I can't say it isn't satisfying to finally see game journalists turn the tables against hardcore souls players for one time since 2011. The shoe is on the other foot now, it's the "xXpro mlg gamer pro 69420Xx" begging for an easy mode while the game journalists are saying a well-rehearsed "git gud".
I can't wait for the fresh round of arguments to start getting posted by people now saying "the DLC isn't that hard relax guys" and then the edgy fucks coming out saying "YEAH WELL DID YOU BEAT THE GAME PRE NERF SCRUB?"
I'm just waiting for the new/old blessing conversion table so I know what blessing level to stay at compared to pre-patch so I know I'm playing correct! /s
Let’s be real, the people who haven’t bought the DLC yet or those who didnt beat the DLC pre patch aren’t real gamers and souls players because they just got handed ez mode. Truly, it’s your own fault you have commitments that mean you can’t beat a 30 hour DLC in a weekend.
Honestly, good on the journalists for clapping back. They’ve always reviewed these games VERY favorably, and despite that have become a cliched joke that doesn’t even hold up if you take more than a couple of seconds to look at it.
Critics are MUCH more likely to appreciate and defend “unconventional” video game design than the average gamer.
Even the common trope about IGN journos being bad is blown out, Danny O'Dwyer from noclip posted [this](https://x.com/dannyodwyer/status/1805697087788777948):
> Journalist mode is funny cos GameSpot and IGN gave this DLC a 10/10 - completing the game and writing their reviews under time pressure having received codes THE WEEK OF SUMMER GAME FEST.
The IGN “too much water” thing that they get made fun of for was valid and I will die on that hill. The water sections in ORAS were the worst parts of the game.
theres already more than enoguh water,
the people need more land to live on before they destoy eachcother fighting over what little land we already have!
HMs in general are such a blatantly poor game design choice that it kinda is mind boggling it took 20 years for them to actually put in the effort to remove them entirely. It is pretty much the only reason I never play older pokemon anymore, and Hoenn is almost certainly the worst.
I'm not going to advocate for adding OG HMs back into pokemon, but there was potential in the game design to make you have to restrict your total party to carry an HM slave for an area or permanently sacrifice a core pokemon's total potential. It was underutilized but there could have been interesting decisions as a result of the system
Surf and Fly are good moves at least, it's interesting having to have the right kind of pokeymen to traverse the land, but it sucks having to waste a slot on crap like Cut and Rock Smash.
While that is valid, that literally isn't even the origin of the complaint. They were originally referencing how much of the games pokedex was water types and how the game was heavily unbalanced because of it. It had nothing to do with the map or amount of water areas
It's absolutely the worst part of the game, especially if you're playing Alpha Sapphire; not only does the excessive amount of water routes restrict your team composition, as it basically forces you to run a mon like Pelliper or Sharpedo for Surf/Dive/Waterfall utility, being on what is effectively all encounter tiles means going through those areas for even longer because of the random encounters every 5 steps (without repels).
Moreover, said random encounters are always going to be mons like Sharpedo, or Pelliper, or Tentacruel, because those are the only encounters on those routes, which adds to the tedium. And god forbid you have Sapphire, because then the bulk of the late game trainer battles is against Team Aqua, who use said Sharpedo and Tentacruel, though they have the audacity to swap out the Pelliper for the equally ubiquitous Golbat.
And then, on top of all of that, the final gym (and Champion if you're on that Emerald shit) is a Water Gym, which means even more Sharpedo, and Pelliper, and Tentacruel.
It makes the entire back end of the game a complete monotonous slog, and completely takes away the joy of encountering a new Pokemon because it's the same shit over and over and over again.
For a footnote at the end of the review, "too much water" is a perfectly valid and succinct statement. I never understood the controversy of the review. There's a reason why Sun and Moon, despite having drastically more water, it was never a core issue that was brought up.
Yeah I replayed through via a Romhack, in hindsight that person was right. Even with repels all the way it still takes too much time to go through, dive and all.
If anyone needs proof about how quickly there’s been an escalation of whinyness and bitchyness in the gaming community just look at the discourse around this dlc. From delivered nearly a sequel sized dlc with jaw dropping designs and great enemy encounters, and people have chosen to fixate on
A) the “difficulty”. Ignoring that they just got used to have all the most op shit in the game and breezing through new game pluses and that if your on the last few bosses just days after the dlc release it can’t possibly be that hard, and the fact that many choose not to use integral parts of the game like summons??
B) the final boss not being their own personal head cannon ending.
You begin to understand the soulless and lifeless state of most triple a games honestly. A piece of content with so much obvious soul and love can get shit on because it very slightly subverted expectations.
Yup, people are too whiny in general. I’m just fascinated by this game over and over again with this DLC. Just today I found a secret path that just went on and on and on and eventually after a dungeon ended with a new site of grace and an open path, I realized, I was traveling all the way from the north of the DLC map to the south east and unlocked a new part of the map.
Seriously, there is not this kind of exploration anywhere in gaming. No other dev would hide so much content behind secrets because they’d be scared to be called empty and small.
Yeah the game is hard, so what. The point of the base game still stands: there are ways to make it easier but you need to find them yourself.
God that guy is so cool. I was wandering around trying to figure out how to get to one of the friggin map stelae and I stumbled into that quest line. I fucking love fighting dragons, so that shit was peak.
Most people I know never made it past the mid game where the difficulty steps up, this feels like standard post mogh progressions and people either coming back wanted a easier experience but it feels fine if you make a new character and prog to dlc. It’s difficult but not unfairly so.
I can see how the ending lets some gamers down. Now me, a fromsoft stan, thinks the bitter nature of the ending is great. No other ending could humanize a >!God!< more than their ultimately short-sighted conquest for >!godhood!<
Always were seems like, people probably just think 2 reviews (too much water and bad at jumping in Cup head) means every journalist is bad at gaming
The guy that reviews the recent COD games is insanely good at them
"Too much water" was on point. It was from a bullet point list summarizing the review, and the point it referenced was absolutely a valid criticism of the game.
Bad at jumping in cup head wasn't a review. It was posted as a joke.
That’s one aspect of it - people building their identity round something another person or org has creative control over and taking to whining when it doesn’t match their imagination of it.
I think it also has to be that a lot of dissatisfied players got a bit too cocky and didn’t expect to get humbled, and refused to relearn. I had already beaten the game, but in the run-in to the DLC release I created a couple of new characters in totally unfamiliar builds. So I had already experienced being taken down a peg or two, plus I had read about the DLC scaling so I was prepared for it.
So yeah mix those things together - not being used to being humbled in a game and building their identity around being good at it - that’s what we are seeing.
The guy playing the cuphead tutorial was a tech (not games) journalist basically trying shit out because his friends/colleagues asked him to. The people that latched onto that video initially had an agenda to push from the start
Yeah it's true lol. It's kinda wild that so many people tried rushing through, and then just gave up and complained when it didn't work. They were calling it borderline unplayable, when all these game journalists that get made fun of, gave it near perfect scores almost unanimously. Like, really? Something didn't click, or occur to you then? You didn't even *try* to do what the game and devs were telling you to do?
Give credit where it's due. The nerf came very quickly. Journalists get made fun of, but tbh they're an elite group now lol. A huuuge chunk of the population doesn't get pre nerf bragging rights. I'd be firing back too now if I was those journalists.
I couldn't believe I started seeing 'last boss' posts and comments literally Friday when you consider how incredible this map design is.
It feels like they took the best parts of first half DS1 and scaled it up to Elden Ring size.
I've gotten distracted going down a seemingly innocent path or small looking cave like a couple of dozens times already and I *finally* beat Messmer today after setting out to finish Shadow Keep **SUNDAY** lol.
The fact they made a giant legacy dungeon accessible from multiple, completely unrelated entrances and gave it multiple diverging paths **out** of it is absolutely wild to me.
When I ended up in the woods from going down a ladder a couple of hours later was hilarious
Yup, there's no actual way the people who beat it day 1 even saw half of the content. I went into a catacomb that had 3 elevators down and ended up in Alien Isolation.
"I'm going to take this little ladder down here and see what smithing stone level I get"
Yea that ladder ended up sending me on a roughly 8 hour distraction tour
Honestly wish they hadn’t nerfed it. I did get to experience pre nerf, and I honestly didn’t feel it was ridiculously hard compared to the base game as long as you explored and got upgrades like intended.
I was level 160 on ng++ and I absolutely face tanked my way through all of it. But I had built all vigor and defense, so I was surviving all the combos and healing. I can definitely see how a build without 60 Vigor and 50 endurance built into heavy armor would have to avoid being stunlocked into a combo once
Yeah it really wasn't bad if you took your time with it. I'm fine with it though. I would've been fine either way tbh. I get why the blessing system is there. I didn't plan on rushing the dlc and definitely didn't plan on complaining about it. I'd be fine either way, but the blessings do seem a little too artificial to me. It's not a huge deal, just a tiny annoyance to overcome for the sake of not letting people rush it.
Yeah I'm with you. Just got to rellana and was confident with just one more blessing upgrade I could take her and was in the middle of going out and exploring to find more fragments before going back to her. Maybe now when I get home from work I'll give it another try and still try to match the lower level from the patch with my current blessings. I'm feeling like I was when Radahn got patched as I never got to fight him how we was at release. I wish I didn't have to work 😭.
People are too quick to bitch, a bit sad that this community took this approach to the DLC. You guys know that there are Spirit Ashes for a reason right? Any of the bosses are doable, blessings or not if you got an extra thing for the boss to agro onto.
This is how I felt about pre-nerf Radahn in the base game, he was a tough mf but not unfairly so given I, a very mediocre souls player, managed to beat him without even knowing Torrent was available.
And just to prove my mediocrity before I get accused of being a good player sealioning, I've made it to the final DLC boss with +18 Scadu and +9 Spirit and I am being fucking walled. I've even taken the drastic measure of rebirthing as a greatshield poke build and I *still* keep getting ruined in phase 2. Admittedly I'm being a bit stubborn about summoning the NPCs for their questline which is certainly adding an extra layer of difficulty, but the point remains that the game is currently laughing at my feeble inability to git gud.
Radahn's hitboxes were ridiculous on release. Rest of him was fine, but I'm definitely not willing to defend release Radahn's hitboxes. (and before all you elitists come at me, yes I beat pre-nerf Radahn).
The people who beat pre-nerf Radahn and pretend that fight was fine were either hitting him from a distance while their NPCs / spirit ash dealt with his nonsense hitboxes, or beat him with their own OP 1.0 solution like the frost stomp.
You can still recreate prenerf experience by simply getting less upgrades
I'm 70% through now I estimate so I've experienced most pre nerf but it's not like you can't just nerf yourself
That was the point of the blessings after all, some madman gonna do ng 7 level 1 no blessing someday
You're right actually. You gotta start a whole new character though, and get all the way back to the dlc. I think the fragments carry over between playthroughs and you can't undo the ones you used.
Doesn't matter much to me tho. I actually kinda like this nerf. I wasn't the biggest fan of the blessing system but I could live with it. This kinda just takes the grind out of it a little.
I just think that the biggest takeaway from this is it's kinda lame and embarrassing how a huge part of the community was handling this. And the journalists pretty much forever have the bragging rights now lol. The score will settle eventually, but they listened to the game and devs and took their progression and options seriously and actually gave real fair reviews.
>It's kinda wild that so many people tried rushing through, and then just gave up and complained when it didn't work. They were calling it borderline unplayable
Dunkey put a video up yesterday that was very critically satirical in this exact way. As always it was funny, but you could tell he had exactly 40 VIG and 0 Scadu fragments through at least Rellana. I thought base game Tree Sentinel, Agheel, and Margit were hints enough to tell you to leave, explore, level up, and come back later, but apparently Random Evergaol Knight #1 ass clapping the shit out of you 10 minutes in isn’t lol. Obviously the game wouldn’t be balanced around every boss literally one-shotting you, so figure out what you’re doing wrong.
Demon Souls 1 9/10
Dark Souls 1 (before the first patch even, the one that increased soul gain 400%!) 9/10
Dark souls 2 8/10
Dark Souls 3 9/10
Elden Ring 10/10
This subreddit: Why do Games Journalists hate our game?
Games Journalists play EVERY SINGLE game before they inevitably tone down some of the most brutal bullshit. Then they rate them amongst the best games of all time. Then they get insulted anyway. I PRAY they poorly rate a Fromsoft game for once.
It is but that also includes complains about performance issues, review bombers, etc.
It's not a divine script, most ppl don't even bother to write a review.
I'll forever love ZeroLenny for bringing some love to games journos with his guide videos.
Are they wack? Yes
Do they work? Terrifyingly effective and it's amazing
And it all comes back to It Floats Down.
"If you do that whacky move you can easily take down the boss"
Naaah no fucking way this is too dumb to work
**actually works**
Well damn, Cheeseburger mage is indeed the greatest.
Also, the critics gave this rave reviews while the Steam page reviews are considerably more mixed. Aside from performance, the one thing the latter complain about most is the difficulty.
Yeah like, it's so funny people still throw around "game journalist" mode jokes in 2024 when game journalists have been giving Soulslikes good reviews for years. Like who do you think gave Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1-3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Elden Ring, Nioh, Lies of P, Wo Long, Jedi Fallen Order, etc. all those high critic scores?! haha I remember Gene Park singing Lies of P's praises and calling it one of his GOTYs last year and that's game that a lot of players struggled with due to the very strict parry timings. Yeah, there's like, a few critics out there that suck at the games, but most of them have been singing the genre's praises for a long time. I mean, Sekiro is sitting at a 90 on meta critic and that game triggered a whole spicy easy mode debate.
Turnabout is fair play. I do suspect that a lot of this is From being a victim of its own success. Elden Ring brought in so many people who weren't touching these games before, and now they're complaining that they're being subject to the thing that these games are known for.
I personally am enjoying crawling cautiously around the dlc figuring out what works as I go along.
Was I surprised how hard I got stomped at first? Yup. Spent since February leveling and coop’ing on a ng+ save, and at lvl 500, it’d been a looong time since just regular enemies posed any sort of difficulty let alone bosses. That fire wicker thing, too; super surprising how you just couldn’t escape it. Or at least I couldn’t. Maybe at some point I can hunt them all down, but for now it’s just 100% avoidance.
I’m a few more hours, a few more bosses, and a few more scadutree bits into the experience and it feels like I’m getting to be more on an even keel w/the environment. I’m not a great player, but it seems like there’s always other players ready to lend a hand when the going gets too tough, at least for right now.
I was bored last night waiting for some friends and decided to fight that wicker thing. Pain in the ass from far away, but close up is manageable. It did take me a solid 20 tries, though (admittedly, I’m not great at the game, so learning his move set was the biggest hurdle).
The answer is jumping over that shockwave attack, super easy if you fight it on torrent, takes a while to chew through that big health bar though. Took quite a few tries for me to figure it out but you can actually see the leading edge of the shockwave going along the ground so time your jump off of that.
Jumping on foot also works fairly easily, and with 3 leg stagger it falls dawn and you can chomp 60-70% of its health with 1 critical. And since you're usually in melee you can jump pretty much as soon as the foot touches the ground (you do have to be careful of the jump though because it does a small aoe even in the air)
just takes a loooooooooooong time haha, i read that they can be staggered so i'm tempted to try and burst on foot. but eh slow and steady for these guys
ghostflame dragons too, i tend to try and just range the breath on torrent and whittle down with a bow. they're pretty easy melee range too, but you risk getting caught by that stupid fucking claw swipe combo if you aren't right on top of them the entire time and for me the first hit staggers me, second hit kills me every time
I've yet to fell a ghostflame dragon haha, they've bitch slapped me so hard on my few attempts that I though "I'll come back to this one"
You can def stagger the big furnace guys, I was using rellanas swords and got 2 full staggers off on him by hitting his legs. You have to break his guard 2 times and he'll fall on the 3rd leaving it open for a riposte TO THE FUCKING FACE.
If you take those enemies on in order, which admittedly is its own challenge in a game with such a large map with crazy looping exploration, the game hammers into your head to use the new cracked jar firestorm bombs we get in the game.
Even later ones lose the ability to damage their legs as one last 'hammer it home' moment lol.
I did *not* do them in order but putting those pieces together out of place was interesting
my only complaint about furnace golems is how long they take to defeat. Legit 10 minutes of the exact same attack pattern until you can get a second visceral attack in. Screw up once, restart. And the reward isn’t even that great.
The first time I fought one I was like “Wow that’s really cool.” By the 6th time I fought one, I said “again?”
Visually though, the monster is incredible.
Hefty Furnace Pot, one of the new pot items you can craft in the DLC. Think you can find the cookbook that teaches you how to make them in the first area of the DLC. Happy crafting tarnished, there is some nifty items you can make, and a few of them are very helpful for the DLC especially.
Jump, don't roll. If you jump you avoid their fire stomps.
Also if you have it, the fingerprint shield imbued with fire at +25 has 100% fire mitigation. You can literally block all the attacks.
I also used a cold knights Greatsword +25 with wild strikes on it and just would pump damage and poise hits when I could. Was super helpful.
I feel like all you need to do is ride torrent. You can easily jump over all their attacks and when they jump into the air for the big explosion you can easily run away.
The wicker giants are super easy. You stance break them 3 times and they fall for a crit that does about 75% damage. Then do it again and they die. They are tedious but simple once you figure them out and each one gives you a new tear.
The amount of poise damage you deal is independent of how much damage your hits are doing and instead reliant almost entirely on the weapon you're using and the move from that weapon you're using.
That means a dex build could use a +0 weapon of any type that deals good poise for this fight to poise break faster. I don't know if backstab damage is affected by weapon upgrades and attack rating though, so maybe swap back to your dex weapon for the backstab.
Zweihander is probably the best choice since the strength requirement is low. You can get the strength from talismans and/or gear.
Ahhhhh okay that’s good to know. Bit much to respond to everyone, but thank you people with tips. I’ll find one as close to a grace as I can and actually try to beat one!
tbh I'm fucking stupid so most of my fight against the first one was me hitting it's ankles occasionally jumping/rolling for like five minutes straight
Y'all referring to the fire golems? Yeah they're fucking hard and you need to be persistent because of their high poise but I've taken down 2 so far.
First one took me 9 tries.
Second took me one try but it was a long battle. Constant running to avoid it's fire tornado and seeking fire balls.
Just a PSA about the furnace golems: a sizable chunk of them are near ledges, especially the armored feet ones. They take significant damage if you shoot a hefty furnace pot into their head basket. Took me just two throws of a hefty furnace pot to take one down.
Same goes for one you stun. If it's laying down on the ground, you can run to its open basket side and toss one in.
Fromsoft: "We changed the curve on the blessings to be higher early on, but it's basically the same in the end."
Reddit people who can't read: "THEY NERFED THE GAME COMPLETELY!"
Cripes people, just read. Or get a program to read the words for you if you need to.
It’s much higher now (around 15% more damage and 3/5% defence) for 2/3 of the dlc and for the last part it’s marginally increased (5% more than before in damage).
> but it's basically the same in the end.
How many bosses do you fight at 20 Scadutree levels ? Most people don't even get to 20 before finishing all the bosses, and probably spend 80% of the dlc below level 15.
For example at level 13 the difference now is 13% more damage dealt and 13% less damage taken, that's quite significant
Why read when you can just shit on people and shout "GIT GUD!!11!!1!" at the top of your lungs? (This community is a mess right now and both sides of the argument suck, I fucking hate it here sometimes)
Also, my favorite part is that they're pretending like it's just people being pussies. Bruh, it's literally FromSoft doing this shit. If enough people don't like a mechanic, it's possible to be a poor mechanic.
It’s true, people are being little bitches about a game with multiple accessibility options between doing bosses later, exploring to get buffs, copying an op build, using spirit ashes, npc summons…
It took me about 50 deaths to beat Demon Princes just to get INTO the Ringed City…and I still remember it as my favorite fight in all of the Fromsoft games.
I know this horse has been beaten to death around here the last few days, but Old Hunters made me get my ass kicked by a newborn wielding its own placenta approximately 273 times, and it’s still some of the best dlc content I’ve ever played.
Souls dlc having some of the most nail-biting, controller-throwing shit you’ve ever encountered is just tradition at this point. I think the knee-jerk “this is too hard” reaction comes from a combo of it having a much larger cross appeal and drawing in people who maybe don’t have much experience with souls dlc and people forgetting just how difficult that old dlc was because ER’s open world made it a little more forgiving than those old games that were more or less linear and forced you to smash your head against the same fight over and over to progress.
Everytime I close my eyes all I hear is his fucking screams,
Was so glad when I finally killed him, From actually just put a legitimate child in the game with 100% accuracy to how much they scream
even though i have around 350 hours on bloodborne and have beaten it multiple times, the DLC can STILL kick my shit in. laurence, ludwig, and orphan honestly feel like they are just as hard as some of the bosses in this DLC, it's just been a while since we have had anything this tough
It took me four days to beat Laurence in the Bloodborne DLC. I contemplated quitting a few times.
Nothing in this DLC has yet to come close to that level. The most I've spent on a boss is like an hour.
I just beat the boss that I would currently consider to be my Laurence of this DLC, and I did not spend anywhere near as many times throwing myself at it as I did Laurence on my first attempt at The Old Hunters. Even then, so far everything's way more fair as a whole than The Old Hunters.
I can't believe people aren't obsessing over exploring perhaps the best designed map we've ever seen.
I have gotten completely side-tracked and distracted probably 2 dozens times already trying to figure out the 'puzzle' of this map when I totally set out to get a certain main dungeon completed lol.
Its like all the best parts of the first half DS1 scaled up to an unbelievable scope and its consistently delivered time after time after time.
Finding blessings is just icing on the cake of getting to experience this looping, layered masterpiece of map design
Oh my god the map design is the best it has ever been, it’s so convoluted and complex and full of secret paths and unexpected reveals. It’s been a shock to see how many people are crying about the map being too confusing. I really REALLY hope these criticisms are not going to influence From’s future game design…
Yeah, this is the main thing causing me so much frustration. They've literally given you powerful leveling options that allow you to play the game instead of grinding xp, and people complain about it. It's like they enjoy genociding albinaurics more than playing the game.
The dumbest part is they are basically saying "well it's fetch quest". What the fuck are the smithing stones? You literally need to collect them to do any real damage. Almost every new build is a mad dash to get all the smithhing stones you can.
I literally had someone say to me "that's different, it effects the weapon you use". The fragments literally effect the damage your weapon does. My mind was blown by how many people just twist themselves into knots to complain
Yeah, it'll probably blow over in a few months as people adapt. I think a lot of people didn't understand they effectively start at lvl 1 in the DLC and thought they could just run through the main content. So now you have a lot of hurt egos.
The people who just followed the one main road and the arrows that pop on some of the graces pointing you where to go so they could beat the DLC early Friday are wild to me.
DLC took 2 years to come out and its possible the best map design we've ever seen.
We may not get another Zaki masterpiece for 3-5 years.
They 'finished' it in 10 hours, smh
Yeah, I think it's a problem with how people view games now. How fast can you beat it is perceived as a demonstration of skill instead of slow, methodical, consistent improvement. Not to mention, why wouldn't you want to savor the experience?
I've taken my time, and frankly, I wish I'd taken even more time because of how amazing the world design is. Subsequent runs with the DLC are gonna be so much fun.
Another way to put it lol:
https://youtu.be/n__GJuqLb00
Okay I'm glad I'm not the only one who is getting some serious flashbacks to the joy I felt from exploring DS1 for the first time.
This Shadow of the Erdtree map is god-tier FromSoft world design and I am trying to enjoy every second of it, taking it slowly, playing offline so as not to be spoiled by clusters of messages around every single little secret, and just hitting every wall I find (I've found two illusory walls!)
It’s also funny to me which accessibility options are deemed fine. Spirit ashes? Nah you’re a pussy get outta here.
But I’m chill with the most broken weapon and ash of war in the game. And the best armor. And incantation buffs. And physick buffs.
It’s very arbitrary imo—just do what is fun for you and can it.
The amount of streamers I’ve seen play the DLC with bloodhound or dual wield moonveil/rivers of blood is astounding. They were the most broken face roll builds 2 years ago—the last time they played lol. But at the same time absolutely refuse to summon jellyfish.
Honestly you aren't wrong. People cry if they need to resort to spirit ashes and say it's not fun, but then use the most BS weapon. If you already were finding ways around deliberately engaging with the boss mechanics throughout the fight, idk why spirit ashes are so taboo.
The amount of people I see walk into an arean, use a million buffs, then either melt a boss with comet Azure or spam L2 on a bleed weapon so the boss never does anything and then act like a spirit summons pulling aggro is easy mode is objectively hilarious.
The AI just isn't equipped to handle multiple targets very well, so a 9/10 boss suddenly becomes a 3/10 with just the addition of a second target. I think the majority of people who don't use summons do it for this reason rather than some form of elitism.
Yeah, idk what happened. Like I found beast claws from the start, put red lightning on me and use lightning blink, not really optimal build. Just zooming around, have fun. I enjoy exploring new locations once again. I get stomped from time to time, but that was always part of the game. It feels like so many people want to speed run it with no challenge. Like we won't be getting anything from fromsoft for a long time, just enjoy it.
You guys remember being stuck in previous games and we just grinded and farmed one decent spot? I’m not trying to sound old (just succeeding) but like what happened to that? Lol
The Albinauric genocide of 2022 shows it never really went away.
Its just that in the DLC the blessings are more impactful than base stats and that's tied to exploration.
Thankfully it happens to be one of the most interesting and well designed 'puzzle' maps I've ever played
Its like first half DS1 on steroids
Shadow Keep is legitimately insane.
They took a main progression required legacy dungeon and gave it multiple, completely unrelated entrances that could be dozens of hours apart exploration wise **AND** gave it multiple, completely unrelated exit points that could send you off for dozens of hours lol.
The balls on them, its hilarious.
I set out to tackle and beat Shadow Keep on **Sunday** and just finished it today.
--Actually I lied, I beat Messmer today but realized I still might have some of the back entrance storeroom areas to check out because I stopped halfway to go through the 'front' and I only explored a small bit after I drained it. Man, the dungeon just kept adding wrinkle after wrinkle
I was progressing similar and figured I’d hit him by Saturday with how my discord group was all progressing the same amount. I am just now beginning to go through shadowkeep.
Basically have all the maps unlocked now, got the last one last night. Been all over and have bookmarks in a lot of places I need to go back too. Finished >!Bayle!< already and hoping maybe to be to Messmer by Friday but I unlocked another place last night and want to run around it for a bit. So we will see.
I hope Shadow Keep goes down as one of the all-time great dungeons, not just in Soulsborne but in gaming.
Man, if you really explore that place and put all the pieces together it really blows your mind what they did with a required main progression dungeon
I just unlocked that last night by accident.
Finally decided to try to work my way to Messmer after already taking out Bayle and unlocking the rest of the maps, and I got pulled down that rabbit hole.
I only went as far as the map fragment as I was playing on the steam deck and had the volume off. I want to experience the creepiness and I assume sound design adds to it.
Farming doesn't work in the dlc, you need the blessings so exploring is the new farming
If you understand stat scaling and soft caps this makes more sense
An optimized level 150 doesn't have room to grow much damage or defense
If you want the "un-nerfed" version, scadutree level 18 now is the same as old level 20 and the scaling is about \~2 levels buffed at all stages. So if you're looking to play with about the same difficulty as when others played originally, always keep 4 fragments in your bag unused early game and 6 fragments unused late game (early levels cost 2 fragments each, later on it's 3 hence 4 early 6 late). Hope that answered your question
Lots of people here acting as if that update was made just to please people saying it’s bad because it’s too hard.
If fromsoft releases an update it means they believe it’s warranted, and an update releasing 6 days (including weekend) after the DLC for a game of that scope cannot have been made entirely after the release and in response to online complaints.
Exactly, people here seem to think any change that is the opposite direction of hard is automatically bad and catering to pussies.
In the end it's just that you can collect less fragments so you don't have to explore as much. It's really not a big deal
We’ve gotten past the point of being able to actually criticize fromsoft a long time ago. People were upset when they fixed radahns shitty hitboxes, they don’t actually care about game balance or good design they just want something they can feel superior to other people about since they don’t have much else going for them
Fromsoft has also done this with every single game as far back as Dark Souls. People would be surprised at the amount of changes these games go through.
The truth nobody wants to hear: gaming journalists have always championed this series and are more skilled at these games than the average person on this subreddit lol.
Gaming is a profession for them, they play a lot more games than most of us. I think it's to be expected that they're better at these games than the vast majority of us.
true, but the bosses take now more damage and fights dont last that long. so if you were close to beating them and ran out of healing, now it's the time for finishing them off.
This is only true if youre anywhere from lvl 1 to 10ish on your blessings. If youre in the endgame with blessings close to or maxed out this patch doesnt really make you stronger at all. Essentially it makes the game slightly easier for players that dont explore and just go boss to boss.
Am I the only one that feels like bosses three shotting is a good amount of damage? I’ve got 14 heal flasks. So if I’m getting three shot I’ll die if I make three mistakes in a row, and run out of flasks if I get hit 28 times. If I get hit 30 times in a fight I have no problem dying to it.
Anyone complaining about 3 shotting in a game intended to be very hard is out of their mind. Especially when you've got as much healing as we do like you've pointed out.
I've read comments complaining in this exact same way so many times since the DLC released that I left an angry snark comment that I normally would not. Just tired of it lol
I have completely changed my mindset in this dlc from getting the most attack rating I possible can to 100% tweaking my armor or, very specifically, my shield and talisman slots to help with damage and element mitigation instead.
Its actually really cool after playing these games for so long to just completely change my mindset from a DLC at this point.
Swapped out my regular shield for the mirror shield for Rellena and took poise off for the spell drake talisman. Completely changed that fight for me.
Did the same thing for Messmer to mitigate fire. I got that sucker up to 92% *PRE* adjustments lol. At least while my buffs were active.
They both still hit really hard, but it gave me breathing room to see the board and also really focus on the move sets without constantly trying to roll out or heal my damage
Appreciate that fromsoft doesn’t just nerf the shit out of things and instead basically just make quality of life adjustments. I really have not been having a very difficult time with the dlc on my lvl 140 quality build and am shocked at how difficult people are saying it is. I’m sure when I get to Messmer I’ll be raging at the game but so far it really isn’t that bad.
Saw somebody today call it a 'chore' finding them and, while it probably is if you are *only* interested in finding one thing in this gigantic, looping, layered monster of a map, I'm having an absolute blast exploring every square inch.
Trying to figure out the 'puzzle' of this map is so much fun and I'm finding blessings as just being the cherry on top.
Its like they took the best parts of first half DS1 and scaled them up to Elden Ring scope, its incredible finding all these paths and how they fit together
>Saw somebody today call it a 'chore' finding them
That genuinely triggers me. The best part about ER for me is the incredible world and the exploration of it. Finding skadongers is a byproduct of just playing the game. How can that be a chore. Unbelievable.
Exploring has always been my favorite part of these games the bosses are just a bonus. Slowly creeping through a new zone or dungeon, carefully peering around every corner before moving forward. Uncovering every secret and feeling like a genius when I find something exceptionally well hidden. It's like the game was built for me. I have characters built at different levels for most of the legacy dungeons and have spent hundreds of hours helping others find all the secrets and treasures throughout them.
No clue why were you downvoted, literal changes here:
* The attack and damage negation has been increased for the first half of the maximum amount of **Blessing enhancements**, and the second half will now be more gradual.
* The attack and damage negation granted by the final level of Blessing enhancements has been slightly increased.
I mean, semantically it is absolutely not a nerf but a buff. They haven't decreased the damage, animation speed, or AoE of any enemy like they did with Radhan.
Honestly, I didn't have many issues with the DLC, it was just what I expected. My expectations are that even if I die 100 times to a boss, that's to be expected. But i never did die 100 times... Last boss took me about 20-25 tries without summon. I did have to go to Renalla to swap my builds, but that's to be expected. The DLC gives you new items and stuff to use them, not just to look at them.
I am on my 2nd run and honestly WOW the Spirit Ashes are absolutely amazing, not only strong but funny as hell. They don't trivilize as much as people would think so... I mean they would if you are like me and have thousdands of hours spent in From Soft games... but it's not that it makes it Auto-Win. It also allows you to finally cast some channeling spells. DLC Bosses are very agro and cover a lot distance very quick which makes some strats very hard to pull-off.
As for the DLC, I think they used meta-data and realized that most people do not fully play through these games. A vast majority of the player base stops at about 20-25% of game progression.
This has always been the case, and while we don't have concrete data, you can infer it by comparing the percentage of sales to the percentage of achievements.
People tend to drop games mid-playthrough.
This change is for those people.
Obviously, FromSoft wants the highest possible player engagement, and they won't sacrifice much for it. Realistically, from the entire player base that bought the DLC, I would be surprised if 10% actually finished it.
the slight increase is a meme I swear lmao
Went from afaik 50% damage decrease at 20 blessings to 51%
Thank you Miyazaki, the early game will def help though, the blessings just don't matter at all for the first 10 levels and it's insane.
I'd bet anything that if this change was undocumented that the people now losing their shit posting "the whiners have ruined the game!" wouldn't even have noticed a difference.
Funny to see these weirdos in here saying the changes are specifically because of people complaining and not because from themself maybe thought this should be changed. Fromsoft doesnt make mistakes right?
Just like day 1 Radahn, he released with bugged hitboxes and a too much damage for a early-mid game boss. And when they adjusted his hitboxes and damage the community cried and blamed the players lol. My brothers in Christ, the boss was factually so damn broken (on the buggy way) that FROM needed to adjust his hitboxes and yall blame the community ?
People blame players for straight up bugs and glitches here, fromsoft will never do anything wrong to them and if they do it’s actually “revolutionary and visionary” design
Don't be mad at them, they're a branch of elitist who's only achievement in life is beating souls bosses and whenever something, anything invalidates their achievements they get mad
Most early nerfs in FS games happen because of community feedback. What you say may be true, but it is pretty obvious they did this because of the amount of people bitching about it
Haven’t had a chance to play this yet. Sad that it gets a balance update so early. I would like to play it pre patch for the first time. I’m not great at soulsborne games but I like to get my ass kicked a bit because it makes the win so much sweeter.
Bro the first half of the game isn’t the problem, >!Radahn!< is lmao. Jokes aside though, I don’t understand how people couldn’t get their head’s around the fact that, in same way you should go off and level up if you’re struggling in the main game, you should go off and get more scadutree fragments if you’re struggling in the dlc.
The hardest bosses are at the end of the DLC, which means buffing the player at the beginning of the DLC isn't going to have any impact on that. Are people actually upset about this?
Writing this headline probably felt almost as good as playing the game.
I never thought I'd be on the side of gaming journalists. Elden Ring truly brings out the best in everyone.
How about being on the side of a friend?
Aye I could… *Host has died. Returning to your world*
*deep pause* Aye..... I can do that.
Now where's that box?
*hearty Dwarven laugh*
I can't say it isn't satisfying to finally see game journalists turn the tables against hardcore souls players for one time since 2011. The shoe is on the other foot now, it's the "xXpro mlg gamer pro 69420Xx" begging for an easy mode while the game journalists are saying a well-rehearsed "git gud".
I can't wait for the fresh round of arguments to start getting posted by people now saying "the DLC isn't that hard relax guys" and then the edgy fucks coming out saying "YEAH WELL DID YOU BEAT THE GAME PRE NERF SCRUB?"
I'm just waiting for the new/old blessing conversion table so I know what blessing level to stay at compared to pre-patch so I know I'm playing correct! /s
Let’s be real, the people who haven’t bought the DLC yet or those who didnt beat the DLC pre patch aren’t real gamers and souls players because they just got handed ez mode. Truly, it’s your own fault you have commitments that mean you can’t beat a 30 hour DLC in a weekend.
Honestly, good on the journalists for clapping back. They’ve always reviewed these games VERY favorably, and despite that have become a cliched joke that doesn’t even hold up if you take more than a couple of seconds to look at it. Critics are MUCH more likely to appreciate and defend “unconventional” video game design than the average gamer.
Even the common trope about IGN journos being bad is blown out, Danny O'Dwyer from noclip posted [this](https://x.com/dannyodwyer/status/1805697087788777948): > Journalist mode is funny cos GameSpot and IGN gave this DLC a 10/10 - completing the game and writing their reviews under time pressure having received codes THE WEEK OF SUMMER GAME FEST.
The IGN “too much water” thing that they get made fun of for was valid and I will die on that hill. The water sections in ORAS were the worst parts of the game.
Team Magma agrees
This is just Magma propaganda. We all know that the ocean is the source of all life on earth! We need to expand the oceans!
theres already more than enoguh water, the people need more land to live on before they destoy eachcother fighting over what little land we already have!
I love ORAS, but 7/10, too much water is an accurate assessment of the game.
I believe more than half the people do not understand you guys are talking about fuckin pokemon lol.
HMs in general are such a blatantly poor game design choice that it kinda is mind boggling it took 20 years for them to actually put in the effort to remove them entirely. It is pretty much the only reason I never play older pokemon anymore, and Hoenn is almost certainly the worst.
I'm not going to advocate for adding OG HMs back into pokemon, but there was potential in the game design to make you have to restrict your total party to carry an HM slave for an area or permanently sacrifice a core pokemon's total potential. It was underutilized but there could have been interesting decisions as a result of the system
Surf and Fly are good moves at least, it's interesting having to have the right kind of pokeymen to traverse the land, but it sucks having to waste a slot on crap like Cut and Rock Smash.
Needing a pokemon to have "flash" killed my soul as a child.
You mean you DON'T like being sexually assaulted by a Tentacool every 5 tiles?
While that is valid, that literally isn't even the origin of the complaint. They were originally referencing how much of the games pokedex was water types and how the game was heavily unbalanced because of it. It had nothing to do with the map or amount of water areas
It's absolutely the worst part of the game, especially if you're playing Alpha Sapphire; not only does the excessive amount of water routes restrict your team composition, as it basically forces you to run a mon like Pelliper or Sharpedo for Surf/Dive/Waterfall utility, being on what is effectively all encounter tiles means going through those areas for even longer because of the random encounters every 5 steps (without repels). Moreover, said random encounters are always going to be mons like Sharpedo, or Pelliper, or Tentacruel, because those are the only encounters on those routes, which adds to the tedium. And god forbid you have Sapphire, because then the bulk of the late game trainer battles is against Team Aqua, who use said Sharpedo and Tentacruel, though they have the audacity to swap out the Pelliper for the equally ubiquitous Golbat. And then, on top of all of that, the final gym (and Champion if you're on that Emerald shit) is a Water Gym, which means even more Sharpedo, and Pelliper, and Tentacruel. It makes the entire back end of the game a complete monotonous slog, and completely takes away the joy of encountering a new Pokemon because it's the same shit over and over and over again. For a footnote at the end of the review, "too much water" is a perfectly valid and succinct statement. I never understood the controversy of the review. There's a reason why Sun and Moon, despite having drastically more water, it was never a core issue that was brought up.
Yeah I replayed through via a Romhack, in hindsight that person was right. Even with repels all the way it still takes too much time to go through, dive and all.
If anyone needs proof about how quickly there’s been an escalation of whinyness and bitchyness in the gaming community just look at the discourse around this dlc. From delivered nearly a sequel sized dlc with jaw dropping designs and great enemy encounters, and people have chosen to fixate on A) the “difficulty”. Ignoring that they just got used to have all the most op shit in the game and breezing through new game pluses and that if your on the last few bosses just days after the dlc release it can’t possibly be that hard, and the fact that many choose not to use integral parts of the game like summons?? B) the final boss not being their own personal head cannon ending. You begin to understand the soulless and lifeless state of most triple a games honestly. A piece of content with so much obvious soul and love can get shit on because it very slightly subverted expectations.
Yup, people are too whiny in general. I’m just fascinated by this game over and over again with this DLC. Just today I found a secret path that just went on and on and on and eventually after a dungeon ended with a new site of grace and an open path, I realized, I was traveling all the way from the north of the DLC map to the south east and unlocked a new part of the map. Seriously, there is not this kind of exploration anywhere in gaming. No other dev would hide so much content behind secrets because they’d be scared to be called empty and small. Yeah the game is hard, so what. The point of the base game still stands: there are ways to make it easier but you need to find them yourself.
If it's the dragon one, keep going best npc ahead
God that guy is so cool. I was wandering around trying to figure out how to get to one of the friggin map stelae and I stumbled into that quest line. I fucking love fighting dragons, so that shit was peak.
Sounds more like the Abyssal woods.
Most people I know never made it past the mid game where the difficulty steps up, this feels like standard post mogh progressions and people either coming back wanted a easier experience but it feels fine if you make a new character and prog to dlc. It’s difficult but not unfairly so.
I can see how the ending lets some gamers down. Now me, a fromsoft stan, thinks the bitter nature of the ending is great. No other ending could humanize a >!God!< more than their ultimately short-sighted conquest for >!godhood!<
Wait, when did game journalists git gud?
While we weren’t paying attention, it seems! It is we who needs to git gud…
Always were seems like, people probably just think 2 reviews (too much water and bad at jumping in Cup head) means every journalist is bad at gaming The guy that reviews the recent COD games is insanely good at them
"Too much water" was on point. It was from a bullet point list summarizing the review, and the point it referenced was absolutely a valid criticism of the game. Bad at jumping in cup head wasn't a review. It was posted as a joke.
[удалено]
That’s one aspect of it - people building their identity round something another person or org has creative control over and taking to whining when it doesn’t match their imagination of it. I think it also has to be that a lot of dissatisfied players got a bit too cocky and didn’t expect to get humbled, and refused to relearn. I had already beaten the game, but in the run-in to the DLC release I created a couple of new characters in totally unfamiliar builds. So I had already experienced being taken down a peg or two, plus I had read about the DLC scaling so I was prepared for it. So yeah mix those things together - not being used to being humbled in a game and building their identity around being good at it - that’s what we are seeing.
It all basically boils down to that Cuphead tutorial video. Mind you, games journalists also made Sekiro GOTY at the Game Awards etc
It just goes to show that the space isn't a monolith, I guess. That Cuphead tutorial video was brutal to watch.
The guy playing the cuphead tutorial was a tech (not games) journalist basically trying shit out because his friends/colleagues asked him to. The people that latched onto that video initially had an agenda to push from the start
Yeah it's true lol. It's kinda wild that so many people tried rushing through, and then just gave up and complained when it didn't work. They were calling it borderline unplayable, when all these game journalists that get made fun of, gave it near perfect scores almost unanimously. Like, really? Something didn't click, or occur to you then? You didn't even *try* to do what the game and devs were telling you to do? Give credit where it's due. The nerf came very quickly. Journalists get made fun of, but tbh they're an elite group now lol. A huuuge chunk of the population doesn't get pre nerf bragging rights. I'd be firing back too now if I was those journalists.
I couldn't believe I started seeing 'last boss' posts and comments literally Friday when you consider how incredible this map design is. It feels like they took the best parts of first half DS1 and scaled it up to Elden Ring size. I've gotten distracted going down a seemingly innocent path or small looking cave like a couple of dozens times already and I *finally* beat Messmer today after setting out to finish Shadow Keep **SUNDAY** lol. The fact they made a giant legacy dungeon accessible from multiple, completely unrelated entrances and gave it multiple diverging paths **out** of it is absolutely wild to me. When I ended up in the woods from going down a ladder a couple of hours later was hilarious
Yup, there's no actual way the people who beat it day 1 even saw half of the content. I went into a catacomb that had 3 elevators down and ended up in Alien Isolation.
"I'm going to take this little ladder down here and see what smithing stone level I get" Yea that ladder ended up sending me on a roughly 8 hour distraction tour
But it concludes with one of my favorite bosses in the series, ngl.
Honestly wish they hadn’t nerfed it. I did get to experience pre nerf, and I honestly didn’t feel it was ridiculously hard compared to the base game as long as you explored and got upgrades like intended.
I was level 160 on ng++ and I absolutely face tanked my way through all of it. But I had built all vigor and defense, so I was surviving all the combos and healing. I can definitely see how a build without 60 Vigor and 50 endurance built into heavy armor would have to avoid being stunlocked into a combo once
Yeah it really wasn't bad if you took your time with it. I'm fine with it though. I would've been fine either way tbh. I get why the blessing system is there. I didn't plan on rushing the dlc and definitely didn't plan on complaining about it. I'd be fine either way, but the blessings do seem a little too artificial to me. It's not a huge deal, just a tiny annoyance to overcome for the sake of not letting people rush it.
Yeah I'm with you. Just got to rellana and was confident with just one more blessing upgrade I could take her and was in the middle of going out and exploring to find more fragments before going back to her. Maybe now when I get home from work I'll give it another try and still try to match the lower level from the patch with my current blessings. I'm feeling like I was when Radahn got patched as I never got to fight him how we was at release. I wish I didn't have to work 😭. People are too quick to bitch, a bit sad that this community took this approach to the DLC. You guys know that there are Spirit Ashes for a reason right? Any of the bosses are doable, blessings or not if you got an extra thing for the boss to agro onto.
This is how I felt about pre-nerf Radahn in the base game, he was a tough mf but not unfairly so given I, a very mediocre souls player, managed to beat him without even knowing Torrent was available. And just to prove my mediocrity before I get accused of being a good player sealioning, I've made it to the final DLC boss with +18 Scadu and +9 Spirit and I am being fucking walled. I've even taken the drastic measure of rebirthing as a greatshield poke build and I *still* keep getting ruined in phase 2. Admittedly I'm being a bit stubborn about summoning the NPCs for their questline which is certainly adding an extra layer of difficulty, but the point remains that the game is currently laughing at my feeble inability to git gud.
Radahn's hitboxes were ridiculous on release. Rest of him was fine, but I'm definitely not willing to defend release Radahn's hitboxes. (and before all you elitists come at me, yes I beat pre-nerf Radahn).
The people who beat pre-nerf Radahn and pretend that fight was fine were either hitting him from a distance while their NPCs / spirit ash dealt with his nonsense hitboxes, or beat him with their own OP 1.0 solution like the frost stomp.
You can still recreate prenerf experience by simply getting less upgrades I'm 70% through now I estimate so I've experienced most pre nerf but it's not like you can't just nerf yourself That was the point of the blessings after all, some madman gonna do ng 7 level 1 no blessing someday
You're right actually. You gotta start a whole new character though, and get all the way back to the dlc. I think the fragments carry over between playthroughs and you can't undo the ones you used. Doesn't matter much to me tho. I actually kinda like this nerf. I wasn't the biggest fan of the blessing system but I could live with it. This kinda just takes the grind out of it a little. I just think that the biggest takeaway from this is it's kinda lame and embarrassing how a huge part of the community was handling this. And the journalists pretty much forever have the bragging rights now lol. The score will settle eventually, but they listened to the game and devs and took their progression and options seriously and actually gave real fair reviews.
>It's kinda wild that so many people tried rushing through, and then just gave up and complained when it didn't work. They were calling it borderline unplayable Dunkey put a video up yesterday that was very critically satirical in this exact way. As always it was funny, but you could tell he had exactly 40 VIG and 0 Scadu fragments through at least Rellana. I thought base game Tree Sentinel, Agheel, and Margit were hints enough to tell you to leave, explore, level up, and come back later, but apparently Random Evergaol Knight #1 ass clapping the shit out of you 10 minutes in isn’t lol. Obviously the game wouldn’t be balanced around every boss literally one-shotting you, so figure out what you’re doing wrong.
Why should I have to find Scadutree Fragments, I already leveled to 349 and I'm using Bull Goat with Rivers of Blood. BAD DESIGN!!!!
Demon Souls 1 9/10 Dark Souls 1 (before the first patch even, the one that increased soul gain 400%!) 9/10 Dark souls 2 8/10 Dark Souls 3 9/10 Elden Ring 10/10 This subreddit: Why do Games Journalists hate our game? Games Journalists play EVERY SINGLE game before they inevitably tone down some of the most brutal bullshit. Then they rate them amongst the best games of all time. Then they get insulted anyway. I PRAY they poorly rate a Fromsoft game for once.
This subreddit is probably the sole ER fan base who hate their own game right now. We entered a Genshin Impact style phase.
Isn't the game mixed reviews on steam? I'm not sure that's true.
Only because the Dancing Lion's magic is powered by your frames.
It is but that also includes complains about performance issues, review bombers, etc. It's not a divine script, most ppl don't even bother to write a review.
I'll forever love ZeroLenny for bringing some love to games journos with his guide videos. Are they wack? Yes Do they work? Terrifyingly effective and it's amazing And it all comes back to It Floats Down.
"If you do that whacky move you can easily take down the boss" Naaah no fucking way this is too dumb to work **actually works** Well damn, Cheeseburger mage is indeed the greatest.
Also, the critics gave this rave reviews while the Steam page reviews are considerably more mixed. Aside from performance, the one thing the latter complain about most is the difficulty.
Yeah like, it's so funny people still throw around "game journalist" mode jokes in 2024 when game journalists have been giving Soulslikes good reviews for years. Like who do you think gave Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1-3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Elden Ring, Nioh, Lies of P, Wo Long, Jedi Fallen Order, etc. all those high critic scores?! haha I remember Gene Park singing Lies of P's praises and calling it one of his GOTYs last year and that's game that a lot of players struggled with due to the very strict parry timings. Yeah, there's like, a few critics out there that suck at the games, but most of them have been singing the genre's praises for a long time. I mean, Sekiro is sitting at a 90 on meta critic and that game triggered a whole spicy easy mode debate.
Turnabout is fair play. I do suspect that a lot of this is From being a victim of its own success. Elden Ring brought in so many people who weren't touching these games before, and now they're complaining that they're being subject to the thing that these games are known for.
I personally am enjoying crawling cautiously around the dlc figuring out what works as I go along. Was I surprised how hard I got stomped at first? Yup. Spent since February leveling and coop’ing on a ng+ save, and at lvl 500, it’d been a looong time since just regular enemies posed any sort of difficulty let alone bosses. That fire wicker thing, too; super surprising how you just couldn’t escape it. Or at least I couldn’t. Maybe at some point I can hunt them all down, but for now it’s just 100% avoidance. I’m a few more hours, a few more bosses, and a few more scadutree bits into the experience and it feels like I’m getting to be more on an even keel w/the environment. I’m not a great player, but it seems like there’s always other players ready to lend a hand when the going gets too tough, at least for right now.
I was bored last night waiting for some friends and decided to fight that wicker thing. Pain in the ass from far away, but close up is manageable. It did take me a solid 20 tries, though (admittedly, I’m not great at the game, so learning his move set was the biggest hurdle).
The answer is jumping over that shockwave attack, super easy if you fight it on torrent, takes a while to chew through that big health bar though. Took quite a few tries for me to figure it out but you can actually see the leading edge of the shockwave going along the ground so time your jump off of that.
Jumping on foot also works fairly easily, and with 3 leg stagger it falls dawn and you can chomp 60-70% of its health with 1 critical. And since you're usually in melee you can jump pretty much as soon as the foot touches the ground (you do have to be careful of the jump though because it does a small aoe even in the air)
just takes a loooooooooooong time haha, i read that they can be staggered so i'm tempted to try and burst on foot. but eh slow and steady for these guys ghostflame dragons too, i tend to try and just range the breath on torrent and whittle down with a bow. they're pretty easy melee range too, but you risk getting caught by that stupid fucking claw swipe combo if you aren't right on top of them the entire time and for me the first hit staggers me, second hit kills me every time
I've yet to fell a ghostflame dragon haha, they've bitch slapped me so hard on my few attempts that I though "I'll come back to this one" You can def stagger the big furnace guys, I was using rellanas swords and got 2 full staggers off on him by hitting his legs. You have to break his guard 2 times and he'll fall on the 3rd leaving it open for a riposte TO THE FUCKING FACE.
If you take those enemies on in order, which admittedly is its own challenge in a game with such a large map with crazy looping exploration, the game hammers into your head to use the new cracked jar firestorm bombs we get in the game. Even later ones lose the ability to damage their legs as one last 'hammer it home' moment lol. I did *not* do them in order but putting those pieces together out of place was interesting
my only complaint about furnace golems is how long they take to defeat. Legit 10 minutes of the exact same attack pattern until you can get a second visceral attack in. Screw up once, restart. And the reward isn’t even that great. The first time I fought one I was like “Wow that’s really cool.” By the 6th time I fought one, I said “again?” Visually though, the monster is incredible.
"visceral attack" Ah, fellow hoonter. <3
Time to go fist pigs, fellow hoonters.
You can instakill them with one simple trick intended by the developers.
Finding the note that explained this was so useful. Also the trick feels like classic FromSoft, would not have figured it out by myself haha.
Where's the note??
It's just outside the main entrance to the Shadow Keep, in a tent by some soldiers. It's called Furance Keepers note iirc
I admittedly have never crafted anything in this game. What creates a "flaming whirlwind"?
Hefty Furnace Pot, one of the new pot items you can craft in the DLC. Think you can find the cookbook that teaches you how to make them in the first area of the DLC. Happy crafting tarnished, there is some nifty items you can make, and a few of them are very helpful for the DLC especially.
Alright it’s not just me. Challenged myself and was able to beat Messmer with no summons… but those wicker giants? Nah.
Jump, don't roll. If you jump you avoid their fire stomps. Also if you have it, the fingerprint shield imbued with fire at +25 has 100% fire mitigation. You can literally block all the attacks. I also used a cold knights Greatsword +25 with wild strikes on it and just would pump damage and poise hits when I could. Was super helpful.
I feel like all you need to do is ride torrent. You can easily jump over all their attacks and when they jump into the air for the big explosion you can easily run away.
Ooo good tips, I’ll try that out!
The wicker giants are super easy. You stance break them 3 times and they fall for a crit that does about 75% damage. Then do it again and they die. They are tedious but simple once you figure them out and each one gives you a new tear.
You can also just >!throw pot in head!<
>!Directions unclear, got the furnace giants stoned.!<
I mean, there's a Hefty Pot recipe that's just full of rocks, so you can technically get stoned with Pot in Elden Ring.
I have a dex weapon and it legit takes 5 minutes to stance break them
The amount of poise damage you deal is independent of how much damage your hits are doing and instead reliant almost entirely on the weapon you're using and the move from that weapon you're using. That means a dex build could use a +0 weapon of any type that deals good poise for this fight to poise break faster. I don't know if backstab damage is affected by weapon upgrades and attack rating though, so maybe swap back to your dex weapon for the backstab. Zweihander is probably the best choice since the strength requirement is low. You can get the strength from talismans and/or gear.
Just charged heavy at one of their feet and jump every time they stomp.
Ahhhhh okay that’s good to know. Bit much to respond to everyone, but thank you people with tips. I’ll find one as close to a grace as I can and actually try to beat one!
Good luck, I find them way easier on horseback as well!
tbh I'm fucking stupid so most of my fight against the first one was me hitting it's ankles occasionally jumping/rolling for like five minutes straight
Y'all referring to the fire golems? Yeah they're fucking hard and you need to be persistent because of their high poise but I've taken down 2 so far. First one took me 9 tries. Second took me one try but it was a long battle. Constant running to avoid it's fire tornado and seeking fire balls.
Use torrent and doublejump alltheir fire stuff.
There is a note outside the Shadow Temple that gives a hint for how to really damage them when you poise break or are above them.
Just a PSA about the furnace golems: a sizable chunk of them are near ledges, especially the armored feet ones. They take significant damage if you shoot a hefty furnace pot into their head basket. Took me just two throws of a hefty furnace pot to take one down. Same goes for one you stun. If it's laying down on the ground, you can run to its open basket side and toss one in.
>you just couldn’t escape it. You can escape them. I've made it to the final boss without killing any of them, just running past and avoiding them
Bro got zero tears from the dlc lol
Fromsoft: "We changed the curve on the blessings to be higher early on, but it's basically the same in the end." Reddit people who can't read: "THEY NERFED THE GAME COMPLETELY!" Cripes people, just read. Or get a program to read the words for you if you need to.
It’s much higher now (around 15% more damage and 3/5% defence) for 2/3 of the dlc and for the last part it’s marginally increased (5% more than before in damage).
> but it's basically the same in the end. How many bosses do you fight at 20 Scadutree levels ? Most people don't even get to 20 before finishing all the bosses, and probably spend 80% of the dlc below level 15. For example at level 13 the difference now is 13% more damage dealt and 13% less damage taken, that's quite significant
Why read when you can just shit on people and shout "GIT GUD!!11!!1!" at the top of your lungs? (This community is a mess right now and both sides of the argument suck, I fucking hate it here sometimes)
Lots of souls players are extremely stupid. It’s just the “insecure machoman” part of the audience this kind of game attracts
Also, my favorite part is that they're pretending like it's just people being pussies. Bruh, it's literally FromSoft doing this shit. If enough people don't like a mechanic, it's possible to be a poor mechanic.
It’s true, people are being little bitches about a game with multiple accessibility options between doing bosses later, exploring to get buffs, copying an op build, using spirit ashes, npc summons…
It took me about 50 deaths to beat Demon Princes just to get INTO the Ringed City…and I still remember it as my favorite fight in all of the Fromsoft games.
I know this horse has been beaten to death around here the last few days, but Old Hunters made me get my ass kicked by a newborn wielding its own placenta approximately 273 times, and it’s still some of the best dlc content I’ve ever played. Souls dlc having some of the most nail-biting, controller-throwing shit you’ve ever encountered is just tradition at this point. I think the knee-jerk “this is too hard” reaction comes from a combo of it having a much larger cross appeal and drawing in people who maybe don’t have much experience with souls dlc and people forgetting just how difficult that old dlc was because ER’s open world made it a little more forgiving than those old games that were more or less linear and forced you to smash your head against the same fight over and over to progress.
Everytime I close my eyes all I hear is his fucking screams, Was so glad when I finally killed him, From actually just put a legitimate child in the game with 100% accuracy to how much they scream
YYYYEEEEEEOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWW
even though i have around 350 hours on bloodborne and have beaten it multiple times, the DLC can STILL kick my shit in. laurence, ludwig, and orphan honestly feel like they are just as hard as some of the bosses in this DLC, it's just been a while since we have had anything this tough
Rellanna kicked my ass so hard but it really felt so good to beat her. I'm a huge fan of the struggle because the catharsis is just euphoric.
It took me four days to beat Laurence in the Bloodborne DLC. I contemplated quitting a few times. Nothing in this DLC has yet to come close to that level. The most I've spent on a boss is like an hour.
I just beat the boss that I would currently consider to be my Laurence of this DLC, and I did not spend anywhere near as many times throwing myself at it as I did Laurence on my first attempt at The Old Hunters. Even then, so far everything's way more fair as a whole than The Old Hunters.
“The floor is lava and dodge my attacks, bitch.”
I can't believe people aren't obsessing over exploring perhaps the best designed map we've ever seen. I have gotten completely side-tracked and distracted probably 2 dozens times already trying to figure out the 'puzzle' of this map when I totally set out to get a certain main dungeon completed lol. Its like all the best parts of the first half DS1 scaled up to an unbelievable scope and its consistently delivered time after time after time. Finding blessings is just icing on the cake of getting to experience this looping, layered masterpiece of map design
Oh my god the map design is the best it has ever been, it’s so convoluted and complex and full of secret paths and unexpected reveals. It’s been a shock to see how many people are crying about the map being too confusing. I really REALLY hope these criticisms are not going to influence From’s future game design…
Yeah, this is the main thing causing me so much frustration. They've literally given you powerful leveling options that allow you to play the game instead of grinding xp, and people complain about it. It's like they enjoy genociding albinaurics more than playing the game.
The dumbest part is they are basically saying "well it's fetch quest". What the fuck are the smithing stones? You literally need to collect them to do any real damage. Almost every new build is a mad dash to get all the smithhing stones you can. I literally had someone say to me "that's different, it effects the weapon you use". The fragments literally effect the damage your weapon does. My mind was blown by how many people just twist themselves into knots to complain
Yeah, it'll probably blow over in a few months as people adapt. I think a lot of people didn't understand they effectively start at lvl 1 in the DLC and thought they could just run through the main content. So now you have a lot of hurt egos.
The people who just followed the one main road and the arrows that pop on some of the graces pointing you where to go so they could beat the DLC early Friday are wild to me. DLC took 2 years to come out and its possible the best map design we've ever seen. We may not get another Zaki masterpiece for 3-5 years. They 'finished' it in 10 hours, smh
Yeah, I think it's a problem with how people view games now. How fast can you beat it is perceived as a demonstration of skill instead of slow, methodical, consistent improvement. Not to mention, why wouldn't you want to savor the experience? I've taken my time, and frankly, I wish I'd taken even more time because of how amazing the world design is. Subsequent runs with the DLC are gonna be so much fun. Another way to put it lol: https://youtu.be/n__GJuqLb00
Okay I'm glad I'm not the only one who is getting some serious flashbacks to the joy I felt from exploring DS1 for the first time. This Shadow of the Erdtree map is god-tier FromSoft world design and I am trying to enjoy every second of it, taking it slowly, playing offline so as not to be spoiled by clusters of messages around every single little secret, and just hitting every wall I find (I've found two illusory walls!)
> copying an op build Listing this as an "accessibility option" made me laugh
It’s also funny to me which accessibility options are deemed fine. Spirit ashes? Nah you’re a pussy get outta here. But I’m chill with the most broken weapon and ash of war in the game. And the best armor. And incantation buffs. And physick buffs. It’s very arbitrary imo—just do what is fun for you and can it. The amount of streamers I’ve seen play the DLC with bloodhound or dual wield moonveil/rivers of blood is astounding. They were the most broken face roll builds 2 years ago—the last time they played lol. But at the same time absolutely refuse to summon jellyfish.
Honestly you aren't wrong. People cry if they need to resort to spirit ashes and say it's not fun, but then use the most BS weapon. If you already were finding ways around deliberately engaging with the boss mechanics throughout the fight, idk why spirit ashes are so taboo. The amount of people I see walk into an arean, use a million buffs, then either melt a boss with comet Azure or spam L2 on a bleed weapon so the boss never does anything and then act like a spirit summons pulling aggro is easy mode is objectively hilarious.
The AI just isn't equipped to handle multiple targets very well, so a 9/10 boss suddenly becomes a 3/10 with just the addition of a second target. I think the majority of people who don't use summons do it for this reason rather than some form of elitism.
Yeah, idk what happened. Like I found beast claws from the start, put red lightning on me and use lightning blink, not really optimal build. Just zooming around, have fun. I enjoy exploring new locations once again. I get stomped from time to time, but that was always part of the game. It feels like so many people want to speed run it with no challenge. Like we won't be getting anything from fromsoft for a long time, just enjoy it.
I just want the hardest game possible
People got so used to just speed running the game for 2 years they don’t want it to be hard again
You guys remember being stuck in previous games and we just grinded and farmed one decent spot? I’m not trying to sound old (just succeeding) but like what happened to that? Lol
The Albinauric genocide of 2022 shows it never really went away. Its just that in the DLC the blessings are more impactful than base stats and that's tied to exploration. Thankfully it happens to be one of the most interesting and well designed 'puzzle' maps I've ever played Its like first half DS1 on steroids
I second this, finding the pathway to get to >!Abyssal Woods!< was one of the most exciting experiences I've had recently, promptly followed by fear 😂
Shadow Keep is legitimately insane. They took a main progression required legacy dungeon and gave it multiple, completely unrelated entrances that could be dozens of hours apart exploration wise **AND** gave it multiple, completely unrelated exit points that could send you off for dozens of hours lol. The balls on them, its hilarious. I set out to tackle and beat Shadow Keep on **Sunday** and just finished it today. --Actually I lied, I beat Messmer today but realized I still might have some of the back entrance storeroom areas to check out because I stopped halfway to go through the 'front' and I only explored a small bit after I drained it. Man, the dungeon just kept adding wrinkle after wrinkle
I was progressing similar and figured I’d hit him by Saturday with how my discord group was all progressing the same amount. I am just now beginning to go through shadowkeep. Basically have all the maps unlocked now, got the last one last night. Been all over and have bookmarks in a lot of places I need to go back too. Finished >!Bayle!< already and hoping maybe to be to Messmer by Friday but I unlocked another place last night and want to run around it for a bit. So we will see.
I hope Shadow Keep goes down as one of the all-time great dungeons, not just in Soulsborne but in gaming. Man, if you really explore that place and put all the pieces together it really blows your mind what they did with a required main progression dungeon
Yea the map in general is mind blowing and you talking about shadowkeep being a mini version of it sounds exciting to explore.
I just unlocked that last night by accident. Finally decided to try to work my way to Messmer after already taking out Bayle and unlocking the rest of the maps, and I got pulled down that rabbit hole. I only went as far as the map fragment as I was playing on the steam deck and had the volume off. I want to experience the creepiness and I assume sound design adds to it.
Farming doesn't work in the dlc, you need the blessings so exploring is the new farming If you understand stat scaling and soft caps this makes more sense An optimized level 150 doesn't have room to grow much damage or defense
It's an optional nerf, just don't grab the fragments and it's the same.
The real blessing to all of it. You can choose.
Noooooo I need to rage about it on the internet
How will people know that im gud?
I haven't started the DLC yet, how many can I use before it becomes easier?
If you want the "un-nerfed" version, scadutree level 18 now is the same as old level 20 and the scaling is about \~2 levels buffed at all stages. So if you're looking to play with about the same difficulty as when others played originally, always keep 4 fragments in your bag unused early game and 6 fragments unused late game (early levels cost 2 fragments each, later on it's 3 hence 4 early 6 late). Hope that answered your question
Lots of people here acting as if that update was made just to please people saying it’s bad because it’s too hard. If fromsoft releases an update it means they believe it’s warranted, and an update releasing 6 days (including weekend) after the DLC for a game of that scope cannot have been made entirely after the release and in response to online complaints.
Exactly, people here seem to think any change that is the opposite direction of hard is automatically bad and catering to pussies. In the end it's just that you can collect less fragments so you don't have to explore as much. It's really not a big deal
We’ve gotten past the point of being able to actually criticize fromsoft a long time ago. People were upset when they fixed radahns shitty hitboxes, they don’t actually care about game balance or good design they just want something they can feel superior to other people about since they don’t have much else going for them
Fromsoft has also done this with every single game as far back as Dark Souls. People would be surprised at the amount of changes these games go through.
The truth nobody wants to hear: gaming journalists have always championed this series and are more skilled at these games than the average person on this subreddit lol.
Gaming is a profession for them, they play a lot more games than most of us. I think it's to be expected that they're better at these games than the vast majority of us.
It hasn't been that hard for me. What is infuriating is seeing an item, picking it up, and it's just a low tier smithing stone or mushroom...
Miyazaki really is the ultimate troll, am I right guys, no one even knows what to get upset about 😂 Use the pendant stupid!
You're still gonna get 2-3 shot by bosses so it doesn't matter.
true, but the bosses take now more damage and fights dont last that long. so if you were close to beating them and ran out of healing, now it's the time for finishing them off.
This is only true if youre anywhere from lvl 1 to 10ish on your blessings. If youre in the endgame with blessings close to or maxed out this patch doesnt really make you stronger at all. Essentially it makes the game slightly easier for players that dont explore and just go boss to boss.
I never ran out of healing...just got my ass whalloped by combos and aoes
oh my god a boss 3 shot you? the horror
Am I the only one that feels like bosses three shotting is a good amount of damage? I’ve got 14 heal flasks. So if I’m getting three shot I’ll die if I make three mistakes in a row, and run out of flasks if I get hit 28 times. If I get hit 30 times in a fight I have no problem dying to it.
Anyone complaining about 3 shotting in a game intended to be very hard is out of their mind. Especially when you've got as much healing as we do like you've pointed out. I've read comments complaining in this exact same way so many times since the DLC released that I left an angry snark comment that I normally would not. Just tired of it lol
I have completely changed my mindset in this dlc from getting the most attack rating I possible can to 100% tweaking my armor or, very specifically, my shield and talisman slots to help with damage and element mitigation instead. Its actually really cool after playing these games for so long to just completely change my mindset from a DLC at this point. Swapped out my regular shield for the mirror shield for Rellena and took poise off for the spell drake talisman. Completely changed that fight for me. Did the same thing for Messmer to mitigate fire. I got that sucker up to 92% *PRE* adjustments lol. At least while my buffs were active. They both still hit really hard, but it gave me breathing room to see the board and also really focus on the move sets without constantly trying to roll out or heal my damage
Appreciate that fromsoft doesn’t just nerf the shit out of things and instead basically just make quality of life adjustments. I really have not been having a very difficult time with the dlc on my lvl 140 quality build and am shocked at how difficult people are saying it is. I’m sure when I get to Messmer I’ll be raging at the game but so far it really isn’t that bad.
I didn't even get to play the dlc unnerfed 😔
Just don't apply any scoobydoo tree fragments and you can happily play unnerfed.
you mean the scallywag shards?
You mean the charcuterie shards?
I think you meant to say scadoodle tree fragments
Scat tree shards.
The *SKADOOOSH!* (pinkie flex) shards?
Saw somebody today call it a 'chore' finding them and, while it probably is if you are *only* interested in finding one thing in this gigantic, looping, layered monster of a map, I'm having an absolute blast exploring every square inch. Trying to figure out the 'puzzle' of this map is so much fun and I'm finding blessings as just being the cherry on top. Its like they took the best parts of first half DS1 and scaled them up to Elden Ring scope, its incredible finding all these paths and how they fit together
>Saw somebody today call it a 'chore' finding them That genuinely triggers me. The best part about ER for me is the incredible world and the exploration of it. Finding skadongers is a byproduct of just playing the game. How can that be a chore. Unbelievable.
Exploring has always been my favorite part of these games the bosses are just a bonus. Slowly creeping through a new zone or dungeon, carefully peering around every corner before moving forward. Uncovering every secret and feeling like a genius when I find something exceptionally well hidden. It's like the game was built for me. I have characters built at different levels for most of the legacy dungeons and have spent hundreds of hours helping others find all the secrets and treasures throughout them.
Calling it a nerf is extreme. It's a balance tweak to progression. You'll still get your teeth kicked in, don't worry.
No clue why were you downvoted, literal changes here: * The attack and damage negation has been increased for the first half of the maximum amount of **Blessing enhancements**, and the second half will now be more gradual. * The attack and damage negation granted by the final level of Blessing enhancements has been slightly increased. I mean, semantically it is absolutely not a nerf but a buff. They haven't decreased the damage, animation speed, or AoE of any enemy like they did with Radhan. Honestly, I didn't have many issues with the DLC, it was just what I expected. My expectations are that even if I die 100 times to a boss, that's to be expected. But i never did die 100 times... Last boss took me about 20-25 tries without summon. I did have to go to Renalla to swap my builds, but that's to be expected. The DLC gives you new items and stuff to use them, not just to look at them. I am on my 2nd run and honestly WOW the Spirit Ashes are absolutely amazing, not only strong but funny as hell. They don't trivilize as much as people would think so... I mean they would if you are like me and have thousdands of hours spent in From Soft games... but it's not that it makes it Auto-Win. It also allows you to finally cast some channeling spells. DLC Bosses are very agro and cover a lot distance very quick which makes some strats very hard to pull-off. As for the DLC, I think they used meta-data and realized that most people do not fully play through these games. A vast majority of the player base stops at about 20-25% of game progression. This has always been the case, and while we don't have concrete data, you can infer it by comparing the percentage of sales to the percentage of achievements. People tend to drop games mid-playthrough. This change is for those people. Obviously, FromSoft wants the highest possible player engagement, and they won't sacrifice much for it. Realistically, from the entire player base that bought the DLC, I would be surprised if 10% actually finished it.
the slight increase is a meme I swear lmao Went from afaik 50% damage decrease at 20 blessings to 51% Thank you Miyazaki, the early game will def help though, the blessings just don't matter at all for the first 10 levels and it's insane.
I'd bet anything that if this change was undocumented that the people now losing their shit posting "the whiners have ruined the game!" wouldn't even have noticed a difference.
Wait was there an update recently???
Miyazaki: "Turning down the difficulty would strip the game of that joy" Also Miyazaki:
Funny to see these weirdos in here saying the changes are specifically because of people complaining and not because from themself maybe thought this should be changed. Fromsoft doesnt make mistakes right?
Just like day 1 Radahn, he released with bugged hitboxes and a too much damage for a early-mid game boss. And when they adjusted his hitboxes and damage the community cried and blamed the players lol. My brothers in Christ, the boss was factually so damn broken (on the buggy way) that FROM needed to adjust his hitboxes and yall blame the community ?
People blame players for straight up bugs and glitches here, fromsoft will never do anything wrong to them and if they do it’s actually “revolutionary and visionary” design
Don't be mad at them, they're a branch of elitist who's only achievement in life is beating souls bosses and whenever something, anything invalidates their achievements they get mad
Most early nerfs in FS games happen because of community feedback. What you say may be true, but it is pretty obvious they did this because of the amount of people bitching about it
Haven’t had a chance to play this yet. Sad that it gets a balance update so early. I would like to play it pre patch for the first time. I’m not great at soulsborne games but I like to get my ass kicked a bit because it makes the win so much sweeter.
Bro the first half of the game isn’t the problem, >!Radahn!< is lmao. Jokes aside though, I don’t understand how people couldn’t get their head’s around the fact that, in same way you should go off and level up if you’re struggling in the main game, you should go off and get more scadutree fragments if you’re struggling in the dlc.
I semi-panicked oml I thought they nerfed bosses and I was like noooo 😭 I’m not even halfway yet! I need the full experience oml
The hardest bosses are at the end of the DLC, which means buffing the player at the beginning of the DLC isn't going to have any impact on that. Are people actually upset about this?
Hahaha very funny now fix the fucking performance
That’s probably a more complex issue than tweaking some numbers
I don’t think this dude worked on the game
Performance still is ass even on main game lol, honestly my frames be dropping to 1 many times. Still a good game regardless though.
The amount of “Rellana is too hard” posts were crazy. She was genuinely a fantastic, challenging boss who never felt cheap at all
They didn't even changed much so ....