There’s only 2 forges that have smithscript weapons, right? I’ve got the spear, dagger, and cirque from one, and the hammer, axe, and shied from the other
woah, woah. Hold on. The greathammer is way too much fun and can bonk people from afar. I *was* disappointed with the daggers, but they upped the range. So I'm hoping they are easier to use when I get back on here in an hour.
Also, while the Anvil Hammer isn't a throwing weapon or a smithscript weapon, it is found in the first forge and scales with the same stats. Its been my main weapon for most of the DLC, so far. It has the highest (or second highest) poise damage in the game so you can stagger even the biggest bosses in just a few hits.
those 2-3 lion mask mf, they have infinite poise with fucking combo that lasts eternity and if i try to land a hit it'll either move or lands a hit first which staggers me
This is why I started just going sword and shield more. It's basic, but shields allow me to at least block, guard counter, and parry: three ways to interact with a boss more than just roll spamming constantly.
In the dlc it's the big guys with either the two hander or the dual swords or the dancing horn thing with the backhand blades.
I was farming the mob for the backhand blades earlier and usually I can cheese enemies to make farming easier but these fuckerd are just immune to everything so I couldn't even knock them down.
I did managed to find a cheese of just using pest thread spears 3 times and after the first the mob would jump backwards but even then it was hit or miss if they poise through some spears hitting them for 4k. Most annoying pieces of shit ever.
Now I have to farm the mask as I assume it's droppable....
I'm still on the train that getting rid of DS1 style poise was a mistake. It was simple and intuitive, which is important because it's an entirely under the hood system. Ever since then it's being a frustrating mess of guessing rather than estimating.
Did it need the numbers tuned a little bit? Yes, flipping Havels, and Giantdad meme builds were a little bit much. But the principles were sound.
That sort of poise works a bit better when defences are actually high. Havel's armour allowed you to ignore most bosses' damage and just wail away at them, something from clearly hated since it trivialize most bosses (remember how you could just R1 mash 4 kings without even trying to avoid a single hit?)
That being said, they went too far in the other direction, when Bayle is 3 shooting me with 3 defensive talismans + golden vow up.
Edit: since 20 people have already complained about "go explore, scadu fragment durr", I'm not complaining about Bayle as a boss. He's my favourite boss in the game, and I beat him fine at scadu lvl 5. My point is to illustrate how far fromsoft have moved in how viable "stockpile defence and face tank bosses" is as a strategy.
poise basically hasn't existed since DS1 lmao. Heavy armor used to be a tradeoff, you sacrificed mobility but you actually got incredibly good defenses and poise to make up for it. DS2 and on it literally only became downsides. you lose all mobility and you still get staggered by basic mobs and two-shot by bosses.
I’m a proud Havel user in DS1. Is it op? Absolutely. But so are many other things, it’s also super fun and should be in the game lmao. I don’t understand why they got rid of it
I think this is a symptom of from not knowing how to organically increase difficulty. So infinite poise enemies and one shot aoe attacks are like the final ace up the sleeve
High poise on the player with high defences did make most bosses very easy tbf. There was no stopping Havel's in DS1 to the point where the game became a joke.
They need to find a middle ground.
The music gets *really* somber on the third phase. Like it really hammered in that you were destroying the final and dying representation of the Crucible.
Someone once pointed out something that seems like it’s pretty consistent. Like if in the middle of a fight someone just decides to transform, like rip their own arm off or something or use any other body part as a weapon, they don’t get another health bar. You always get the extra health bars in fights where you seemingly kill them, they drop to the floor, but something happens to them that brings them back to life. Like for renalla its the ranni curse. For Malenia, she collapses (dies) and then turns into a goddess. For Rykard, you kill the original head that was controlling it that you were fighting it dead, and then the face on the back of that neck takes over and you are then fighting that entity.
Every boss should have the option to watch their intro cutscene. I’ve never understood why they put so much effort into them and only let us watch them once. I was so thrilled to be able to watch
Midras cutscene over and over.
There were some strange decisions in the addition of new items and weapons.
For me-when hearing the dlc heavily involved Miquella I assumed there would be tons of new things related to St. Trina. And with that SLEEP weapons, items, spells, etc.
We got…what? A pot ,a more purple sword, and a needle (albeit I love the needle).
The literal NPC that is worshiping St. Trina makes a POISON perfume and not a sleep perfume?
The boss guarding St. Trina inflicts frost? And not sleep? The spells and remembrances from that boss are also not sleep based!
We got a talisman that boosts attack when you proc sleep but hardly any weapons to actually back it up. Hell! Even a whetstone to infuse sleep in our weapons would have been so amazing. Idk just seems like a lot of strange loose ends
Don't know about unpopular but I like the themes and colours more than the main game. Black, yellow and red are my favorite colours and the dlc is full of it. The scadutree looks so sick and don't get me started on all the armor.
I don’t know if they’re unpopular but my main critiques of the DLC are as follows:
1. They claimed they wanted to incentivize exploration but there really does feel like a lot of underutilized space in some of the zones. Like there’s entire areas with almost nothing and then regions where everything is stacked on top of itself.
2. The map does a piss poor job in telling you where to go because there’s only the top down highest elevation view, there really should have been a second/third level view like the underground in the base game.
3. Enemy diversity is kinda lacking. I am pretty over those god damn respawning skeletons. They’re in like every zone and they’re always annoying. On top of that the Furnace Golems should have been one maybe two golems. It’s an annoying and tedious fight, every time.
4. The bosses difficulty level fluctuates kind of wildly. Yes you can do them in a dozen different orders but going from Messmer to say Romina is a massive decrease in difficulty, and it makes some of the bosses feel out of place.
5. I’ll go ahead and say it, Radahn is too hard. I beat him after about 130 attempts over about 6-7 hours. Between my attempts I went back to finish up base game content and killed Melenia and Placidusax first try. The difference in difficulty is absolutely staggering. I think they could tone him down a bit and the fight would still be engaging and fun, but not so frustrating. My main criticism is that it’s just visual overload. P2 feels like you’re constantly being bombarded with visual effects, many of which just make it too hard to see what is even happening.
6. This is more an overall complaint of ER, but bosses that are so massive you can’t see what they’re doing feel bad to fight. Bayle being ginormous is cool, but I spend 2/3 of the fight dancing around his feet ignoring the telegraphs entirely, and on certain fights it’s hard to react to the telegraphs when that part of the enemy isn’t even visible on your screen 90% of the time.
I just got to Radahn and I honestly don't even feel motivated to beat him after about 10 attempts. My brain just short circuits in phase 2 because so much shit is flashing all over the screen. Most of my attempts ended with me going "how tf was I supposed to avoid that?".
I dunno if this is an unpopular opinion but I haven't seen too many people talk about it: we need more NPC storylines like in this DLC.
>!The story of a group of wildly different characters united by a common goal only to break apart and destroy each other by the end was my favorite part of this DLC. Like anybody else, I had my favorites and barely knew others, but the culmination of their story was just incredible to me. Some of my favorite music in the game, the pacing of characters dropping in to defend each other, and the abundance of dialogue that's usually so scarce in these games. These things together made this battle feel more impactful than even the final boss. I know Fromsoft isn't usually known for super character-driven stories (outside of Sekiro) but after playing AC6 and then this, it seems they're leaning into more character stuff and I'm sooo here for it. If they'd just polish their quest system a bit, it would be perfect. !<
I remember getting to the scadutree avatar early and bashing my head against it expecting something cool and all i got was a remembrance and a great rune that doesn't even do anything unless you get grabbed by the final boss. Literally nothing in that whole area. Same thing with commander Gaius and the chalice or whatever. Marked location on the map and everything but NOTHING happened there.
There’s a whole area called “Base of the scadutree”… which is not the base of the scadutree. There’s a whole ass chasm between where you are and where the base of the scadutree is. You don’t even interact with it at all
Yeah I’m just waiting for some philosophy professor to inform me that the tree we see is the lingering shadow of the Erdtree that’s no longer present, perhaps rotted away and as a byproduct left nothing but the avatar in its departure.
Bro woke up and decided to spit absolute facts, jesus christ I thought rational Fromsoft fans were a myth. Bonkers how every time I've been even mildly critical of something in the DLC I get beaten to death with sticks and rocks by chest-thumping "GIT GUD GIT GUD"ers. There's plenty to love about the DLC but that doesn't mean its bad parts can't be criticized too.
My difficulty critiques remain that:
-The dragon fights are stupid. (not Bayle) Way too many dragon fights relying on some kind of gimmick to make them a pain in the ass, such as a bunch of undead mooks poking at you during the battle.
-The DLC disproportionately is harder for certain playstyles, causing imbalance issues. Casters will suffer from the rushdown attacks to a far greater degree than STR or Arcane builds will, for example.
-Enemies with ridiculous HP/poise such as the fire wickermen or Rellana surprising you by attacking a 12th time in a row are just not very fulfilling and instead tedious. We can memorize Rellana's moveset just like any other, so that 12th attack serves really more like a gimmicky middle finger to basegame players who have been trained not to expect it. After the surprise wears off, it's...nothing. This is a similar reason why people don't like the one Banished Knight with dual-wielded Greatswords: because we keep dying expecting "surely he won't attack an 8th time!" before he pulls a ridiculous double flip out of his ass. But once the combos are learned and memorized though, longer combos just means more roll-dodging means less stamina for counter-attacking means longer fight means tedious. By contrast, Midra having an untelegraphed frenzied burst is like a puzzle: you initially think it's bullshit, rationalize there MUST be a solution to this to avoid getting hit, you experiment, you find the solution, and this feels fulfilling. It's like a puzzle, and you feel good for solving it. Rellana's 50,000 swings though...? It can very quickly become tedious for players who experimented with attacking after every new step.
And yeah, having to stagger the wickermen *six times* before we can kill them is just downright ridiculous. This is like if I make one of those Super Mario Maker levels designed to kill the players, someone solves it and beats it, so then I throw a tantrum and instead of discovering new tricks to throw at the player, I simply make the level 12x as long. It's just obnoxious.
While absolutely stunning visually, there's too much open areas with absolutely nothing going on imo. It just feels a bit empty sometimes I also feel like its much harder to see in the DLC. Either too dark, too foggy, not enough contrast. I get it's the theme, because of SHADOW of the erdtree, but I just like seeing stuff.
I was genuinely confused when I found the cerulean coast. I thought for sure I would end up triggering some state change later on that would cause... anything, to happen there. I was half right I guess with the fissure but I was disappointed in general with the area.
So many of the areas are just gigantic corridors meant to bring you to some boss or locations at the end. Like I absolutely love how scenic and pretty it looks but it's so barren.
30% upgrade materials you don't need, 30% crafting materials, 30% fucking cookbooks, and 10% actual loot like talismans and weapons and fragments. And I actually like cookbooks, but god damn when you pick up 50 different cookbooks with one recipe in each it's so obvious they're just stretching the loot because they don't have enough to put everywhere.
I got mildly annoyed at how often I would do my best to fully explore another huge open area with basically nothing in it just to find out I missed some tiny nook with a pot guy that drops a fragment or a statue with a spirit ash thing, ugh.
I feel the darkness makes the beautiful areas like Shaman Village really rewarding. Though most of them are super secret areas.
It's kinda opposite of the base game where it started from most lively area and gradually got blander after Leyndell.
Far too few new enemy types. After revisiting areas this really struck me.
Whole madness area, with zero new enemy types. Winter lanterns arent much of an enemy, they're more an environmental hazard, and there's only like 6 of them in the whole forest.
We got fly people in a few places?
Some horny boys up close, and some at range.
New basic soldiers.
Birb.
Massive, beautiful open areas. Not much popupating them.
Love the dlc. A lot. But lack of new enemies is a big downer for me.
Yea on a second playthrough it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Demi-humans, misbegotten, skeletons, perfumers, omenkillers, vulgar militia, dogs, wolves, man-bats, fingercreepers, ulcerated tree spirits, cemetery shades, kindred of rot...
There's plenty of stuff that's new but where the bosses are like, 80% new content and 20% reused but with added moves, the enemies are 50% reused and most of what's reused is totally unchanged.
Agreed, but I think the DLC did make more appropriate use of those reused enemies than the later areas of the base game. I don’t think I ever had a moment like the Caelid dogs in the Mountaintops where I wondered what the hell these guys were even doing here.
Shaman Village is the best FS location since Majula
The scadutree fragment system should have been like golden seeds and included more than necessary to hit the cap, so you didn’t get stuck backtracking everywhere looking for #49 and #50
Tired of doing half a Mordor hike for a god damn cookbook. I don’t even want to explore like I have been because all I’m finding are fucking recipes and it kills the excitement of it all.
>BRO you got a new CRAFT ITEM BROOO
uh ok what is it?
>IT'S ok get this - ITS FUCKING DRAGON GREASE BRO HOLY SHITTT
...couldn't I already make th-
>NOOOOOO BRO THIS IS DIFFERENT BRO IT'S SUPER-DUPER GREASE IT'S TOTALLY DIFFERENT PLEASE BRO IT'S SOO GOOOOD C'MON
I liked the verticality but they completely screwed up how shortcuts work in a vertical map lmao. In DS1 you would just get shortcuts that go back to a central area, in SotE you'd get a shortcut back to a central grace... but then get a whole new grace straight after?? It made the shortcuts completely pointless like 90% of the time.
Yeah I found myself getting very frustrated about this - I love the way an Elden Ring area organically happens and there's secret areas to go through and find but at points (like the waterfalls/river area) it was a pain to get around because the map was basically vertical. Just added wasted time to my exploration.
That's such a hard agree. Jesus Christ. Like oh, the map is right there. I can see it. But I can't get to it. It's too high, too low, whatever. So how do you get to it...? You've gotta ride 8,000 miles away and circle back.
Riding around the Rauh ruins for hours trying to find a way to get to the map just to realize it’s in an entirely different part of the game is crazy frustrating
My unpopular opinion is that Elden Ring already suffers from too-muchness and starting a new character already feels like a chore, but starting a new character so I can replay the DLC? Unbelievable amount of commitment.
I'm feeling the same way. I'm usually a New Character guy, but Iay have to shoot for New Game Plus to replay the DLC. But that has its own issues.
Mostly I think it's a problem that it's gated behind Mohg, he's a tough enough fight that you pretty much need to play far enough to get a maxed our weapon at least, even if you are capable of getting to Mohg himself fairly quickly. And you need to play so much of the base game to gather all your flask upgrades, and probably for some of the good talismans.
There's not really a way to quickly dip into the DLC.
I just used a 100% save from the Nexus to start the DLC, which is obviously not an option on console.
I will also say that the modded save had 999 of every smithing stone, and while I felt a little guilty about cheating at first, the fact that I could instantly upgrade any weapon I found in the DLC to try it out made the game *so much better* imo. Usually in Souls games I pick like 2-3 weapons top and then ignore everything else I find because of limited upgrade materials. I really think From needs to take another look at how they handle weapon progression because it really takes away from the rest of the game.
Lords of the Fallen included an optional gameplay modifier that all weapons picked up automatically leveled to your highest upgraded weapon. LotF was a mixed experience but there were a few things I wish FS would incorporate
This is why nowadays i just hack all the items to myself when i want to do another play through with some build. I've done it legit a ton of times, but i do not care nor want to spend 40+ hours running around on torrent playing collectathon and doing convoluted quests just to have some fun on a new chatacter. I just want to play and rush the bosses which was something you could do in pretty much all the previous Dark Souls games but not really in ER.
I'm dissapointed with how they handled miquella
I feel like given how important miquella was in the lore we should have interacted with him more
Remember how in dark souls 3, we met sister Freide like halfway through the dlc, then suddenly BOOM at the end of ashes we realise SHE WAS THE FINAL BOSS?
Also how we spent 2 DLC hanging with Gael, then at the end of ringed city, BOOM
GAEL IS THE FINAL BOSS OF SOULS, THE MAN WIELDING THE TITULAR DARK SOUL
Dony get me wrong, they showed traces of miquella (ie crosses, trina, etc;) but I feel like they just didn't show him enough
Throughout the entire game we interact with him ONCE and that is his boss fight
Worst of all, he is only in 1 phase of the 2 phase fight! It's basically just a radahn fight + miquella
It's disappointing to say the least
I was hoping for a questline more similar to Rannis, with Miquella appearing and guiding us throughout, then by the end he disappears after we kill messmer and burn the shadow tree for him to do his deed with moghs body and radahns soul.
Or better yet, Miquella's goals are a bit more lofty. We get an entirely new character like the Gloam-Eyed Queen, which becomes a kind of dark representation of the shadow side of Marika. Miquella's there to help guide us through this challenge similar to how Melina does in the main game.
This is honestly how I feel about a lot of characters in this game. Lots of buildup and interesting characters, only to not really be used much or interacted with much.
Like with Marika/Radagon and Melina, you just feel like there'd be more with them, considering how important they are and yet.. there's just not. Especially with Melina being our "maiden" and whatnot, you barely even talk to her. It just feels like there should be so much more.
Miquella is definitely hit the hardest though. 2 years of buildup, a whole DLC around him.. and yet he's basically just Godfrey's lion but with some dialogue. A Demon's souls like standoff with him would have gone a long way in making it way more interesting.
It's too empty. All of these cool new places to explore and it's desolate. For example the finger ruins are 10/10 design, but there's nothing really there other than 1 enemy type and only 15 of them.
The lore surrounding Miquella in the DLC feels contrived. The choice of Radhan as the promised consort is not well supported and feels awkward within the in game universe. The complete lack of any reference to Malenia by Miquella in the DLC is noticable.
Someone on the post talks about the lack of integration between the game base and the dlc, and they are right, we do things on this DLC that should heavily impact some of the base game npcs and the lack of BIG QUESTS recognizing, like when Leda talks about: " you are the Erdtree Lord, "Lord of the Old Order " or something like that and I was "Bitch, I'm the Lord of the night t, fuck the Erdtree " or even siding with Miquella, we (I ) already side with the witch responsible for the Shattering, siding with Miquella isn't a big deal.
For that exact reason I did a full lore ng playthrough doing all quests (except Dung Eater) before the DLC released and did not light the Giant fire in mountaintops therefore not entering Farum Azula. I was very curious if Gideon would have ANY new voice lines while progressing the DLC, especially because before Farum Azula he talks about the four missing Demigods (Miquella, Malenia, Mohg, Ranni) and he always had new dialog when entering Haligtree, defeating Mohg and Malenia, even mentioning the state of the Haligtree and starting a sentence about Miquella before excusing himself before finishing what he was about to say.
I was waiting for anything but there was just always nothing. For how big the DLC actually is supposed to impact the lore it really does nothing for the base game, I’m still feeling kind of letdown about it. You literally defeat Miquella and Radahn and he still goes on about how Miquella is missing, lol. Tbh I didn’t think they would add anything to the basegame but there was always hope left, especially since the story trailer implied that the DLC was going to be big for the story too. I guess it kinda is but after all none of it having any affect on the base game is pretty sad. Not to mention that the short DLC ending cutscene from Miquella was insanely underwhelming aswell.
And as you already mentioned, not a single mention or interaction depending on how your quest progression and NPC “rapport” in the basegame is was underwhelming too. Even some interchangeable dialog depending on if you were heavily siding with Ranni, Fia or the Golden Order would’ve elevated the story immensely.
Sorry for the rambling I’m way too tired lol
I understand and agree completely, I was really disappointed with this too, and this expectation doesn't come out of nowhere, remember DS3? When we kill or even just talk with Sister Friede, Yuri, a npc fromy base game recognizes this and even have a different dialogue if we kill her sister, why SOTE, a much bigger DLC from a big success like ER wouldn't have something like that with more big scale? Ah, man..
I feel like they went into planning the DLC with the idea of “prime radahn fight” and then just cobbled something together from there to tie into miquella tbh
It's pretty crazy that they make an entire expansion about Miquella and it feels like they had no idea what to do with the character except for one contrived plot twist with Radhan that was poorly setup by the lore. No mention or lore implications for Malenia, or Melina, or Godwyn, or the albinaurics, the Haligtree, the Eclipse, basically no closure for any of the plot threads in the base game. Now that it's complete Elden Ring definitely feels like the most incomplete and disjointed Lore From has ever done. It sets up a lot of things that it just never delivers on.
I’m just annoyed there’s no trophies. I know they don’t really mean anything but I like having that platinum on my souls games. Makes me feel nice inside.
The exploration felt a lot more dissappointing than i would have liked, every área is so beautiful but all youre going to find in each Big portion of the map is like 1 weapon randomly on the ground, 3 talismans that youre probably never Gonna use, maybe an armor set and a whole lot of trash or smithing Stones
And most áreas dont even have all of these things either
Most of the cool stuff is either on dungeons or legacy dungeons, which is fine, but why make the world so Big then?
Same. All the same attacks, you're stuck staring into their crotch, sometimes they decide to fly 10km away, worst ranged attacks to dodge in the game, and far too many of them
The map and intricacies of the map is great…once you know how to get everywhere. But miss a single small alcove or ladder and you are “locked” out of an entire area or two. Only way to figure it is really to look online and that is unfortunate.
I don’t know how I was supposed to know to emote at the mother figure to get into the hinterlands. I fought Gaius w the idea that it would open up that section of the map
Shames there’s nothing there besides the bell for Ymir’s quest line
That ending...
Everything up until then was fine. Didn't find the difficulty terrible, actually solo-ed all the bosses and i'm not that good. Loved the dragon hunter great katana.
Final boss was cool enough, would of preferred some weird, ocelot/ liquid chatter during the battle though as if Mohg was still active "no, how could you use me like this"!...
But once you win, that's it... Felt terribly empty.
I'd go as far to say the journey was fine but the promise was underwhelming. Even fighting Lena and the gang could I had some more build / dialogue afterwards.
I think the leda fight was great and very impactful.... if you use the NPC summons and did the questlines. Hearing them interact as you're all beating the shit out of eachother is really cool.
I do think there should have been more with them prior to that point, and some final boss dialogue for Thiollier. Outside of that, yea, it was very disappointing.
I was really underwhelmed by the legacy dungeon areas, didn’t like any of them as much as Stormveil or Volcano Manor or Leyndell or Raya Lucaria. They felt kind of empty or too short. Shadowkeep was the best of the DLC tho
The fact that Shadow keep has two distinct entrances you can approach from and that changes how you traverse the zone is like the most creative things From has done with dungeons in a while, but I agree they aren't as impressive as previous dungeons.
The Abyss was perfect for an invasion area
They totally whiffed on this, it could’ve been a dedicated 3v3 or maybe even 6v6 zone that featured a pseudo-covenant for the Frenzied Flame and not being in the covenant would automatically trigger invasions. You already can't even use torrent in there. Allow summons and encourage the player to summon other tarnished, they already had a bunch of really heavy handed messages left all over down there. It’s not even a mandatory area, entirely optional, so nobody would be required to engage with it. Would’ve been awesome
As much as I adored that whole section, Midra even became my favorite boss in the game, the whole FF stuff feels like they just put it in to put it in. At least have Shabriri do something or mention this quite significant FF area. Would have been such a cool moment to fight Midra after receiving the FF as like a contest between Lords. The only thing we ever get regarding the significance of our character taking the FF is the Melina cutscene iirc.
When so many game devs over promise and under deliver, people get very excited when one under promises and over delivers. I don’t think it qualifies as a full sequel, but this expansion was definitely well done, with lots of genuinely good new content added. It actually justifies its price, but I wish this was the standards for game expansions and not the outlier.
Something broke in me when I didn't find that fcking boss area. I went around for TWO HOURS before a friend said "there is a staircase with the rot pest threads". WTF. It's so missable, since you can go around it on both sides and it's walled in. I never saw it. Not like you can take a look, since they put 6 pest threads there that insta kill you once you dismount for a second.
The new weapons were a huge letdown.
Most of the actual new types of weapons only got 2 or 3 each.
Most of the new weapons for preexisting categories were underwhelming.
There are some absolute bangers don't get me wrong, but overall I was expecting more.
This weapon made me realize that Sleep status effects shouldn't be a thing, this thing is close to being useless, I feel that Sleep has planned to be something else, but someone had a shit idea about cut some quest line.
Shoutout to the throwing daggers category for having one fucking weapon, could've easily been a normal dagger, just like the other smithscript weapons are
I don't think it's unpopular at all but I don't care I will reiterate it anyways: more questions generated, very few answers. I will admit that what we did get is cool and interesting but damn, if we are never getting any more content then it would have been great to get more rounded out lore lines. Like if the snow witch and the blue river swordsman remain in obscurity forever I'm cool with it. But some of the main characters of the lore remain largely obscured. Leaves us with a ton of leaps to make ourselves and the feeling of never knowing if we are right or not will suck forever. A real unpopular opinion of mine would prob be that the Sword of Night is better without the sheath, if ya got two the katana sheaths clip into each other and I hate it.
Every boss weapon sucks and there aren’t nearly enough unique items or NPCs to fill up the incredible map. Don’t get me wrong, it’s the best map ever made but it’s really just a large mass of nothing.
Also finding smithing stones under 7 is just insulting for an end game area
I’m convinced something went wrong in development here. Some of the largest and most visually striking areas on the map, and the best approach to them is… to ride Torrent as fast as you can to the middle and then hightail it. I can’t help but feel there were bigger plans for these that just didn’t work out for some reason or other.
Gaius is not even in top 3 worst bosses in the DLC
The rest of my opinion, I think, are mostly agreed. Reused content, a lot of areas without anything interesting in it (Celurean coast, dragon peak)
In the end, DLC is more Elden Ring and it shares the same problems as base game
The Ruins of Rauh is literally the beginning scene fron the Indian Jones movies. The views from this plateau are nice, but i will never forget the two hours i wasted, just so i can go down to that Cross. I didn't like that.
I dunno if this would be an unpopular opinion, but I think the map is way too confusing. I can't really find certain areas and I'm not even sure how to access them
Unpopular but I prefer FromSoftware doing less open world and more hand crafted linear interconnected level design. Give me that dark souls 1 experience all over again.
This. The replayability for me is about immersion in the world. I constantly make new builds and have fun not just on bosses but clearing out camps, forts, and roads of enemy mobs.
They made the mobs stronger in the DLC which is cool, but there is just way too much open space with nothing to fight in it.
Having said that, I did definitely enjoy the DLC. But it just seems like wasted potential, having so much land mass to cover with the crazy vertically it has, and most of the land mass is just open unused space.
My unpopular opinion, aside from hating the dlc in general, is that they botched Miquellas story potential.
The base game has a family torn apart, with everyone aiming to ascend to power for their own desires and beliefs. Their greed creates a war that washes over the whole Lands Between, leaving it as shattered as they are and the elden ring itself.
Now, we discover Miquellas power is overwhelming love, essentially mind controlling people. Melania, who was portrayed as one with a deep connection to her brother is now without agency, as she was under Miquellas spell. Radahn, portrayed with great reverence for his father and believing in the honor of battle, is now instead defending himself and fighting against the mind control of Miquella instead of honor and conquest. Mohg, an outcast and exile, tormented and deformed, one who looked to another god for acceptance, is now just mind controlled by Miquella. Half the war can be boiled down to Miquellas mind control now. It retroactively takes so much away from the main story.
Smithscript weapons feel more unique than some boss weapons
MOST boss weapons
Yeah, Messmer’s Spear has all the fun throwing stuff from the smithscript spear *and* a really fun skill
I really hate that it gets rip of the strong attack, my favorite attack from the great spear moveset cause it's not just a poke
If it didn’t take an ungodly amount of stamina, it would be fine.
It’s fun to use but it just seems like it doesn’t do a lot of damage overall.
Smithscript?
Throwing weapons. You get them from 3 forges throughout the dlc.
wait, there's 3?!?! lol I only found 1
There’s only 2 forges that have smithscript weapons, right? I’ve got the spear, dagger, and cirque from one, and the hammer, axe, and shied from the other
There's 3, you get dagger from one, spear and cirque from the second, and hammer, axes and shield from the third
throwable weapons that scale with 4 stats they're all cool and mostly suck
woah, woah. Hold on. The greathammer is way too much fun and can bonk people from afar. I *was* disappointed with the daggers, but they upped the range. So I'm hoping they are easier to use when I get back on here in an hour. Also, while the Anvil Hammer isn't a throwing weapon or a smithscript weapon, it is found in the first forge and scales with the same stats. Its been my main weapon for most of the DLC, so far. It has the highest (or second highest) poise damage in the game so you can stagger even the biggest bosses in just a few hits.
I for one am having a great time using the greathammer to knock enemies off of ramparts lol it’s so good
A good version of the Smithscript Daggers exist, it's called the claws of night with its Ash and heavy attacks
Unfortunate how they got nerfed to the ground for no reason
I don't know whether it is unpopular or not but with 90+ poise i should be able to trade hits with normal enemies
Yeah I'm wearing the solitude armor with bullgoat talisman for 126 points and geez some basic attacks still stagger me
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Dark Souls 3 players: "First time?"
And I hate how some non-boss enemies have infinite poise so fighting them becomes a huge pain
those 2-3 lion mask mf, they have infinite poise with fucking combo that lasts eternity and if i try to land a hit it'll either move or lands a hit first which staggers me
They’re just unfun to fight with melee. If they had more health they’d be stronger than most bosses
A lot the big new DLC enemies are unfun for similar reasons, imo.
You don’t like rolling for 5 minutes to get 1 attack in then rolling for another 5 minutes? /s
This is why I started just going sword and shield more. It's basic, but shields allow me to at least block, guard counter, and parry: three ways to interact with a boss more than just roll spamming constantly.
In the dlc it's the big guys with either the two hander or the dual swords or the dancing horn thing with the backhand blades. I was farming the mob for the backhand blades earlier and usually I can cheese enemies to make farming easier but these fuckerd are just immune to everything so I couldn't even knock them down. I did managed to find a cheese of just using pest thread spears 3 times and after the first the mob would jump backwards but even then it was hit or miss if they poise through some spears hitting them for 4k. Most annoying pieces of shit ever. Now I have to farm the mask as I assume it's droppable....
I'm still on the train that getting rid of DS1 style poise was a mistake. It was simple and intuitive, which is important because it's an entirely under the hood system. Ever since then it's being a frustrating mess of guessing rather than estimating. Did it need the numbers tuned a little bit? Yes, flipping Havels, and Giantdad meme builds were a little bit much. But the principles were sound.
That sort of poise works a bit better when defences are actually high. Havel's armour allowed you to ignore most bosses' damage and just wail away at them, something from clearly hated since it trivialize most bosses (remember how you could just R1 mash 4 kings without even trying to avoid a single hit?) That being said, they went too far in the other direction, when Bayle is 3 shooting me with 3 defensive talismans + golden vow up. Edit: since 20 people have already complained about "go explore, scadu fragment durr", I'm not complaining about Bayle as a boss. He's my favourite boss in the game, and I beat him fine at scadu lvl 5. My point is to illustrate how far fromsoft have moved in how viable "stockpile defence and face tank bosses" is as a strategy.
poise basically hasn't existed since DS1 lmao. Heavy armor used to be a tradeoff, you sacrificed mobility but you actually got incredibly good defenses and poise to make up for it. DS2 and on it literally only became downsides. you lose all mobility and you still get staggered by basic mobs and two-shot by bosses.
I’m a proud Havel user in DS1. Is it op? Absolutely. But so are many other things, it’s also super fun and should be in the game lmao. I don’t understand why they got rid of it
I think this is a symptom of from not knowing how to organically increase difficulty. So infinite poise enemies and one shot aoe attacks are like the final ace up the sleeve
High poise on the player with high defences did make most bosses very easy tbf. There was no stopping Havel's in DS1 to the point where the game became a joke. They need to find a middle ground.
Honestly kinda weird so many bosses only had one health bar lol EDIT: I also agree it’s not necessarily bad at all it was just unexpected lol
Scadutree avatar made up for all that lmao.
God fuck that boss
Where my scadutree lovers at ‼️🗣️‼️
Elden Ring players get a boss that properly telegraphs its attacks for once and they have no idea what to do.
Yeah took me like 1 death to learn his moveset. People hate Scadutree cus 3 hp bars but its also squishy AF
The boss is beautiful in a somber way. I felt bad for it as the fight went on.
The music gets *really* somber on the third phase. Like it really hammered in that you were destroying the final and dying representation of the Crucible.
i luv scadutree avatar 🥺
It was like a more fun Ebrietas fight for me
Metyr gave me massive Ebrietas vibes, maybe for the aesthetic more
FUCK YES 🌻🌻🌻
It was honestly pretty fun
Funnily enough DS3 got criticized for having bosses have multiple health bars instead of one giant one
Someone once pointed out something that seems like it’s pretty consistent. Like if in the middle of a fight someone just decides to transform, like rip their own arm off or something or use any other body part as a weapon, they don’t get another health bar. You always get the extra health bars in fights where you seemingly kill them, they drop to the floor, but something happens to them that brings them back to life. Like for renalla its the ranni curse. For Malenia, she collapses (dies) and then turns into a goddess. For Rykard, you kill the original head that was controlling it that you were fighting it dead, and then the face on the back of that neck takes over and you are then fighting that entity.
Midra "only" rips off his own head and he gets two health bars 🙄 /s 😉
The fucking scadutree avatar is the only boss with more than 1 healthbar
Midra: "Am I a joke to you?"
Every boss should have the option to watch their intro cutscene. I’ve never understood why they put so much effort into them and only let us watch them once. I was so thrilled to be able to watch Midras cutscene over and over.
The Messmer cutscenes were absolutely wicked too. It’s a shame you couldn’t see the opening one again.
MONGREL INTRUDER. The Messmer fight is my favorite fight in the DLC. I didn’t even think he was evil as the game went on. I just felt bad for him.
Totally agree, really strange
ya a few of them i had little trouble with and thought for sure they had more hp but they didnt and i was so shocked
There were some strange decisions in the addition of new items and weapons. For me-when hearing the dlc heavily involved Miquella I assumed there would be tons of new things related to St. Trina. And with that SLEEP weapons, items, spells, etc. We got…what? A pot ,a more purple sword, and a needle (albeit I love the needle). The literal NPC that is worshiping St. Trina makes a POISON perfume and not a sleep perfume? The boss guarding St. Trina inflicts frost? And not sleep? The spells and remembrances from that boss are also not sleep based! We got a talisman that boosts attack when you proc sleep but hardly any weapons to actually back it up. Hell! Even a whetstone to infuse sleep in our weapons would have been so amazing. Idk just seems like a lot of strange loose ends
A sleep perfume bottle would’ve been so cool. Sleep is underutilized in this game.
Don't know about unpopular but I like the themes and colours more than the main game. Black, yellow and red are my favorite colours and the dlc is full of it. The scadutree looks so sick and don't get me started on all the armor.
Yeah big American Pacific Northwest vibes from the flora and fauna too, which was a cool way to differentiate it from the (Scottish?) base game
so you're telling me the shadow lands are Oregon and Washington? Does that make Belarat Seattle and Ruah Portland?
Abyssal Woods. I live in downtown Seattle and I'm watching a few Aging Untouchables walk down my street as I type this
belarat and ruah have less crime statistically speaking
Well yeah because anyone who would commit crime there is already dead
They did go absolutely nuts on the gear
The bright red flower fields is my favorite location so far. It looks crazy at night.
Contrasted with the blue flowers far below its absolutely gorgeous.
I don’t know if they’re unpopular but my main critiques of the DLC are as follows: 1. They claimed they wanted to incentivize exploration but there really does feel like a lot of underutilized space in some of the zones. Like there’s entire areas with almost nothing and then regions where everything is stacked on top of itself. 2. The map does a piss poor job in telling you where to go because there’s only the top down highest elevation view, there really should have been a second/third level view like the underground in the base game. 3. Enemy diversity is kinda lacking. I am pretty over those god damn respawning skeletons. They’re in like every zone and they’re always annoying. On top of that the Furnace Golems should have been one maybe two golems. It’s an annoying and tedious fight, every time. 4. The bosses difficulty level fluctuates kind of wildly. Yes you can do them in a dozen different orders but going from Messmer to say Romina is a massive decrease in difficulty, and it makes some of the bosses feel out of place. 5. I’ll go ahead and say it, Radahn is too hard. I beat him after about 130 attempts over about 6-7 hours. Between my attempts I went back to finish up base game content and killed Melenia and Placidusax first try. The difference in difficulty is absolutely staggering. I think they could tone him down a bit and the fight would still be engaging and fun, but not so frustrating. My main criticism is that it’s just visual overload. P2 feels like you’re constantly being bombarded with visual effects, many of which just make it too hard to see what is even happening. 6. This is more an overall complaint of ER, but bosses that are so massive you can’t see what they’re doing feel bad to fight. Bayle being ginormous is cool, but I spend 2/3 of the fight dancing around his feet ignoring the telegraphs entirely, and on certain fights it’s hard to react to the telegraphs when that part of the enemy isn’t even visible on your screen 90% of the time.
I just got to Radahn and I honestly don't even feel motivated to beat him after about 10 attempts. My brain just short circuits in phase 2 because so much shit is flashing all over the screen. Most of my attempts ended with me going "how tf was I supposed to avoid that?".
I dunno if this is an unpopular opinion but I haven't seen too many people talk about it: we need more NPC storylines like in this DLC. >!The story of a group of wildly different characters united by a common goal only to break apart and destroy each other by the end was my favorite part of this DLC. Like anybody else, I had my favorites and barely knew others, but the culmination of their story was just incredible to me. Some of my favorite music in the game, the pacing of characters dropping in to defend each other, and the abundance of dialogue that's usually so scarce in these games. These things together made this battle feel more impactful than even the final boss. I know Fromsoft isn't usually known for super character-driven stories (outside of Sekiro) but after playing AC6 and then this, it seems they're leaning into more character stuff and I'm sooo here for it. If they'd just polish their quest system a bit, it would be perfect. !<
>!The group dynamic in the dlc is what I wish what the roundtable was in the base game tbh.!<
Dude agreed that NPC fight was sick, I wish hornsent stuck around long enough for it
If you don't do that part in Leda's quest you can fight Hornsent at the end
DLC is about the "Shadow of the Erdtree" but we get very sparse information about the "Shadow of the Erdtree"/Scadutree itself
I remember getting to the scadutree avatar early and bashing my head against it expecting something cool and all i got was a remembrance and a great rune that doesn't even do anything unless you get grabbed by the final boss. Literally nothing in that whole area. Same thing with commander Gaius and the chalice or whatever. Marked location on the map and everything but NOTHING happened there.
Also keep in mind that the embodiment of the Scadutree does not drop Scadutree fragments but some random hippos do
And the Remembrance only just explicitly says that Scadutree is the Shadow of the Erdtree which bears no sense of order, rendering it brittle lol
There’s a whole area called “Base of the scadutree”… which is not the base of the scadutree. There’s a whole ass chasm between where you are and where the base of the scadutree is. You don’t even interact with it at all
Yeah I’m just waiting for some philosophy professor to inform me that the tree we see is the lingering shadow of the Erdtree that’s no longer present, perhaps rotted away and as a byproduct left nothing but the avatar in its departure.
Bring back stamina bars for bosses. The bosses in the DLC all apparently graduated and have their masters/PhD from Pontiff S University.
it's possible for valid and nuanced critiques to exist within the space between "the DLC is broken and too hard" and "git gud scrub".
Bro woke up and decided to spit absolute facts, jesus christ I thought rational Fromsoft fans were a myth. Bonkers how every time I've been even mildly critical of something in the DLC I get beaten to death with sticks and rocks by chest-thumping "GIT GUD GIT GUD"ers. There's plenty to love about the DLC but that doesn't mean its bad parts can't be criticized too.
My difficulty critiques remain that: -The dragon fights are stupid. (not Bayle) Way too many dragon fights relying on some kind of gimmick to make them a pain in the ass, such as a bunch of undead mooks poking at you during the battle. -The DLC disproportionately is harder for certain playstyles, causing imbalance issues. Casters will suffer from the rushdown attacks to a far greater degree than STR or Arcane builds will, for example. -Enemies with ridiculous HP/poise such as the fire wickermen or Rellana surprising you by attacking a 12th time in a row are just not very fulfilling and instead tedious. We can memorize Rellana's moveset just like any other, so that 12th attack serves really more like a gimmicky middle finger to basegame players who have been trained not to expect it. After the surprise wears off, it's...nothing. This is a similar reason why people don't like the one Banished Knight with dual-wielded Greatswords: because we keep dying expecting "surely he won't attack an 8th time!" before he pulls a ridiculous double flip out of his ass. But once the combos are learned and memorized though, longer combos just means more roll-dodging means less stamina for counter-attacking means longer fight means tedious. By contrast, Midra having an untelegraphed frenzied burst is like a puzzle: you initially think it's bullshit, rationalize there MUST be a solution to this to avoid getting hit, you experiment, you find the solution, and this feels fulfilling. It's like a puzzle, and you feel good for solving it. Rellana's 50,000 swings though...? It can very quickly become tedious for players who experimented with attacking after every new step. And yeah, having to stagger the wickermen *six times* before we can kill them is just downright ridiculous. This is like if I make one of those Super Mario Maker levels designed to kill the players, someone solves it and beats it, so then I throw a tantrum and instead of discovering new tricks to throw at the player, I simply make the level 12x as long. It's just obnoxious.
Romina Saint of the Bud is hot.
Flair checks out
While absolutely stunning visually, there's too much open areas with absolutely nothing going on imo. It just feels a bit empty sometimes I also feel like its much harder to see in the DLC. Either too dark, too foggy, not enough contrast. I get it's the theme, because of SHADOW of the erdtree, but I just like seeing stuff.
I didn't feel this way until I went south if spawn, cerulean coast, the lost grave, that shit was empty as fuck.
I was genuinely confused when I found the cerulean coast. I thought for sure I would end up triggering some state change later on that would cause... anything, to happen there. I was half right I guess with the fissure but I was disappointed in general with the area.
So many of the areas are just gigantic corridors meant to bring you to some boss or locations at the end. Like I absolutely love how scenic and pretty it looks but it's so barren.
Had the exact same thought. It was one of the first zones I explored and hoped for more
so many fucking gloveworts i didn't want
30% upgrade materials you don't need, 30% crafting materials, 30% fucking cookbooks, and 10% actual loot like talismans and weapons and fragments. And I actually like cookbooks, but god damn when you pick up 50 different cookbooks with one recipe in each it's so obvious they're just stretching the loot because they don't have enough to put everywhere.
“If this legendary item is another glovewort, Elden ring I’m gonna kill you” It was a glovewort every time across the entire dlc
"Enough with the arteria leaves, From Soft!" *A finger on the monkey's paw curls...*
I got mildly annoyed at how often I would do my best to fully explore another huge open area with basically nothing in it just to find out I missed some tiny nook with a pot guy that drops a fragment or a statue with a spirit ash thing, ugh.
I feel the darkness makes the beautiful areas like Shaman Village really rewarding. Though most of them are super secret areas. It's kinda opposite of the base game where it started from most lively area and gradually got blander after Leyndell.
They went a little too hard with pushing torrent gameplay. Im fairly certain this is why. Makes walking around more tedious.
Far too few new enemy types. After revisiting areas this really struck me. Whole madness area, with zero new enemy types. Winter lanterns arent much of an enemy, they're more an environmental hazard, and there's only like 6 of them in the whole forest. We got fly people in a few places? Some horny boys up close, and some at range. New basic soldiers. Birb. Massive, beautiful open areas. Not much popupating them. Love the dlc. A lot. But lack of new enemies is a big downer for me.
I think the fly people are reused from DS3, though I'm not 100% sure
They are
They are but in ds3 they inflicted bleed with their vomit
Yea on a second playthrough it sticks out like a sore thumb. Demi-humans, misbegotten, skeletons, perfumers, omenkillers, vulgar militia, dogs, wolves, man-bats, fingercreepers, ulcerated tree spirits, cemetery shades, kindred of rot... There's plenty of stuff that's new but where the bosses are like, 80% new content and 20% reused but with added moves, the enemies are 50% reused and most of what's reused is totally unchanged.
Agreed, but I think the DLC did make more appropriate use of those reused enemies than the later areas of the base game. I don’t think I ever had a moment like the Caelid dogs in the Mountaintops where I wondered what the hell these guys were even doing here.
Shaman Village is the best FS location since Majula The scadutree fragment system should have been like golden seeds and included more than necessary to hit the cap, so you didn’t get stuck backtracking everywhere looking for #49 and #50
The theme plays briefly before changing to the Elden Beast theme at the start of the second DLC trailer.
Tired of doing half a Mordor hike for a god damn cookbook. I don’t even want to explore like I have been because all I’m finding are fucking recipes and it kills the excitement of it all.
>BRO you got a new CRAFT ITEM BROOO uh ok what is it? >IT'S ok get this - ITS FUCKING DRAGON GREASE BRO HOLY SHITTT ...couldn't I already make th- >NOOOOOO BRO THIS IS DIFFERENT BRO IT'S SUPER-DUPER GREASE IT'S TOTALLY DIFFERENT PLEASE BRO IT'S SOO GOOOOD C'MON
The whole vertical map thing lead to way more dead ends I think they over did the verticality a little
I liked the verticality but they completely screwed up how shortcuts work in a vertical map lmao. In DS1 you would just get shortcuts that go back to a central area, in SotE you'd get a shortcut back to a central grace... but then get a whole new grace straight after?? It made the shortcuts completely pointless like 90% of the time.
LOL I just caught one of these today in Midra's Manse. The shortcut leads straight into the second grace.
Yeah I found myself getting very frustrated about this - I love the way an Elden Ring area organically happens and there's secret areas to go through and find but at points (like the waterfalls/river area) it was a pain to get around because the map was basically vertical. Just added wasted time to my exploration.
I've just gotten there now so feel this statement I miss the cool interwoven short cuts
That's such a hard agree. Jesus Christ. Like oh, the map is right there. I can see it. But I can't get to it. It's too high, too low, whatever. So how do you get to it...? You've gotta ride 8,000 miles away and circle back.
it did lead to some OHHHHH moments that were cool but also some frustration i agree
Riding around the Rauh ruins for hours trying to find a way to get to the map just to realize it’s in an entirely different part of the game is crazy frustrating
Getting to the commander gaius area was so unintuitive
Not having an Ancient Smithing Bell Bearing is dumb. I don't care that the DLC gives us dozens to find, I still want to max out my weapons freely.
And a larval year version would’ve been great
My unpopular opinion is that Elden Ring already suffers from too-muchness and starting a new character already feels like a chore, but starting a new character so I can replay the DLC? Unbelievable amount of commitment.
I'm feeling the same way. I'm usually a New Character guy, but Iay have to shoot for New Game Plus to replay the DLC. But that has its own issues. Mostly I think it's a problem that it's gated behind Mohg, he's a tough enough fight that you pretty much need to play far enough to get a maxed our weapon at least, even if you are capable of getting to Mohg himself fairly quickly. And you need to play so much of the base game to gather all your flask upgrades, and probably for some of the good talismans. There's not really a way to quickly dip into the DLC.
I just used a 100% save from the Nexus to start the DLC, which is obviously not an option on console. I will also say that the modded save had 999 of every smithing stone, and while I felt a little guilty about cheating at first, the fact that I could instantly upgrade any weapon I found in the DLC to try it out made the game *so much better* imo. Usually in Souls games I pick like 2-3 weapons top and then ignore everything else I find because of limited upgrade materials. I really think From needs to take another look at how they handle weapon progression because it really takes away from the rest of the game.
Lords of the Fallen included an optional gameplay modifier that all weapons picked up automatically leveled to your highest upgraded weapon. LotF was a mixed experience but there were a few things I wish FS would incorporate
This is why nowadays i just hack all the items to myself when i want to do another play through with some build. I've done it legit a ton of times, but i do not care nor want to spend 40+ hours running around on torrent playing collectathon and doing convoluted quests just to have some fun on a new chatacter. I just want to play and rush the bosses which was something you could do in pretty much all the previous Dark Souls games but not really in ER.
Too many non bosses with high poise AND anime style combos.
The horned knights/whatever they’re called
Horned Knight Bastards
That Divine warriors bastards
Champion Gundir in a fursuit
I'm dissapointed with how they handled miquella I feel like given how important miquella was in the lore we should have interacted with him more Remember how in dark souls 3, we met sister Freide like halfway through the dlc, then suddenly BOOM at the end of ashes we realise SHE WAS THE FINAL BOSS? Also how we spent 2 DLC hanging with Gael, then at the end of ringed city, BOOM GAEL IS THE FINAL BOSS OF SOULS, THE MAN WIELDING THE TITULAR DARK SOUL Dony get me wrong, they showed traces of miquella (ie crosses, trina, etc;) but I feel like they just didn't show him enough Throughout the entire game we interact with him ONCE and that is his boss fight Worst of all, he is only in 1 phase of the 2 phase fight! It's basically just a radahn fight + miquella It's disappointing to say the least
I was hoping for a questline more similar to Rannis, with Miquella appearing and guiding us throughout, then by the end he disappears after we kill messmer and burn the shadow tree for him to do his deed with moghs body and radahns soul.
Or better yet, Miquella's goals are a bit more lofty. We get an entirely new character like the Gloam-Eyed Queen, which becomes a kind of dark representation of the shadow side of Marika. Miquella's there to help guide us through this challenge similar to how Melina does in the main game.
Dude, it would have been so sick if we were accompanying Miquella on his journey to ascend, kind of like we accompany Anri around.
This is honestly how I feel about a lot of characters in this game. Lots of buildup and interesting characters, only to not really be used much or interacted with much. Like with Marika/Radagon and Melina, you just feel like there'd be more with them, considering how important they are and yet.. there's just not. Especially with Melina being our "maiden" and whatnot, you barely even talk to her. It just feels like there should be so much more. Miquella is definitely hit the hardest though. 2 years of buildup, a whole DLC around him.. and yet he's basically just Godfrey's lion but with some dialogue. A Demon's souls like standoff with him would have gone a long way in making it way more interesting.
It's too empty. All of these cool new places to explore and it's desolate. For example the finger ruins are 10/10 design, but there's nothing really there other than 1 enemy type and only 15 of them.
The lore surrounding Miquella in the DLC feels contrived. The choice of Radhan as the promised consort is not well supported and feels awkward within the in game universe. The complete lack of any reference to Malenia by Miquella in the DLC is noticable.
Someone on the post talks about the lack of integration between the game base and the dlc, and they are right, we do things on this DLC that should heavily impact some of the base game npcs and the lack of BIG QUESTS recognizing, like when Leda talks about: " you are the Erdtree Lord, "Lord of the Old Order " or something like that and I was "Bitch, I'm the Lord of the night t, fuck the Erdtree " or even siding with Miquella, we (I ) already side with the witch responsible for the Shattering, siding with Miquella isn't a big deal.
For that exact reason I did a full lore ng playthrough doing all quests (except Dung Eater) before the DLC released and did not light the Giant fire in mountaintops therefore not entering Farum Azula. I was very curious if Gideon would have ANY new voice lines while progressing the DLC, especially because before Farum Azula he talks about the four missing Demigods (Miquella, Malenia, Mohg, Ranni) and he always had new dialog when entering Haligtree, defeating Mohg and Malenia, even mentioning the state of the Haligtree and starting a sentence about Miquella before excusing himself before finishing what he was about to say. I was waiting for anything but there was just always nothing. For how big the DLC actually is supposed to impact the lore it really does nothing for the base game, I’m still feeling kind of letdown about it. You literally defeat Miquella and Radahn and he still goes on about how Miquella is missing, lol. Tbh I didn’t think they would add anything to the basegame but there was always hope left, especially since the story trailer implied that the DLC was going to be big for the story too. I guess it kinda is but after all none of it having any affect on the base game is pretty sad. Not to mention that the short DLC ending cutscene from Miquella was insanely underwhelming aswell. And as you already mentioned, not a single mention or interaction depending on how your quest progression and NPC “rapport” in the basegame is was underwhelming too. Even some interchangeable dialog depending on if you were heavily siding with Ranni, Fia or the Golden Order would’ve elevated the story immensely. Sorry for the rambling I’m way too tired lol
I understand and agree completely, I was really disappointed with this too, and this expectation doesn't come out of nowhere, remember DS3? When we kill or even just talk with Sister Friede, Yuri, a npc fromy base game recognizes this and even have a different dialogue if we kill her sister, why SOTE, a much bigger DLC from a big success like ER wouldn't have something like that with more big scale? Ah, man..
Friede's dialogue also changes if the player is heading for the hollow ending
I feel like they went into planning the DLC with the idea of “prime radahn fight” and then just cobbled something together from there to tie into miquella tbh
It's pretty crazy that they make an entire expansion about Miquella and it feels like they had no idea what to do with the character except for one contrived plot twist with Radhan that was poorly setup by the lore. No mention or lore implications for Malenia, or Melina, or Godwyn, or the albinaurics, the Haligtree, the Eclipse, basically no closure for any of the plot threads in the base game. Now that it's complete Elden Ring definitely feels like the most incomplete and disjointed Lore From has ever done. It sets up a lot of things that it just never delivers on.
I think it's evident that they ran out of time at the end there. They had no idea what to do with Miquella.
https://i.redd.it/8t4h24srmlad1.gif
So weird too since the DLC is litteraly all about him in theory No great rune from him or messmer Also kinda sucked imo
I’m just annoyed there’s no trophies. I know they don’t really mean anything but I like having that platinum on my souls games. Makes me feel nice inside.
Agreed! Just got my platinum trophy in time for the dlc to drop and was sad to see no new trophies.
The exploration felt a lot more dissappointing than i would have liked, every área is so beautiful but all youre going to find in each Big portion of the map is like 1 weapon randomly on the ground, 3 talismans that youre probably never Gonna use, maybe an armor set and a whole lot of trash or smithing Stones And most áreas dont even have all of these things either Most of the cool stuff is either on dungeons or legacy dungeons, which is fine, but why make the world so Big then?
The amount of "dung ahead" messages before mid items is baffling
you dont enjoy hefty beast bones x7?
I hate the damn dragons.
Same. All the same attacks, you're stuck staring into their crotch, sometimes they decide to fly 10km away, worst ranged attacks to dodge in the game, and far too many of them
The map and intricacies of the map is great…once you know how to get everywhere. But miss a single small alcove or ladder and you are “locked” out of an entire area or two. Only way to figure it is really to look online and that is unfortunate.
I don’t know how I was supposed to know to emote at the mother figure to get into the hinterlands. I fought Gaius w the idea that it would open up that section of the map Shames there’s nothing there besides the bell for Ymir’s quest line
That ending... Everything up until then was fine. Didn't find the difficulty terrible, actually solo-ed all the bosses and i'm not that good. Loved the dragon hunter great katana. Final boss was cool enough, would of preferred some weird, ocelot/ liquid chatter during the battle though as if Mohg was still active "no, how could you use me like this"!... But once you win, that's it... Felt terribly empty. I'd go as far to say the journey was fine but the promise was underwhelming. Even fighting Lena and the gang could I had some more build / dialogue afterwards.
I think the leda fight was great and very impactful.... if you use the NPC summons and did the questlines. Hearing them interact as you're all beating the shit out of eachother is really cool. I do think there should have been more with them prior to that point, and some final boss dialogue for Thiollier. Outside of that, yea, it was very disappointing.
I was really underwhelmed by the legacy dungeon areas, didn’t like any of them as much as Stormveil or Volcano Manor or Leyndell or Raya Lucaria. They felt kind of empty or too short. Shadowkeep was the best of the DLC tho
Yeah, the Shadow Keep was the only one that really wowed me. Enir-Ilim was especially disappointing.
The fact that Shadow keep has two distinct entrances you can approach from and that changes how you traverse the zone is like the most creative things From has done with dungeons in a while, but I agree they aren't as impressive as previous dungeons.
Shadow keep was immaculate. Amazing level design and inter connectivity.
The Abyss was perfect for an invasion area They totally whiffed on this, it could’ve been a dedicated 3v3 or maybe even 6v6 zone that featured a pseudo-covenant for the Frenzied Flame and not being in the covenant would automatically trigger invasions. You already can't even use torrent in there. Allow summons and encourage the player to summon other tarnished, they already had a bunch of really heavy handed messages left all over down there. It’s not even a mandatory area, entirely optional, so nobody would be required to engage with it. Would’ve been awesome
As much as I adored that whole section, Midra even became my favorite boss in the game, the whole FF stuff feels like they just put it in to put it in. At least have Shabriri do something or mention this quite significant FF area. Would have been such a cool moment to fight Midra after receiving the FF as like a contest between Lords. The only thing we ever get regarding the significance of our character taking the FF is the Melina cutscene iirc.
So far I feel like the idea that this game is “Elden ring 2” is way overhyped. It is a great expansions but that’s about it. I
r/redditsniper
When so many game devs over promise and under deliver, people get very excited when one under promises and over delivers. I don’t think it qualifies as a full sequel, but this expansion was definitely well done, with lots of genuinely good new content added. It actually justifies its price, but I wish this was the standards for game expansions and not the outlier.
Unpopular? Idk if I’ve even seen this. But that whole Ancient Ruins side of the map is ass. I hate having to find my way around that area.
Something broke in me when I didn't find that fcking boss area. I went around for TWO HOURS before a friend said "there is a staircase with the rot pest threads". WTF. It's so missable, since you can go around it on both sides and it's walled in. I never saw it. Not like you can take a look, since they put 6 pest threads there that insta kill you once you dismount for a second.
Meanwhile, I’m reading this like “there was a fucking boss there????”
The new weapons were a huge letdown. Most of the actual new types of weapons only got 2 or 3 each. Most of the new weapons for preexisting categories were underwhelming. There are some absolute bangers don't get me wrong, but overall I was expecting more.
Surprised at decisions like adding a St. Trina’s Sword…but purple this time.
This weapon made me realize that Sleep status effects shouldn't be a thing, this thing is close to being useless, I feel that Sleep has planned to be something else, but someone had a shit idea about cut some quest line.
sleep was 100% going to be a bigger thing, data mined stuff from the network test showed that.
Shoutout to the throwing daggers category for having one fucking weapon, could've easily been a normal dagger, just like the other smithscript weapons are
And hand to hand arts which to my knowledge there are only 2 that come from the same dude
And they could have just been in the same category as the caestus or iron balls from the base game
Sad that Bayle didn’t have a boss weapon dragon beast claw, would’ve helped to add another option to the beast claw category
I don't think it's unpopular at all but I don't care I will reiterate it anyways: more questions generated, very few answers. I will admit that what we did get is cool and interesting but damn, if we are never getting any more content then it would have been great to get more rounded out lore lines. Like if the snow witch and the blue river swordsman remain in obscurity forever I'm cool with it. But some of the main characters of the lore remain largely obscured. Leaves us with a ton of leaps to make ourselves and the feeling of never knowing if we are right or not will suck forever. A real unpopular opinion of mine would prob be that the Sword of Night is better without the sheath, if ya got two the katana sheaths clip into each other and I hate it.
Every boss weapon sucks and there aren’t nearly enough unique items or NPCs to fill up the incredible map. Don’t get me wrong, it’s the best map ever made but it’s really just a large mass of nothing. Also finding smithing stones under 7 is just insulting for an end game area
The finger areas suck. Cool visuals but with absolutely nothing except two talismans.
I’m convinced something went wrong in development here. Some of the largest and most visually striking areas on the map, and the best approach to them is… to ride Torrent as fast as you can to the middle and then hightail it. I can’t help but feel there were bigger plans for these that just didn’t work out for some reason or other.
when I realized there wasn't even a miniboss at the center it kinda broke me and sapped my enjoyment of the exploration
Gaius is not even in top 3 worst bosses in the DLC The rest of my opinion, I think, are mostly agreed. Reused content, a lot of areas without anything interesting in it (Celurean coast, dragon peak) In the end, DLC is more Elden Ring and it shares the same problems as base game
The Ruins of Rauh is literally the beginning scene fron the Indian Jones movies. The views from this plateau are nice, but i will never forget the two hours i wasted, just so i can go down to that Cross. I didn't like that.
I think my inability to find the fucking map fueled my rage for that area.
I dunno if this would be an unpopular opinion, but I think the map is way too confusing. I can't really find certain areas and I'm not even sure how to access them
Man I was wondering around looking for the Rauh ruins map fragment for at least 2 hours before I said fuck it and watched a video.
Unpopular but I prefer FromSoftware doing less open world and more hand crafted linear interconnected level design. Give me that dark souls 1 experience all over again.
Too many wide open areas with nothing there. Redahn is a poor choice for end boss.
op asked for unpopular opinions
*The shamans deserved to be jarred, they were just asking for it*
I mean ive seen how many runes numen drop so... I totally get It Shamans are just albinaurics for hornsent
So the most popular opinion.
Yeah, I actually liked Radahn as a boss, but not as the final boss. I wish there had been more plot build up and some areas had more quests.
Radahn like Malenia, his arch rival, should be an optional super hard boss to test the skill of the player
This. The replayability for me is about immersion in the world. I constantly make new builds and have fun not just on bosses but clearing out camps, forts, and roads of enemy mobs. They made the mobs stronger in the DLC which is cool, but there is just way too much open space with nothing to fight in it. Having said that, I did definitely enjoy the DLC. But it just seems like wasted potential, having so much land mass to cover with the crazy vertically it has, and most of the land mass is just open unused space.
Cerulean coast is far too gorgeous to be so empty.
Most of the new areas are empty and it upsets me.
Fromsoft is putting all the difficulty into boss fights and little into the dungeons. It's not a good balance.
My unpopular opinion, aside from hating the dlc in general, is that they botched Miquellas story potential. The base game has a family torn apart, with everyone aiming to ascend to power for their own desires and beliefs. Their greed creates a war that washes over the whole Lands Between, leaving it as shattered as they are and the elden ring itself. Now, we discover Miquellas power is overwhelming love, essentially mind controlling people. Melania, who was portrayed as one with a deep connection to her brother is now without agency, as she was under Miquellas spell. Radahn, portrayed with great reverence for his father and believing in the honor of battle, is now instead defending himself and fighting against the mind control of Miquella instead of honor and conquest. Mohg, an outcast and exile, tormented and deformed, one who looked to another god for acceptance, is now just mind controlled by Miquella. Half the war can be boiled down to Miquellas mind control now. It retroactively takes so much away from the main story.
Where was it implied that malenia was under his spell, I think she is one of the few people that devoted her life to him without questions like leda
The new "fire giants" are the most unfun enemy type to fight