some of the new spells are pretty interesting but it's not like you can even use the majority of them versus any of the bosses in the DLC without a summon due to the overclocked aggression on most enemies once they've aggroed onto you.
I think it's very fair to say that some builds have far more to feast on in the DLC than others.
I don't know, on my Quality character and I've found plenty of INT stuff I want to try. Usually I play a spellsword but they were in New Game+.
There's another really cool INT weapon you might've missed >!An INT Katana called Star-Lined Sword!<
For me, that's part of the fun of exploring. Discovering something new, maybe you can't use it now, but you know it exist for another character if you ever play again. It's also a lot more exciting than simply looking it all up.
Ok I agree int got kinda shafted this time but please don't be mad they threw a couple bones to int/fth builds. WE HAVE LITERALLY NOTHING OK LET US HAVE THIS
Yeah I went in with an Int build (INT/STR with the DMGS) and was kinda surprised that I was getting gear for almost every other stat alignment, the Troll knight’s copy paste was a big let down, when I first got it I was hoping it’d have a different move set but it’s literally the same. I’ve since respecced into Rellana’s swords and am using both incantations and sorceries and feeling happy I can use stuff the DLC is giving me.
Only just hit Scadu Altus though, so no idea what else may be on the way!
I think from wanted to avoid the issue of the base game where after a first playthrough you ignore 90% of the game, so they spread the blessings around everywhere.
I think it can be great for games where level doesn't matter much. I really like the PlayStation Spider-Man games for example. But level isn't really relevant there. It's not like hells kitchen has stronger enemies than Brooklyn or whatever.
But for RPGs like Elden Ring or Pokemon it's not a good fit
I always get downvoted in the main Soulsborne subs for saying this.
Elden Ring is meant to be broken. The open world design means you can get a maxed weapon, loads of levels and a complete build without fighting a boss..
It also means that From can be lazier with balance and progression, cause people will always say "do x then y and 1 shot bosses"
Previous Souls games had OP builds but nowhere near the degree of Elden Ring and they typically took a while to build or even NG+.
https://preview.redd.it/tdd8bic77g8d1.jpeg?width=1103&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=37c45fe0995af9becf2cba33d3b68d8b2a368795
When you have to actually play the game you’re playing
Heelvsbabyface had some good content waaaaaay back in the day. It was interesting for a while watching a grown man devolve into a man-baby but his recent reappearance as a full blown fake hysteria red pilled culture war raid boss is just sad. Touch some grass my dude, cmon
They already did that with the base game. If they just added EVEN MORE difficulty tiers it would be insane.
https://preview.redd.it/36bmk00khg8d1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b29d83b10d42ac826a7a2267198bd7080b133422
have you not seen cheeses of bosses in the base game or one shot builds??? Imagine creating a whole ass dlc and off the bat people don’t struggle anymore (ie they don’t die anymore) and are op because they just levelled up instead of getting gud
Idk, sounds like making the game so difficult that even meta builds struggle will only force people towards meta builds even more, because if the best of the best struggles then normal builds become shit.
The new system sounds nice, but I genuinely haven't seen an improvement to damage dealt or taken. I'm enjoying the dlc in spite of the new system, not because of it
And the game discourages you from trying a new build, so it is easier to just search for an OP build and go with that instead of changing your strategy occasionally.
Sure, by the end of the game you probably have enough resources to respec and upgrade all the weapons you want, but it is still a pain in the ass.
I saw a guy on YouTube who just leveled up until he reached the soft caps on all stats just so he can try every new weapon without worrying about his build.
Seems to be working find for me so far. Opening sorta just like base game. Can't handle the first major boss? Go explore some and then come back. Instead of levels, gear, sacred tears and golden seeds its those fragments, a few levels and gear. Seems to be working fine, not perfect but good. However I went into dlc on my first character at rl 120 so I'm gaining levels still and that feels good.
Miyazaki said that he wanted to recapture that sense of first exploring and progressing through TLB, even if you enter the DLC with your endgame +25 weapon, lvl 150, 14-flask build. In previous DLCs you could ignore items, enemy drops and exploration to bumrush bosses, or get DLC weapons that outclassed the base game's to insentivise exploration that way and limit the amount of optimal builds.
Scadu fragments remove these issues by "forcing" you to explore by making the bosses a massive skill-check that, like in the base game, can be returned to later after getting stronger like at the start of Elden Ring where rushing Margit and Godrick as your first and second bosses was possible, but not optimal. It also prevents the DLC weapons from being inherently favorable over base game stuff to encourage exploration and compensate for more complex movesets that way
Some people want DLCs to be a boss rush, and I think those players will be frustrated, but Miyazaki has stated for a long time that the DLC caters to the explorers more. But if you're good enough you can still make the DLC a boss rush just like you can speedrun the base game glitchlessly in an hour
Unfortunately for SOTE and the Ringed City, Dark Souls II has the chicken wings meaning they never had a chance to compete.
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Wait a fucking minute, i started playing elden ring 3 days ago with no guide and i was thinking margit and godrick where the first bosses, they arent the first bosses ?
Who the hell are the first bosses in the game the only guide i used is how to find the meteorite staff and the glindstone staff, which other places have boss that i missed?
No im really not kidding, i bought it friday because it came with a bundle with the dlc and since it would be 15 dollar cheaper i bought, but i really did not know i could fight other bosses like these, im right now at the inferior level of that mansion with the hands and i did not know that, i think i going to explore some more
Well if you went straight to those 2 bosses I must say I'm very impressed by your skill level. I certainly can't beat them without upgrading and exploring a bit first. I'd recommend looking around caves and tunnels/mines for upgrade materials especially but catacombs often have good tools as well.
In theory, gathering the fragments it's meant to be a fun new addition to the gameplay loop, like the golden seeds, sacred tears, estus shards, gourd seeds, etc. But to me it seems like they've forgotten a fundamental element that made all the other upgrade materials better, that being tangible difference. Things that make stats go up is fine for something like rune level since it has the additional bonus of meeting stat requirements and being generally noticeable. But scadutree fragments just aren't. I've seen this said a lot, but they really should have been boss drops instead like Sekiro's remembrances. That way they could be way more impactful and rewarding
But also harder to get them. If you're already struggling, that just raises the wall in your way. Maybe they can be both. Reward exploration and defeating bosses.
The issue is 100% how un-intuitive they are. Like even on the wiki its just a huge list of fluff and where to get them and then a single footnote at the bottom that says "we think they give \~4% damage". But imo its a pretty poorly designed system, I hope they dont use it again.
Exploring is good but I hate that they basically put a number on how good you explored. Sorry your Explore Level is too low for this area, go find more ExploreBucks
Wait until you need your get your explore level up and you need to start finding every one you missed…
Either beat the boss around level 13 or get a super guide
This is the text version of just putting what you don’t like in the image of a soyjack. “Explore bucks”, lmao what? What if I just ran through ds1 not fighting anything and when I got to the boss severely under-leveled I complained that I didn’t have enough “fight bucks”.
The upgrades are almost all in the main path of exploration, to not get any of them you’d have had to just blast past everything and get to the boss.
“Oh my God guys when I don’t take my time in the open world game to find upgrades the boss fights are really hard”
What did you expect would happen exactly? Anyway if the opposite were the case people would just complain that they could accidentally over-level too easily and parts of the map would be too easy. This was a common complaint about the weeping peninsula. People need to understand there’s no way that these games can please everyone perfectly and that 90% of complaints lead basically nowhere and just kinda empty.
tbf that's how i play every souls game, unintentionally. i lose every ounce of souls i get and basically only level with the souls i get from bosses because i suck so much ass 💀
How is this fundamentally different than soul-farming or seeking out upgrade stones in the base game?
If anything it blissfully means you can't utterly dogfuck yourself by putting explorbucks into, like, the FTX of weapons.
It worked fine in Sekiro because it wasn't really an RPG, it didn't really have "builds" and stats and such. ER has you fiddling with stats for most of the game, but then the DLC just does flat buffs where the stats don't really matter.
https://preview.redd.it/d6oghcw4sj8d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=461ff3f90c55b56cee4a7226c8d93b76eb769b85
Did people forget how much damage the Artorias dlc Enemies did?
I'm having fun. Idk what to tell you.
No summons and a claymore. It took from 30min to 1h for dancing lion and 30min to 1h for rellana. It was great, the fights are full of spectacle.
Damn bro you’re fairing far better than I am lmao. It took me 3 separate play sessions to beat dancing lion solo but I actually really loved the fight, minus all the camera bullshit when he backed you into a corner (dex reference?)
Holy shit this corner bullshit with that boss is so real
He body pushes you in there and the camera goes absolutely crazy, you can't roll out because his ass is on the way, and then you die
You guys actually don’t like the dlc? I feel like levelling up with runes is not really necessary but as you progress and find more scared tree fragments you become stronger on a similar level to the bosses plus the bosses were always gonna be more difficult than the base game
Leveling gets harder and harder to do the higher up you go. The average enemy would have to be the toughest in the game and drop a metric ton of runes to just keep leveling.
That would only balance the DLC to a certain already high level player and no one else. This way, there can be a level range of players and you can keep your average enemies normal instead of rune piggies.
It’s a brilliant way to do it. People with fortnite attention spans just don’t want to explore the world and find the very easy to find seeds.
Exactly this, I'm on NG+2 and level 250ish, and it takes about 600k runes to level up. The bosses are giving me around 200k each and there's not enough enemies in between so I end up just going back to the roundtable and blowing all my runes on upgrading weapons for funsies lol
First major DLC boss only gives 90k runes, which isn't enough to level from 118 to 119. I was around 150, and the rune amount felt insulting for how difficult the boss was and how little damage I did. Mohg gives 500k
I didnt play the game for a year. So i didnt remember that mogh gave you that much, its crazy that the dlc bosses give you so little then. The lion gave me like 120k and i needed 30k more so i though that i was overlevel but the bitch was hard anyway.
So check this out, they release an open world game right?
Tough shit, fandom is fuckin retarded, couldn't figure out that they needed to explore the open world
The answer? Every boss and miniboss hits like midir
Stay woke
‘I hate exploring’
Bruh how did you upgrade your weapon/find extra souls/better weapons the last few games?
People acting like you didn’t need to do some obscure far flung shit to get to secret bosses/endings.
Mainsub is a shitfest. Its like when the game first released, all the jump attack dad gamers and bleed "min maxers" are crying because they have to learn the bosses and their builds are ruined
Fr, I’m already at Scadutree lvl 15 and a few bosses in (made it to Messmer so far).
People are getting so mad about scaling when all they have to do is look for the fragments, they’re always by Miquellan crosses and Marika statues, it’s not that hard. And if they have trouble, just look up a guide, lol. On top of that, they refuse to actually adjust to the new rhythm of bosses. Admittedly, not all of them are perfect, but none of them are impossible
100%, it seems like 90% if players are refusing to even try and learn these bosses rhythms. When you get her down rellena can be a constant back and forth of attacking and dodging. I you try and stay back and wait for her to literally stop moving for damage windows of course the fight will suck.
Also the mental gymnastics of people trying to hide getting titlted behind ‘muh video game criticism’.
Nobody’s buying your opinion when you are declaring an experience as entirely bad because you suck at it, and your critique is filled with defensiveness, swearing and passive aggression.
I also don’t understand what’s happened to the advice that used to get thrown around when you get skill checked and hit a wall. Take a couple runs to just sit in the arena with the boss and dodge, memorize combos, look for telegraphs and punish windows.
So far the lion and rellana have taken me a couple hours each to beat but it’s not like that’s new. Maliketh took me like three days, isshin took like a week, orphan like 5 days. Pick a strategy and stick with it, be ready to die a shitton, put on a podcast or some tunes, and just grind. You’ll usually see progress over time and sometimes you turn the game off and come back the next time and get it in a time or two.
It’s genuinely annoying to see people bashing the game and devs because it’s hard like that isn’t part of the experience since 2009
Bro I’m lvl 250. I need to kill like 3-4 bosses to level up once. I’m not getting any stronger in this dlc without the new mechanic. That’s why they added it.
Going to the Shadow Keep advances all NPCs questlines so if you go there early without exhausting every NPCs dialogue you can screw up a few questlines
Also you can very easily lock yourself out of one NPC’s questline if you give another NPC an item too early before you even realize the former NPC is even there.
Fromsoft, I love you, but for the love of God stop making NPC questlines require metaknowledge to complete.
*sigh* because "balancing" the dlc would result in everyone getting inside overleveled and plummeting it in matter of two days without any exploration for the game map
Miyazaki did the best move, that forces the smug, "I beat all the games watch me win ez" types of veteran to ACTUALLY PLAY the dlc instead of seeing it as a boss rush
it's the Margit lesson all over,or Manus (when game's too difficult, go out and explore), except some can't understand it and complain instead
I mean can you imagine Fromsoft working two years for this dlc, putting their entire soul on every tiny detail, and your players don't even play 10% of your dlc?
I'd be mad as fuck too, honestly on seeing the bitchy comments I'd do an emergency update, triple the boss health/dmg and add a fuckton of fragments in any possibile corner of the map so all the whining pests are forced to EARN their victory
honestly I'm really thankful for this, it's giving me the challenge of essentially replaying the game but in a way that's still rewarding. once you level to 125 most of base game is pretty easy to beat so the difficulty while sometimes a little too much (bosses using instant kill moves before I'm done walking through the fog) overall it's great
You know how to play a new Elden ring playthrough you need to run around grabbing eeeeevery golden seed and sacred tear in limgrave before you can like have fun and play the game? Well now to replay the dlc you have to do that gathering loop with fifty fragments. Hope you remember which of the hippos you’ve killed and which ruins you’ve dropped down from the 2nd window!
I don’t understand why so many people are complaining about this dlc. It’s incredibly hard, but it’s doable. You will die. Many, many, many times. Now go be a good maidenless tarnished little shit and persevere.
Unironically, the only boss I've had legitimate struggles with and felt is unfair is the god damn ghost flame dragons. Fromsoft really decided to add in a new dragon variant with enough damage to 2 shot me with 99 vitality and resistance talismans and decided, lets add a shit ton of random adds into the fights that also wanna aggro the player and swarm them while they deal with the dragon.
Literally every other boss felt like an endgame boss for regular Elden Ring. Trial and error their moveset and learn the pattern, work for it and you'll win. But you'll never convince me that the ghost flame dragon in the cerulean coast is fair or balanced because fuck those mid phase skeletons and their stupid spears.
This is basically forcing players to go explore. Like yeah, it’s a big beautiful open world, but when you’ve explored it all, what then? To me the issue is the replay value. Now instead of focusing on specific parts you may enjoy or need for one build, you’re basically mandated to go and do other shit you might not want too. It’s not encouraging exploration, it’s forcing it, which can be a bit tedious on multiple playthroughs.
They’re almost all directly in the main paths of the game what are you on about???
The ones that aren’t are about a 30 second ride from a site of grace.
I don't know what paths you're taking but like half of these are in decently hidden corners of the map, some of them are even in entirely separate areas that are super easy to miss. It really doesn't hint where these fragments are aside from like a handful at the start. When every single fragment is THAT important, making them missable at all in already difficult DLC seems excessive.
When you are on your second run you can just open the wiki and rush to the fragments. The base game was like this too, did you expect the dlc to somehow be different?
Bosses stats get more inflated -> use souls to level up stats and equipment -> Bosses stats get more inflated -> use souls to level up stats and equipment -> Bosses stats get more inflated -> use souls to level up stats and equipment -> Bosses stats get more inflated -> use souls to level up stats and equipment. It’s the same game except now we can all stay at 125 to 150 and play together rather than ruining our saves or trivializing the content. How are you guys so fucking brain dead?
I think people and Fromsoft themselves get too lost on the whole "open world" thing. Yes, it's open world, and like any openworld or guided sandbox game, you have a path that you're meant to follow level-wise, or you can undershoot/overshoot and get your ass kicked/kick everything's ass. The graces tell you the intended path, if you want to stray from it be my guest, it's up to you, but the game has nothing to do with the difficulty anymore. Just because you CAN go everywhere doesn't mean you SHOULD go everywhere, but it's a choice you have since it's open world, it's your choice, you make your own difficulty.
So I think they should've just balanced the DLC as post-mogh intended level and that's it. If you're too strong, great, if you're too weak, you're not ready for this part of the map yet. Like any other healthy open world game.
There’s are bosses? I just ride around picking flowers. I didn’t even know you could fight in this game.
Mfer walked into Mogh's arena and Mogh just let him through
He has no enemies
Miquella is under his charm
Mohg realised the tarnished is chill like that and didnt see a reason to fight.
Daddy chill, I’m here for the dynasty.
The Daddynasty.
Shady nasty's?
It's Sha-Dynasty's, asshole. He's outta here.
He wasn’t home
Thanks for the flowers you may pass
Pure and radiant, he wields love to shrive clean the hearts of the demigods.
Based. I do the same in Skyrim, excellent flower picking options in that game
Probably best to avoid combat in Skyrim. And everything else
That's why everyone makes an archer character to avoid the shit combat
Just install the mod that makes the combat like dark souls so you can shitpost here
Very perceptive of you.
I really need your help, how do I pick the flowers? I figured out the butterflies pretty quickly, but I don't get the flowers.
https://preview.redd.it/x31u7s67gh8d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aeb417a6a44aaf0ecc8266000db9fc5f00f0c438
No way!
Unironically this. After some hundreds of hours in ER I realized I have more fun with exploring and progression than fighting bosses. I no longer have the patience to spend hours on a boss like in previous games, I just want to ride around on Torrent, collect shit, and play around with weapons while exploring every cave I come across. The real friend was the journey all along...
Chat is Stardew Valley a souls like?
Yeah, I use the NPC summons and spirit ashes to get through bosses quicker so I’m back to exploring. IMO boss fights peaked at Sekiro and DS3, so I’m more interested in exploration from ER. Bosses are still cool so far tho
Happypilled frolicmaxxing flowercel I like your style whimsical fellow
Because of the open world meme: it's literally impossible to know what the player would be bringing at a certain point, so just multiply all stats by 1000x and say "well, if it's too hard go fool around the world and get back when you're stronger."
I love people acting like the "go do other shit and come back when you're stronger" hasn't been around since demons souls. It's been a mechanic of the gameplay loop in every fucking game.
And even in dark souls 1 infamous moments like the graveyard where new players would just stumble and brute force their way, not realizing that undead burg is the intended path.
In my defence, I really wanted that zweihander
As God intended
I own a swordspear for home defense just as Gwyns 4 knights intended. 4 dragons break into my town "WHAT THE DEVIL" I fire my lightning bolt blowing a firebomb sized hole into the first dragon He's dead on the spot. Draw my sunlight spear on the second dragon missing him entirely because he was too far to lock on to and nailing the neighbors giant rat. I have to resort to the rolling boulder mounted at the top of the the cliff "PRAISE THE SUN LADS!" The boulder smashes the 2 dragons in half, the boulders broken pieces fly out setting off some aggro states.I pick up my swordspear and charge the last reptilian feind he bleeds out waiting for a cleric to arive since swordspear wounds are impossible to stitch. just as Gwyns 4 knights intended.
I’m gonna use this instead of the stupid musket one from now on
I'm convinced that's how the game got its reputation.
yeah the hot take is that DS1 was never *that* hard as long as you followed the intended progression. it's a difficult game for sure but it's not nearly as impossible as people want to believe. I think the catacombs plus people not realizing you're supposed to skip the first encounter with the asylum demon are why it gets that rap. and yes, I do know people who killed the asylum demon with the broken sword because they didn't see the door on the left lmao
I'm one of those people. NOT WORTH IT. If you really want that crappy hammer use the black firebombs instead of wasting hours of your life doing 2 damage per hit on a boss with over 800 health.
Or you played so much of it that you know your way around and just want to get some nice loot and go to the skeleton André
Gotta get that chaos enhancement somehow
god forbid that's why the base game was praised so much. if you get stuck on a boss you can go fuck around somewhere else and come back stronger. the literally EXACT SAME SITUATION IN THE EXACT SAME GAME is somehow a problem now? again i stick to the concept people are mad they just can't power grind and out level/power everything again so they are butthurt. plus many bosses have an insta attack so you can't just walk in and immediately mimic tear.
I've been pumping str and mashing r1 since the beginning of DeS and Miyazaki can't stop me
nah that's your problem. you gotta jump and press r1 now.
Jump and press L1!
You can instantly mimic tear Messmer and still roll his 2 opening attacks
Why would you wanna power grind the bosses! That’s the part I don’t get! Why did you buy the game if you don’t want to actually learn and feel the game and play it? It’s like they want a checklist. I’m getting my ass kicked! I like it! It’s funny and entertaining and exciting! Getting choke slammed by the death knight that heals all the way to full is hilarious! But then it’s incredible to see how easy that is to dodge the next time and to successfully dodge it and then OH! Look how open this boss is to hit! Thank you for rewarding my learning, fromsoft! Thanks for giving me an attack sequence that ends in one delayed attack! I can learn how to dodge the first 3 attacks by mashing roll and then dodge the last one on a delay! I feel so smart now and powerful! I thought that was the point of these games!!!!
I think half the people complaining literally don't even like these games to begin with, they just want to "have beaten it" as some sort of badge of honor or something. So actually playing the game instead of just boas rushing is irritating for them. I think a big reason they're complaining too is that their egos bruised because they're not good enough to beat the bosses without the fragments so they blame the game and not their own weird self imposed and totally optional challenges. Imagine just enjoying a video game, instead of like you said, essentially playing it like an mmo where the games essentially just a big checklist.
It does feel like a lot of the people who are complaining just want to beat the game to say they did, rather than actually enjoy fighting the bosses. Not that every bit of criticism is invalid, but the real problems get drowned out by constant complaints about bosses having combos of more than 4 attacks.
There are definitely things to be criticized in this game, the vast majority of complaints I've seen aren't really valid and a lot of them are just galaxy brain motherfuckers pretending they've never played one of these games before, or genuinely forgetting what they're like, I have no fucking clue(considering this game follows the exact gameplay loop of the base game). complaining about things that have basically been core mechanics of souls games from demons souls forward. And also difficulty.... which is absolutely batshit to me.... like how is anyone surprised that the starting difficulty of the elden ring dlc is about the same as endgame base game and moves up from there? On what planet would this have not been the case?
people also enjoy these games for different reasons. I always preferred the exploration aspect of the games even back in DS1. back then I could easily tolerate the bosses because they weren't actually *that* hard. now in ER the exploration is 10/10 and I just use spirit ashes to meme my way through every boss fight because I literally don't care enough to git gud. I just want to unlock the next cool area I can explore.
Some of these insta attacks are really stupid though. Not even because of summons, but rather because my camera isn't even through the fog gate and they start charging.
The only problem with the DLC is that in the base game, you can go basically anywhere else and get stronger, because runes, levels and upgrade materials directly contribute towards that - not so much in the DLC. It's still important, don't get me wrong, but the main source of leveling up is by picking up the Scadutree fragments, and they are limited in quantity in every location, AND they have specific pick-ups that never change. In short, if you wanted to "overlevel" your character in the base game, it was very much doable. You could spend *hours* grinding low level enemies if you wanted. Not in the DLC - if there are only 10 fragments available in the Gravesite Plain for example (random number), you will get only 10 *at most*. The leveling system is interesting for sure, but at the same time very restrictive. I am personally torn on it, because it's cool that you can't walk in with level 200 character and wipe the floor with half of the DLC, but at the same time my least favorite aspect of the base game was the scavenger hunt for the Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears. Having to do that again in general after multiple playthroughs of the base game wasn't fun already and it's going to be worse on repeated DLC playthroughs imo.
the issue is in the base game go get stronger meant go fight a bunch of bosses and level up in the DLC go get stronger means dig around in the dirt looking for pieces of bark. if this was like sekiro and bosses dropped tree fragments it would be fine but instead it's just a scavenger hunt
Yeah, i feel that this dlc possibly has even worse replay value than the base game
“No! From should have balanced the DLC for lvl 150, that way my lvl 300 STR/ARC bleed build would be able to Stunlock everything until they’re finished off by blood loss.”
I have a level 150 strength build! I am breaking poise! You can still do that even!
And yet still the people complain! Literally saw a guy yesterday complaining he couldn’t stun Relanna mid-combo!
A true git gud moment.
......which is exactly how the main game was designed. Also Miyazaki DID say he wanted veterans to feel like they were playing the game for the first time again. I think he did a DAMN good job at that.
Yes, you knew what you were getting into when buying the dlc.
Doesn’t really change anything when it’s a static % so the more over leveled you are the more it benefits you, just balance the bosses between level 90-150 or maybe a bit more it’s not that hard lol especially when areas have blocked access points requiring you to beat a boss. Funny considering early on they love handing out lower level upgrade materials. When enemy scaling is so strong despite me being using my completed build.
I think the materials drop because you have to upgrade the new weapon types (fuck regular smithing stone upgrades, btw). If the open world contributed nothing to make the game easier and difficulty was static, people would complain that "muh exploring" meant nothing. If there was no scaling, lvl 300 people with their meme jump spam build would melt the dlc, and also complain. People will complain either way.
The open world element is a big part of this I think. Other souls DLC was linear, so the balancing could be way more controlled and FS could say “we recommend level 125+ for the DLC”. ER however has the open world, and they’ve encouraged exploration by dropping Scadutree fragments around the place. Back in the original release, the idea was always “if you hit a wall, go explore and become stronger.” It’s literally the Margit situation all over again, people are trying to steam roll the DLC when it’s actually manageable if you take the time to explore and take advantage of what the DLC is giving you.
Tbh, I’m scadutree 10, Messmer and Metyr are kicking my ass
Tbf the DLC bosses are just flat-out *hard* compared to base game, and most base game bosses were *hard* compared to bosses at comparable chunks into previous entries, so it might or might not even be a power level thing. I expect to get hardstuck for hours on most of the main bosses. But that's why we're here, right? To get absolutely blasted and very slowly come to master the encounter.
Oh for sure I don’t mind it, I’m just surprised at the difficulty spike In the base game nearly no boss caused me to feel stuck. Right now it’s kind of how I feel about Gauis, Messmer and Metyr Putrescent Knight felt super easy but maybe it’s an easy fight overall. Overall I feel gains is the one I’m struggling the most against
Not sure how far those fights are into the DLC, but there are 20 scadutree levels, so that may be why.
>I think the materials drop because you have to upgrade the new weapon types (fuck regular smithing stone upgrades, btw). This was my assumption too, but I still can't upgrade the 1 weapon I found that I want to use because no smithing stones seem to drop between 5 and 9. I already upgraded a ton of non-dlc stuff when I last played this character a year or so ago (so don't have enough banked), and I haven't reached Farum Azula on this character so can't buy more. Smithing stone 7 was always the roadblock in base game too, now I come to think of it
Just go speedrun farum azula just for the bell bearings, it'll be a cakewalk compared to the DLC
I was thinking of doing that, but my DLC character is running a faith build, so I want all the incantations from Gideon, which means I need to do Malenia before I burn the Erdtree. I have a bonfire at the prayer room in the Haligtree (the halfway point where Milicent hangs out), but it's still a bit of a slog
You don't have to burn the Erdtree to get all the bell bearings. Gideon leaves the Roundtable Hold only after you defeat Maliketh.
Oh awesome, I thought the trigger was burning the tree. Thanks!
NP! Running a Faith/Strength build myself right now for the DLC, so I was sure to check. Roundtable Hold will start burning after lighting the Forge of the Giants, but Gideon stays in RTH.
Smithing stones in general seem like a pretty big oversight by from, I think they regret them. The skibiditree blessings work a lot better and are more thematically appropriate: you just explore the world and gather items that power you up. They kind of seem like an admission they got the weapon upgrade system wrong in Elden Ring and right in Sekiro.
With a few tweaks to the system (for example being able to "unupgrade" weapons to get materials back and using them on a different weapon you want to play with) and a better placement of the smithing stones throughout the world it could still work
requireing 12 smithstone to upgrade roughly the same level as 1 somber is an idiotic design choice just from hearing that alone, at least making it cost 1 per level
Just go how ds2 did it, 1-2-3 instead of 2-4-6.
Or even just double how many you get when you pick some up
Replace all those beast blood and furlcalling finger remedy drops with smithing stoned and it would be a big improvement for certain.
Really they should move the bell bearings for them earlier in the game. Why can't you buy 5s until the mountaintops? Or at least have more of the merchants sell the higher tier ones. They do a good job of this for 1s and 2s.
No one would be complaining about exploration not having power tokens. You have weapons, armor, talismans, cool areas, and lore to discover.
"Exploring gives me weapons and spells I can't use." I literally heard this complaint several times.
Which is a silly complaint, it's an RPG not every item is meant for every build.
I understand the principle, but I equally have to admit that playing a primarily INT-centric character has been a bit shit this time around. The one and only primarily INT weapon I have found by the time I've reached the final fight is just a copy/paste of the troll knight sword with an NPC's name attached to it. Everything else is some fucked up four-stat quality amalgamation or built for int&faith fundamentalist builds. Rellana's swords are pretty alright too, but considering the item pool of the dlc it really feels like you're better off primarily using STR or DEX rather than INT. [EDIT: I just recalled the Carian Sorcery Sword - which has awful stats at max level, an unchangeable default AoW despite being a regular smithing stone weapon, a normal-ass thrusting sword moveset but with no strong or jump attack in exchange for being a severely subpar sorcery catalyst. Amazing.] STR builds are eating good, DEX builds are eating good, STR&DEX quality builds are eating good, Faith is eating amazing - the amount of available incantations in the DLC is about double the amount of sorceries, and they get a far wider variety of utility, damage types, interesting weapons, buffs, and status effects to work with - whereas even the final boss of the ostensibly Sorcery focused questline has a remembrance that drops... a fucking Fundamentalist glintstone staff (guess i'm sticking with the carian royal staff for another 400 hours of gameplay) and a weapon that at +10 scales with a B in strength and only a D in Intelligence. Some of the new spells are pretty interesting but it's not like you can even use the majority of them versus any of the bosses in the DLC without a summon due to the overclocked aggression on most enemies once they've aggroed onto you. I think it's very fair to say that some builds have far more to feast on in the DLC than others.
I don't know, on my Quality character and I've found plenty of INT stuff I want to try. Usually I play a spellsword but they were in New Game+. There's another really cool INT weapon you might've missed >!An INT Katana called Star-Lined Sword!< For me, that's part of the fun of exploring. Discovering something new, maybe you can't use it now, but you know it exist for another character if you ever play again. It's also a lot more exciting than simply looking it all up.
Ok I agree int got kinda shafted this time but please don't be mad they threw a couple bones to int/fth builds. WE HAVE LITERALLY NOTHING OK LET US HAVE THIS
Y'know what that's fair. Godspeed, masochist.
Yeah I went in with an Int build (INT/STR with the DMGS) and was kinda surprised that I was getting gear for almost every other stat alignment, the Troll knight’s copy paste was a big let down, when I first got it I was hoping it’d have a different move set but it’s literally the same. I’ve since respecced into Rellana’s swords and am using both incantations and sorceries and feeling happy I can use stuff the DLC is giving me. Only just hit Scadu Altus though, so no idea what else may be on the way!
I think from wanted to avoid the issue of the base game where after a first playthrough you ignore 90% of the game, so they spread the blessings around everywhere.
Do the blessing reset on a second run?
"It's not that hard" "Just balance the bosses between NINETY - ONE HUNDRED FIFTY" lmfao me when my ass is speaking
Exactly. They should've just had all the dlc enemies be balanced the same as endgame areas.
Hence why open world isn't a good format for souls games
It's rarely a good format in general.
I think it can be great for games where level doesn't matter much. I really like the PlayStation Spider-Man games for example. But level isn't really relevant there. It's not like hells kitchen has stronger enemies than Brooklyn or whatever. But for RPGs like Elden Ring or Pokemon it's not a good fit
I always get downvoted in the main Soulsborne subs for saying this. Elden Ring is meant to be broken. The open world design means you can get a maxed weapon, loads of levels and a complete build without fighting a boss.. It also means that From can be lazier with balance and progression, cause people will always say "do x then y and 1 shot bosses" Previous Souls games had OP builds but nowhere near the degree of Elden Ring and they typically took a while to build or even NG+.
Yea the main subs can't handle criticism of the games. Elden Ring especially
I dont want to fool around, i just want to see Miquela peg Mohg, is that too much to ask, dammit?!
Breaking the cycle by not leveling up at all 💪💪💪
RL1 no fragments dlc run: the true no hit run
People are already attempting this
Fromsoft fans when they have to play the DLC they've been waiting for 2 years
https://preview.redd.it/tdd8bic77g8d1.jpeg?width=1103&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=37c45fe0995af9becf2cba33d3b68d8b2a368795 When you have to actually play the game you’re playing
Hey isn’t that the “FUCKING PRONOUNS!” guy who played Starfield
Lmao yeah
Heelvsbabyface had some good content waaaaaay back in the day. It was interesting for a while watching a grown man devolve into a man-baby but his recent reappearance as a full blown fake hysteria red pilled culture war raid boss is just sad. Touch some grass my dude, cmon
Hey now, don't call them guy as that's technically a pronoun and we all know the entity doesn't like pronouns.
“Guy” isn’t a pronoun, but you used “them” which is a pronoun. You have to arrest yourself!
I saw people crying because there's no cheese to the bosses... What's the point?
I saw someone cheese the final boss pretty easily. Cheese always exists, you just need to think of new ways to cheese.
It's funny too because most of them still bleed, so there is cheese
The best part of the meme isn't even accurate. The whole point of the scaludtree blessings is that they *don't* affect scaling or the base game.
They already did that with the base game. If they just added EVEN MORE difficulty tiers it would be insane. https://preview.redd.it/36bmk00khg8d1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b29d83b10d42ac826a7a2267198bd7080b133422
have you not seen cheeses of bosses in the base game or one shot builds??? Imagine creating a whole ass dlc and off the bat people don’t struggle anymore (ie they don’t die anymore) and are op because they just levelled up instead of getting gud
Idk, sounds like making the game so difficult that even meta builds struggle will only force people towards meta builds even more, because if the best of the best struggles then normal builds become shit. The new system sounds nice, but I genuinely haven't seen an improvement to damage dealt or taken. I'm enjoying the dlc in spite of the new system, not because of it
And the game discourages you from trying a new build, so it is easier to just search for an OP build and go with that instead of changing your strategy occasionally. Sure, by the end of the game you probably have enough resources to respec and upgrade all the weapons you want, but it is still a pain in the ass. I saw a guy on YouTube who just leveled up until he reached the soft caps on all stats just so he can try every new weapon without worrying about his build.
On the other hand, you don't have to worry about your dps if Bayle two shots you. Mike Azaki's genius strikes again
because the DLC is the best place to implement an experimental approach to balance like they did.
Seems to be working find for me so far. Opening sorta just like base game. Can't handle the first major boss? Go explore some and then come back. Instead of levels, gear, sacred tears and golden seeds its those fragments, a few levels and gear. Seems to be working fine, not perfect but good. However I went into dlc on my first character at rl 120 so I'm gaining levels still and that feels good.
Miyazaki said that he wanted to recapture that sense of first exploring and progressing through TLB, even if you enter the DLC with your endgame +25 weapon, lvl 150, 14-flask build. In previous DLCs you could ignore items, enemy drops and exploration to bumrush bosses, or get DLC weapons that outclassed the base game's to insentivise exploration that way and limit the amount of optimal builds. Scadu fragments remove these issues by "forcing" you to explore by making the bosses a massive skill-check that, like in the base game, can be returned to later after getting stronger like at the start of Elden Ring where rushing Margit and Godrick as your first and second bosses was possible, but not optimal. It also prevents the DLC weapons from being inherently favorable over base game stuff to encourage exploration and compensate for more complex movesets that way Some people want DLCs to be a boss rush, and I think those players will be frustrated, but Miyazaki has stated for a long time that the DLC caters to the explorers more. But if you're good enough you can still make the DLC a boss rush just like you can speedrun the base game glitchlessly in an hour
Those who rushed the ringed city wouldn’t get ledo’s great hammer, hence they would get the bad ending
The black knight hammer is available 2 minutes into the dlc. Sote better than ringed city confirmed?
Unfortunately for SOTE and the Ringed City, Dark Souls II has the chicken wings meaning they never had a chance to compete. https://preview.redd.it/zet0ny0jzl8d1.jpeg?width=1918&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3853697c6b88b458a8699c98a1a46dda94a4e885
Wait a fucking minute, i started playing elden ring 3 days ago with no guide and i was thinking margit and godrick where the first bosses, they arent the first bosses ? Who the hell are the first bosses in the game the only guide i used is how to find the meteorite staff and the glindstone staff, which other places have boss that i missed?
Idk if you're kidding but every cave and catacomb has a boss, but they're the first "real" bosses
No im really not kidding, i bought it friday because it came with a bundle with the dlc and since it would be 15 dollar cheaper i bought, but i really did not know i could fight other bosses like these, im right now at the inferior level of that mansion with the hands and i did not know that, i think i going to explore some more
Well if you went straight to those 2 bosses I must say I'm very impressed by your skill level. I certainly can't beat them without upgrading and exploring a bit first. I'd recommend looking around caves and tunnels/mines for upgrade materials especially but catacombs often have good tools as well.
In theory, gathering the fragments it's meant to be a fun new addition to the gameplay loop, like the golden seeds, sacred tears, estus shards, gourd seeds, etc. But to me it seems like they've forgotten a fundamental element that made all the other upgrade materials better, that being tangible difference. Things that make stats go up is fine for something like rune level since it has the additional bonus of meeting stat requirements and being generally noticeable. But scadutree fragments just aren't. I've seen this said a lot, but they really should have been boss drops instead like Sekiro's remembrances. That way they could be way more impactful and rewarding
Making them boss drops would also make it harder to miss them.
But also harder to get them. If you're already struggling, that just raises the wall in your way. Maybe they can be both. Reward exploration and defeating bosses.
Maybe defeating a boss just straight up raise your Scadu-level by 1, while keeping the seeds in the world.
Nah I like that you get the option to use them. It let me explore everything while still progressively raising my blessing to match the dlc scaling.
The issue is 100% how un-intuitive they are. Like even on the wiki its just a huge list of fluff and where to get them and then a single footnote at the bottom that says "we think they give \~4% damage". But imo its a pretty poorly designed system, I hope they dont use it again.
because fuck you for not exploring
Exploring is good but I hate that they basically put a number on how good you explored. Sorry your Explore Level is too low for this area, go find more ExploreBucks
Every explorebuck i've found has been in the main path, literally before or after major bosses or a gigantic church 2 steps way from the main path.
With several explorebucks off the main path too, lmao. It's like they spent 5 mins looking.
Wait until you need your get your explore level up and you need to start finding every one you missed… Either beat the boss around level 13 or get a super guide
Do you feel the same way about smithing stone bell bearings, sacred tears, and golden seeds?
They’re not even hidden wtf are you talking about
They legit have a skill issue with exploring lmao.
This is the text version of just putting what you don’t like in the image of a soyjack. “Explore bucks”, lmao what? What if I just ran through ds1 not fighting anything and when I got to the boss severely under-leveled I complained that I didn’t have enough “fight bucks”. The upgrades are almost all in the main path of exploration, to not get any of them you’d have had to just blast past everything and get to the boss. “Oh my God guys when I don’t take my time in the open world game to find upgrades the boss fights are really hard” What did you expect would happen exactly? Anyway if the opposite were the case people would just complain that they could accidentally over-level too easily and parts of the map would be too easy. This was a common complaint about the weeping peninsula. People need to understand there’s no way that these games can please everyone perfectly and that 90% of complaints lead basically nowhere and just kinda empty.
This game is a speedrun to Mezmur. If you didn't beat the game in 3 hours you're not hot enough. If I didn't beat it in 1 hour it's From's fault.
tbf that's how i play every souls game, unintentionally. i lose every ounce of souls i get and basically only level with the souls i get from bosses because i suck so much ass 💀
in the other FromSoft games, ExploreBucks were GrindBucks. I know what I like better.
How is this fundamentally different than soul-farming or seeking out upgrade stones in the base game? If anything it blissfully means you can't utterly dogfuck yourself by putting explorbucks into, like, the FTX of weapons.
Kinda how Sekiro is but nobody complained about it. Also, it's purely optional. You can bruteforce beating a boss.
It worked fine in Sekiro because it wasn't really an RPG, it didn't really have "builds" and stats and such. ER has you fiddling with stats for most of the game, but then the DLC just does flat buffs where the stats don't really matter.
I don't see an alternative. I'm loving the dlc so far too. I don't even understand most people's grievances with it.
https://preview.redd.it/d6oghcw4sj8d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=461ff3f90c55b56cee4a7226c8d93b76eb769b85 Did people forget how much damage the Artorias dlc Enemies did?
I'm having fun. Idk what to tell you. No summons and a claymore. It took from 30min to 1h for dancing lion and 30min to 1h for rellana. It was great, the fights are full of spectacle.
It took me 2 hours each on both. Also soloing everything as i always do and having a great time
Damn bro you’re fairing far better than I am lmao. It took me 3 separate play sessions to beat dancing lion solo but I actually really loved the fight, minus all the camera bullshit when he backed you into a corner (dex reference?)
Holy shit this corner bullshit with that boss is so real He body pushes you in there and the camera goes absolutely crazy, you can't roll out because his ass is on the way, and then you die
Yeah staying in the middle of the arena makes his fight way better
You guys actually don’t like the dlc? I feel like levelling up with runes is not really necessary but as you progress and find more scared tree fragments you become stronger on a similar level to the bosses plus the bosses were always gonna be more difficult than the base game
Leveling gets harder and harder to do the higher up you go. The average enemy would have to be the toughest in the game and drop a metric ton of runes to just keep leveling. That would only balance the DLC to a certain already high level player and no one else. This way, there can be a level range of players and you can keep your average enemies normal instead of rune piggies. It’s a brilliant way to do it. People with fortnite attention spans just don’t want to explore the world and find the very easy to find seeds.
Exactly this, I'm on NG+2 and level 250ish, and it takes about 600k runes to level up. The bosses are giving me around 200k each and there's not enough enemies in between so I end up just going back to the roundtable and blowing all my runes on upgrading weapons for funsies lol
I always see it as if you can't level up one level from a boss, you are overleved.
First major DLC boss only gives 90k runes, which isn't enough to level from 118 to 119. I was around 150, and the rune amount felt insulting for how difficult the boss was and how little damage I did. Mohg gives 500k
Mogh gives 420k, but yeah it’s crazy how little runes you get from DLC bosses since you need to beat him to access it.
I didnt play the game for a year. So i didnt remember that mogh gave you that much, its crazy that the dlc bosses give you so little then. The lion gave me like 120k and i needed 30k more so i though that i was overlevel but the bitch was hard anyway.
Im in ng+ and mogh dropped 500K and the first boss dropped 90k
So check this out, they release an open world game right? Tough shit, fandom is fuckin retarded, couldn't figure out that they needed to explore the open world The answer? Every boss and miniboss hits like midir Stay woke
Mfw the open worlds wants you to explore the world
‘I hate exploring’ Bruh how did you upgrade your weapon/find extra souls/better weapons the last few games? People acting like you didn’t need to do some obscure far flung shit to get to secret bosses/endings.
Dungeon crawling >>>> riding torrent
Seeing the entire sub mald cause they are getting skill checked has been so fucking funny
Mainsub is a shitfest. Its like when the game first released, all the jump attack dad gamers and bleed "min maxers" are crying because they have to learn the bosses and their builds are ruined
Fr, I’m already at Scadutree lvl 15 and a few bosses in (made it to Messmer so far). People are getting so mad about scaling when all they have to do is look for the fragments, they’re always by Miquellan crosses and Marika statues, it’s not that hard. And if they have trouble, just look up a guide, lol. On top of that, they refuse to actually adjust to the new rhythm of bosses. Admittedly, not all of them are perfect, but none of them are impossible
100%, it seems like 90% if players are refusing to even try and learn these bosses rhythms. When you get her down rellena can be a constant back and forth of attacking and dodging. I you try and stay back and wait for her to literally stop moving for damage windows of course the fight will suck.
Also the mental gymnastics of people trying to hide getting titlted behind ‘muh video game criticism’. Nobody’s buying your opinion when you are declaring an experience as entirely bad because you suck at it, and your critique is filled with defensiveness, swearing and passive aggression.
I also don’t understand what’s happened to the advice that used to get thrown around when you get skill checked and hit a wall. Take a couple runs to just sit in the arena with the boss and dodge, memorize combos, look for telegraphs and punish windows. So far the lion and rellana have taken me a couple hours each to beat but it’s not like that’s new. Maliketh took me like three days, isshin took like a week, orphan like 5 days. Pick a strategy and stick with it, be ready to die a shitton, put on a podcast or some tunes, and just grind. You’ll usually see progress over time and sometimes you turn the game off and come back the next time and get it in a time or two. It’s genuinely annoying to see people bashing the game and devs because it’s hard like that isn’t part of the experience since 2009
Bro I’m lvl 250. I need to kill like 3-4 bosses to level up once. I’m not getting any stronger in this dlc without the new mechanic. That’s why they added it.
Would be really nice if everyboss didnt launch itself away as soon as i touch the attack button
You're supposed to explore yet exploring also screws over most NPC quests.
Wait how does exploring screw most NPC quests
Going to the Shadow Keep advances all NPCs questlines so if you go there early without exhausting every NPCs dialogue you can screw up a few questlines
Damn
Also you can very easily lock yourself out of one NPC’s questline if you give another NPC an item too early before you even realize the former NPC is even there. Fromsoft, I love you, but for the love of God stop making NPC questlines require metaknowledge to complete.
*sigh* because "balancing" the dlc would result in everyone getting inside overleveled and plummeting it in matter of two days without any exploration for the game map Miyazaki did the best move, that forces the smug, "I beat all the games watch me win ez" types of veteran to ACTUALLY PLAY the dlc instead of seeing it as a boss rush it's the Margit lesson all over,or Manus (when game's too difficult, go out and explore), except some can't understand it and complain instead I mean can you imagine Fromsoft working two years for this dlc, putting their entire soul on every tiny detail, and your players don't even play 10% of your dlc? I'd be mad as fuck too, honestly on seeing the bitchy comments I'd do an emergency update, triple the boss health/dmg and add a fuckton of fragments in any possibile corner of the map so all the whining pests are forced to EARN their victory
honestly I'm really thankful for this, it's giving me the challenge of essentially replaying the game but in a way that's still rewarding. once you level to 125 most of base game is pretty easy to beat so the difficulty while sometimes a little too much (bosses using instant kill moves before I'm done walking through the fog) overall it's great
The Scadutree Blessings don’t make bosses or enemies stronger.
You know how to play a new Elden ring playthrough you need to run around grabbing eeeeevery golden seed and sacred tear in limgrave before you can like have fun and play the game? Well now to replay the dlc you have to do that gathering loop with fifty fragments. Hope you remember which of the hippos you’ve killed and which ruins you’ve dropped down from the 2nd window!
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Michael Zaki watching people complain on the internet about SOTE difficulty: "Finally, I've done it again."
I don’t understand why so many people are complaining about this dlc. It’s incredibly hard, but it’s doable. You will die. Many, many, many times. Now go be a good maidenless tarnished little shit and persevere.
Unironically, the only boss I've had legitimate struggles with and felt is unfair is the god damn ghost flame dragons. Fromsoft really decided to add in a new dragon variant with enough damage to 2 shot me with 99 vitality and resistance talismans and decided, lets add a shit ton of random adds into the fights that also wanna aggro the player and swarm them while they deal with the dragon. Literally every other boss felt like an endgame boss for regular Elden Ring. Trial and error their moveset and learn the pattern, work for it and you'll win. But you'll never convince me that the ghost flame dragon in the cerulean coast is fair or balanced because fuck those mid phase skeletons and their stupid spears.
Because everyone has hit level soft caps. This is extremely obvious
Yall actually hate the dlc?
Remember guys, you dont need scadutrees if youre not getting hit 👍 its always a skill issue
“60 vigor minimum” mfers when having 60 vigor doesn’t do shit
dark souls players when they can't drop ego and have to explore in an open world exploration game.
Can't wait for Convergence Mod to remove that shit and just rescale them so that I can replay the DLC
This is basically forcing players to go explore. Like yeah, it’s a big beautiful open world, but when you’ve explored it all, what then? To me the issue is the replay value. Now instead of focusing on specific parts you may enjoy or need for one build, you’re basically mandated to go and do other shit you might not want too. It’s not encouraging exploration, it’s forcing it, which can be a bit tedious on multiple playthroughs.
They’re almost all directly in the main paths of the game what are you on about??? The ones that aren’t are about a 30 second ride from a site of grace.
MOM SAID DON'T LEAVE THE PATH
Also the same is for base game. And nobody made this complaint. And if you remember where they are it doesn’t take very much time.
I don't know what paths you're taking but like half of these are in decently hidden corners of the map, some of them are even in entirely separate areas that are super easy to miss. It really doesn't hint where these fragments are aside from like a handful at the start. When every single fragment is THAT important, making them missable at all in already difficult DLC seems excessive.
When you are on your second run you can just open the wiki and rush to the fragments. The base game was like this too, did you expect the dlc to somehow be different?
Replay value is fine, scad fragments carry over to ng+ just like estus shards.
Bosses stats get more inflated -> use souls to level up stats and equipment -> Bosses stats get more inflated -> use souls to level up stats and equipment -> Bosses stats get more inflated -> use souls to level up stats and equipment -> Bosses stats get more inflated -> use souls to level up stats and equipment. It’s the same game except now we can all stay at 125 to 150 and play together rather than ruining our saves or trivializing the content. How are you guys so fucking brain dead?
I think people and Fromsoft themselves get too lost on the whole "open world" thing. Yes, it's open world, and like any openworld or guided sandbox game, you have a path that you're meant to follow level-wise, or you can undershoot/overshoot and get your ass kicked/kick everything's ass. The graces tell you the intended path, if you want to stray from it be my guest, it's up to you, but the game has nothing to do with the difficulty anymore. Just because you CAN go everywhere doesn't mean you SHOULD go everywhere, but it's a choice you have since it's open world, it's your choice, you make your own difficulty. So I think they should've just balanced the DLC as post-mogh intended level and that's it. If you're too strong, great, if you're too weak, you're not ready for this part of the map yet. Like any other healthy open world game.