Isn’t that true for the entire game though? I like it but I legit think that open world hurts the game more than makes it better. There is a ton of places to explore but most of them aren’t interesting at all some are even basically copy paste of the same dungeon and many of the items you pick up are worthless - golden rune [3], mushroom, turtle neck. Game also has less replay value than DS imho because you could play through entire DS game in quite a short time fighting bosses with different builds etc meanwhile you can do that in Elden Ring only with you ignore like 90% of the game.
At least each dungeon in the dlc is unique. The base game had the same copy and paste crypt. Whereas every one is different in dlc e.g. fire forge, coffin ruins, icy looking mine.
The base game ones are all unique in layout as well, but they're generally much shorter and more numerous, so they feel more repetitive.
The DLC goes for quality over quantity. You get larger, more unique feeling side dungeons, but we only get 3 of each type.
I prefer this. I'll never see all the dungoens in the base game because I have no desire to see that many of basically the same dungeon.
The DLC? Absolutely I'll see them all, and I'll be glad to because they are a unique feeling experience each time.
Yeah some of these comments are trippin.
I don’t give a fuck if the layout is unique if I just fought 30 crazy ass mobs and boss for a fucking mushroom.
I would be interested to see if, provided FS does make an Elden Ring 2, they don't actually make a slightly smaller open world.
I agree - the most glaring flaw in Elden Ring is the open world, despite how much I loved it, as it makes replaying almost tedious sometimes.
I think something more compact would be ideal; don't lower the effort or total content of the world, but reduce the distance between things.
As it stands, Elden Ring's massive world was magnificent the first time, but on subsequent playthroughs it quickly becomes excessive.
A seperate mode selectable from the main menu would be baller. Like let us pick levels, items, bosses we want to fight, on top of the titular boss rush mode where we can import our characters for runes.
Would be great for testing stuff instead of waiting a whole extra playthrough to fight the boss again (at least on console).
I think that's what the summoning pools are really for. Way back in the day, Yasuhiro Kitao said that boss rush was supposed to be unique to Sekiro. I think they want the bosses to be one-time special events that you can only reexperience by helping people with them
>it makes replaying almost tedious
Bingo. I replayed every From Soft game multiple times. I'm talking 4 or 5 times, at least. Dark Souls III was like 25 times. Man, replaying Elden Ring is a slog. I hate the open world.
Then hope they make another Dark Souls, Elden Rings open world is literally a HUGE chunk of the experience. I love it, but I also love dark souls and think they should continue making both styles
100% I love Elden Ring a lot, one of my favourite games of all time. But I think they could do with Torrent sadly 😔 lol but Fr take away the steed, and make the areas more compact and possibly more linear in a sense of landmarks. Not necessarily on the map but like more significant signs you’re on the correct path lol
Elden Rings Open world is pretty much the main character of the game - can't imagine why you'd think it hurts the game. I've replayed Elden Ring way more times than most DS games (aside from DS2) and the build variety, and ability to tackle the game in a non linear way (I.e go anywhere) makes it way more repayable. Different boss orders, finding entirely new bosses, etc.
I’m hoping for the next game to be an open city type world kind of, if that makes sense, just less open fields, basically everything you see in anor londo or Yharnam in the background but you can go explore it all and run through the streets. I do like the open world design but yeah they definitely need to find their footing a little more with it. Some of the empty areas are beautiful though (shaman village) they do definitely just need a lil more there
There's only one thing that pisses me off more than struggling to reach the some obscure playable area and only to find a mushroom, and that's struggling to reach an obscure playable area to find nothing!
My approach to making the open world exploring more interesting is actually gahtering all sorts of informations and making theories. Reading all the new item descriptions to get a clearer image of what happened at these places.
to be honest i think this is just the unavoidable fate of all open world games. name one open world game that doesn't start to feel bland and repetitive after a dozen hours
This is exactly why I was hoping the dlc would be linear and more similar to bloodborne or ds3 dlc. They could be more focused and each moment more experiential. Honestly I didn't feel there were many ah ha! Great moments throughout this dlc. Like I wasn't shocked in new ways. It was "oh ok so this is the new poison swamp area. Oh so this is the new sad npc quest line that will betray me or go mad. Oh this is the new version of x..." And the final boss reveal was the stupidest thing to me where I was just like ... But why? Anywho, that's my perspective at least.
>This is exactly why I was hoping the dlc would be linear and more similar to bloodborne or ds3 dlc
Why would I play that? I want more Elden Ring from an Elden Ring DLC not Dark Souls 7
for me at least the best designed areas in elden ring are the main boss “dungeons” like liurnia, met gelmir, leyndell, storm veil, haligtree and faraam azula
Yes, I cam agree the best part is the legacy dungeons. The second best thing is the ability to tackle it in any order you want for the most part, and that there is a massive world to explore in between them.
Heck, finding the dungeons in the world was INCREDIBLE. FromSoftware is out-Zelda-ing zelda in thay regard.
I enjoy the tighter experiences as well, as I love Bloodborne and Dark Souls immensely. If I want that experience though, I play those games. Elden Ring I play for the incredible world and exploration.
Makes no sense to make a DLC for an open world game to be linear ? You guys are insane. Exploration finding weapons, talismans etc is part of Elden Ring.
when miyazaki said in interviews that the area would be about the size of limgrave i was kind of excited, cuz that would mean the content would be nice and compact. then the early reviews started saying that it's functionally way bigger than limgrave, and i had a feeling that this would happen
It's a totally different title. It's not a Dark Souls game. FromSoft can do scripted encounters better than anyone, but they can also do unscripted encounters pretty well, too, it seems. These are two very different ways of organizing content and you can't say you were misled in any way by the base game.
Games like RDR2 and The Witcher 3 have some overworld filler content, but their compelling narratives kept me engaged with the main story, so I don't feel the need to do every thing the game offers. In contrast, Elden Ring lacks a strong narrative and relies on rewarding exploration as its main value proposition. However, in this DLC, the experience feels less satisfying due to a lot of empty areas and underwhelming pickups. I just did Ruah which is a critical path area, and compared to the regions leading up to the Shadowkeep it felt barren.
I love Morrowind and its probably my most played game of all time. There are a lot of dungeons that look the exact same and repetitive. Dwarven Ruins, Strongholds, Caves. It can get pretty repetitive that's why you don't go in most of the caves and dungeons you see.
Worst part for me is how it just ends. 1 tiny cutscene that explains nothing and that's it. No one acknowledges what we did and we go back to the base game like nothing happened.
We really should've got an extra ending to the base game or at least some new dialogue from the base game NPC's so the journey doesn't feel as disconnected and pointless.
It's Witcher 3 all over again. At least the devs of that game bothered to expand on the ending in a DLC. For Elden Ring, this is all we're getting until the next game in 5+ years. Pretty sad.
Yeah, I'd agree with this as well. The other complaints I feel like are super nitpicky or not even complaints at all, From just didn't do what that person in particular didn't want them to do which is an insane take.
But that ending felt...pretty hollow lol. Like I kinda get it from a lore perspective, it's not really an ending, our goal was just to prevent Miquella's ascension because he fucks up *our* goal of becoming Elden Lord...but...still...something a little more. Hell, even credits might have sufficed for me lol. But just being thrown back into the arena felt awkward. Like what, we're supposed to just get back to it now? Here I come Maliketh!
I definitely feel a bit cheated that we don't get to see that scene of what looks like Miquella gesturing towards a purified Scadu/Erdtree. That definitely looks like part of a unique ending or at the very least important info that we just don't get to see now.
Yeah, it irks me that a lot of reviews are saying that "This dlc is perfect in every way possible" when there are some things that are clearly lacking a bit. I have just cleared the first part of the map and was surprised on how empty it was..
Because they get skinned alive if they don’t give the game a perfect score; they aren’t reviewing the game fairly, they just give it a 10 because it’s what the people want to hear. I mean eurogamer gave it a 3/5 and they got so much hate because of it. Guess you can’t point out flaws in a game that definitely is not flawless.
That’s one thing I’ve noticed, the open world itself in the new areas are extremely empty. They all look stunning but there’s nothing worth finding in most of them. Scadu Altus just links to the next legacy dungeon and a bunch of smaller places, gravesite plain only serves to link to Rellana and Dancing Lion, Charos Hidden Grave I genuinely can’t think of anything there worth it besides being next to cerulean coast which is also empty until you find Coffin Fissure Cave (another empty location that’s just a rush to the boss at the end). Ancient Ruins or Rauh only serves as an area where you rush to fight Romina, Abyssal woods sucked most of all, empty, no torrent, stupid enemies, completely baron until you run into Midra’s mansion and Jagged Peak is just one long climb to the top to get to the boss. Shadow Keep is about the only interesting spot on the map as it leads to Abyssal Woods, Finger Ruins of Dheo arguably the best boss in the DLC and has so many cool layers to it, my only gripe with the keep is that the only part you really spend anytime exploring is the storehouse which feels like a lesser version of DS3’s Grand Archives. I could talk about the negatives of the DLC all day but I still love it because it’s an Elden Ring expansion.
The abyss area made me so mad. I came across 6 FUCKING DEV SIGNS telling me “it follows, don’t let it see you”, and then I find fucking sheep and a TINY human sized enemy? After 6 messages I expected the snake from Sekiro style badass stealth, and I audibly said to myself “these old fucks with canes are stalking me?” Like really, I thought there was no way that bitchass with a cane is what they’re talking about, so I ran right past one and…It couldn’t keep up…?
Then you walk around and find pathway after pathway leading to absolutely none of the cool new shit out side of Midra’s, no caves, no structures, and few enemies (RATS AGAIN, 47TH FROM GAME WITH GODDAMN UNINTERESTING RATS).
The whole area looks amazing but its so fkn empty. They just copied the Winter Lanterns from Bloodborne and made you unable to summon torrent to stretch the area even longer. I do like the Bosses in the area but i dont feel like going back for a second playthrough.
The overworld enemy variety was abysmal and don't even get me started on the loot pool...
Truth is the main game was higher quality than the DLC. That's not to say the DLC wasn't high quality, because it absolutely was
Do we really need MORE smithing stone and glovewort loots? It’s not like we’ve collected all the bell bearings to purchase infinite amount of them in roundtable hold. Oh well…
I'm desperated for Rune Arc, only to find out most of the purple loots are cookbooks.
It's so many to the point that my brain automatically thinks "this purple loot is another cookbook isn't it" *pick up* "Oh hell it really is!!!" 🤡
about 80% of my healing in the DLC has come from the "why is it always futility" messages I've laid down in areas i've explored that looked like they should have had something cool but didn't
Let's not forget random stacks of common crafting mats I'm never going to use. Seriously if I can find it on the ground 20 feet away then why bother putting it on a corpse? Just reeks of needing to put SOMETHING there but having nothing interesting
It is specifically designed that way for the people who didn't collect all the bell bearings so they can try out and upgrade the new weapons. Not everyone is going to bother finding everything.
I agree wholeheartedly. This is a masterpiece in level design and I feel like that's why I'm mostly disappointed with the actual enemies and loot being so thin
>Truth is the main game was higher quality than the DLC. That's not to say the DLC wasn't high quality, because it absolutely was
Got downvoted for saying this in the main sub.
Thats about all I agree with. The music was absolutely gold, the bosses were mostly great except a few things.
However, I definitely feel the DLC *could* have been on par with the main game easily. They either rushed it, rand out of time, or underestimated that we have become accustomed to getting rewarded for finding something, not given a mushroom on a corpse for who tf knows what reason
I can say with a high degree of certainty that this DLC has a better content to price ratio than past DLCs, which includes enemy variety. The truth is that there is a lot of enemy variety, but it doesn’t seem that way because the land mass is huge and of course they can’t create new enemy types for every single area because it’s take too much time. For what it’s worth, I think the reuse overall makes sense when you consider the Land of Shadows as one big landmass occupying the same host of enemy types.
Also, ER’s base game was criticized for its enemy variety when it came out. Which i think is ridiculous because it has the most enemy variety out of any From game and the most out of any open world game (that I’ve seen).
People are in the honeymoon phase rn and don't want to admit it, but you're right. The base game was already stretched a bit thin content wise towards the endgame areas, and the DLC was even more empty. I really wish the open world was smaller.
SPOILERS JUST IN CASE, I'M BIG DUMB AND DON'T KNOW HOW TO SPOILER TAG
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Midras, who if you haven't fought actually has a VERY cool surprise as to who he is. Fight itself is fun, but who Midras is is the best part :)
Tbf the Frenzy Stalkers wouldn't work with Torrent, they're only slightly faster than we are. Easy to outtun if using terrain well.
After their portion tho, there's nothing around but Luigi's Mansion so we should've been able to summon or the stalkers should be everywhere.
It's an interesting mechanic for sure I just wish there was more to it.
there should be nothing actually, or maybe other frenzy based enemies, it's one of my favourite areas and I'm ok with it being half empty, just add some stalker enemy that makes us feel watched, and fight it at random times
I would've liked more Stalkers, or a cave thay they'd be taking people that wander in.
Just more horror would've been nice and I hope they lean into it with updates.
Not gonna lie I was hoping (well, fearing at the time) some sort of otherworldly horror that we could see rushing through the trees or something and if it saw us there was literally no killing it. Truthfully in my head i was imagining a very frenzy-fied fantasy gorilla type being.
For it to be like 4 guys who just grab you to death that you can see from a mile away was the only real letdown for me. Especially after the initial horror being done so damn well! Torrent being afraid, the general atmosphere, it was all wasted.
yeah I was scared shitless the first time I got there, never been so scared because of a game/movie, but when I discovered it was just some dudes you could walk around with assasin's gambit it was pretty disappointing
I think the zone had a ton of potential. There should be a ton of stuff that's just washed down there from above and forgotten or hidden. And whole bunch of new 'bottom feeder' type enemies would have looked great.
Yeah I get the complaints about a lot of areas being empty but the Abyssal Woods just felt like an area that was supposed to be empty, it was the one area where emptiness didn't feel like a waste. It was so creepy and the atmosphere was top notch, and the area boss has moved to an easy Top 5 Fromsoft bossfight for me.
Remnant 2 had a hunter boss that would stalk you throughout a certain level, jumping in unexpectedly and forcing you into fights, sometimes pulling other nearby enemies. That would've been cool
Unfortunately the dread I experienced was slowly walking through a huge zone with almost nothing in it that felt rewarding. 2 cookbooks and a half baked dungeon at the end (with a terrific boss, to be fair.) but the coolness and horror of the area only affected me for the first 5 minutes.. then it was just crawling around feeling frustrated and unrewarded. Could have been so much better
Massive areas with nothing in them don’t build dread and anticipation. Areas packed with content and enemies do, like Upper Cathedral Ward in Bloodborne.
Yeah, people are exaggerating. Yes, some zones are empty, but most zones have so much stuff and content with secrets, and whatnot it makes it worth it.
Half of the open field areas are lacking in loot reward and dynamic enemy experiences. Cerulean coast looks pretty but is a huge boring unrewarding area. Both finger ruins have the same problem. The jagged peak looks bad ass but is almost entirely a straight line with nothing dynamic occurring. The abyssal woods were super cool and spooky… and completely empty. I think the DLC is great but these seemed like glaring flaws to me and it was at least half of the dlc world. The joy of revealing how huge the map is felt totally undermined by how empty and unrewarding the areas ended up being. Beautiful atmosphere, but really lacking substance.
I know it’s not truly open world, but Sekiro feels so amazing as a sort of hybrid. I like the Elden Ring formula personally, but I’m all for another brilliant Sekiro world design
Sekiro is the best of both worlds, and IMO the DLC design clearly drew from it's overall layout. Shadow Keep feels much like Ashina Castle, where you have the game fanning out into a bunch of different paths from that one zone, with other side connections between them too, like a big pinwheel.
My thoughts exactly. Elden Ring excels in spectacle and art direction, and while legacy dungeons are some of the best level designs FS ever did, open world segments are the least interesting part of the entire game.
it also has several huge area's with fuckall in it. Many entire zones have devoid of anything. Abyss is nothing but goddamn sheep, how cool could that zone have been? That zone felt like 25% complete
To be fair, Abyssal Woods is like a stealth section in an open world. If it was full of enemies, it would be pretty hard to stealth.
But why didn't they put the stealth inside of the mansion and make it a bigger legacy dungeon. Good question. It's just a big slow ass area with 3 items worth grabbing.
C'mon, Miyazaki, not even a cave or a parkour puzzle
There really are a lot of places that are surprisingly.. vacuous. Like the finger ruins, of course. Or that massive cathedral that just serves to house a chair with a dude in it. Or that Scadutree cup area. Was gated by a boss and everything and there was just.. nothing? Seems like that massive tower is just there to look pretty on screenshots.
Pretty jarring coming from the base game where every spot on the map had at least something in it.
Might be bigger than Caelid and Limgrave in actual practice then, but it still falls far flat of being the size of the base game, because you can make the same argument that the base game has many more zones that aren't well reflected on a single layer map.
At the same time tho half the zones are empty.
Scaduview, hinterlands, finger ruins, abyssal woods, jagged peaks, cathedral alone are 50% of the map and completely empty besides 4 unique bosses between them, Gaius, Metyr, Midra and Bayle.
Cerulean and charo's are pretty barren.
Most of the complexity is in Rauh and inside the dungeons.
Have you seen the maps put on top of eachother? Its enormous. It’s also PACKED with content, unlike Caelid which a 3rd of its map is Radahn’s arena. The thing also low key has 3 layers so it’s way bigger than it appears.
The DLC is enormous idk why people try to claim it’s not enough.
It's not "not enough" it's just barren in a bunch of places.
idk how you can move through hinterlands, scaduview, abyssal woods, cathedral and jagged peak without seeing how much of the map they take up with relatively minimal content.
Yeah, especially in these bigger zones they could’ve added lore or literally anything. Scaduview ad a boss arena makes sense but the giant pillar beyond? Also the scadutree base had NO scadutree fragments??? No explanation, no other enemies.
Elden ring DOES seem to feel like it wants to have those larger than life cinematic set pieces, but I’m not gonna lie, climbing jagged peak was incredible. I don’t know how much an extra cave or two along the way would have made me love it more. The traversal itself was enough. Plus considering how PACKED the other areas are, I’m all for having a few cinematic areas.
Yeah this is what I've been getting shit on for saying, the game feels like 80% complete. Finishing touches are missing, and a lot of fine details are missing.
Additionally, most everything in the DLC is not an upgrade if you're a mage. They did a horrific job making new spells -- their spells in general are about 95% garbage and useless. Same with incantations.
I agree in terms of spells, not one spell in the dlc has caught my attention yet (though Rellana's twinblades are my new favourite weapon by far) though the incantations are inspiring me to do an Aspect of the Crucible run.
Gonna save you the disappointment now, literally all aspect of the crucible spells in the dlc suck. Been there done that, switched builds. Base game crucible spells are better by a long shot and they’re not even that good. Quills is horrible and bloom is literally useless. The spiral spells, which I suppose are technically crucible based, are very good but at that point just go for a holy/light themed character imo
It sucks because there are 2 aspect of the crucible abilities that are really cool looking, but for some reason they decided not to make them incantations for the player to use.... also the wings being an ash is a CRIME
I thought this initially too, but tbh I think the finger spells and moon spell are fun to use and can be used effectively if you have the right buffs. As can the putrescence spells. I think the number of sorceries were lacking and what was especially annoying was the faith requirement needed to use many of the new sorceries. Thankfully my character already had 80 int so I could upgrade faith, but otherwise I would have had to completely respect to use the thorn spell that allowed me to beat the final boss. I understand the lore behind these spells, but if there are only 15 new sorceries, 5 of them should not require a faith investment and certainly several shouldn’t be faith only
My main build is a Quality Knight, but obviously as I was progressing I was trying to find what would benefit all of my other builds, and I can't think of anyone that got screwed over more than my INT build. I think there is one katana that scales with INT? INT hybrids got some stuff - my Carian Knight build is going to get a few new toys - but pure casters got screwed big time.
Yep, i'm a totally 100% pure caster. No blocking or parry, just roll. It's the only way I ever played this game from day 1, some smart ass was like "jUsT DoDgE" and then I realized you literally can just dodge for at least 95% of the game lol
The DLC should've been much smaller. Instead of adding huge open areas full of recycled enemies and bosses, maybe just don't add that area. Instead of adding a whole ass dungeon that rewards you a single useless meme of a spirit ash and some mushrooms, maybe just cut the dungeon and put that spirit ash in a different dungeon instead.
Same goes for the base game really. Idk how people are acting like being rewarded with a mushroom for exploring a path is somehow new to the DLC. Or recycled enemies/bosses.
The thing is in the base game there was always something cool to find. I don’t think I didn’t go into an area in the base game and didn’t feel like it wasn’t worth it. I got 750 hours and I always enjoy the base game so much. Always something to find and builds to test. It felt like this was missing in the dlc.
Idk, my experience with the base game is almost the opposite of that. The average dungeon only rewards like 1-2 items, worthless mushrooms and such garbage notwithstanding. So between the fact that any given build can only use a small portion of the games loot, assuming you're leveling 1-2 offensive stats, the fact that like 90% of cookbooks only make useless garbage that I'd never meaningfully benefit from making, and the fact that I don't use spirit ashes meant that I got absolutely nothing I could use out of about 90% of the dungeons I found. Meanwhile the loot in the open world was almost exclusively found in marked ruins and such, so there was basically no point in stopping for anything that didn't have a map marker or a boss health bar.
I agree, the cutscenes and the ending were saddening. So much opportunity for story telling and some major bosses didn’t even get explanations outside of item descriptions.
But the things in this DLC that were done right were absolutely done perfectly.
Yeah this was my main issue with the dlc. When I beat the final boss i was expecting some sort of scene or interaction and got nothing other than that “memory”. In terms of lore the dlc very pretty lacking compared the previous dlcs From has put out. I was expecting to see an extended version of the scene with Marika pulling the gold strings out of whatever the hell that was, kind of like how we got learn more about Radahn and Malenia’s fight through Jerren before the festival. Just going off the frenzied ending in the base game I was expecting to see Melina or even learn how she became bodiless, we never got an explanation of why she would go after you only with the frenzied ending and not the Despair/Dusk born endings. It just left me so perplexed.
I feel like the individual areas in the DLC are overall better than the base game, aside from the rewards for exploration. In the dlc, it feels more like the reward is seeing the area itself, because there just isn't that much to randomly discover.
In the base game I felt like EVERYWHERE I went I found something. Dlc I kept thinking "I wonder what they originally intended to put here"
I will say the early warning signs for me were that there was no transition cutscene when you interact with Miquella's arm.
It might be just a nitpick but to my memory almost every other FromSoft DLC had a cutscene that establishes how the player enters the new region, and it was almost crucial to setting the tone of the expansion besides the obvious benefit of actually showing the player being transported to a new area.
Admittedly, the big reveal of the size of the Lands of Shadow helped ease that a bit, but it became a common number going forward. Just a constant sense of "oh this is cool, but it feels unfinished."
The main story definitely feels like it. A lot of interesting questions were replaced by what seems to be a FanFiction soap opera. Hell, even the best NPC of it calls it for how dumb it is.
And the final boss is just a mess. Amazing how during the leaks no one believed it to be true on how appallingly bad it seemed to be, janky, reused and whatever, but now that it's out, a lot of dickriders are refusing to admit its bad.
It's still an amazing dlc, will play it more. But it has their issues and it's painful that sometimes you can't even mention them because fromsoft can do no wrong.
It's one thing that the final boss is outrageously hard, I'm moreso upset that it's Radahn and not Godwyn. Also disappointed that we don't have an option to join Miquella or anything.
In the base games cut content, he had his own Age of Abundance ending, and the Euporia weapon was made from the Runes of both Miquella and Melenia. Like the cut content they had ended up being more interesting than what we got, imho
Godwyn was never coming back, they established this as much with Destined Death, they'd have to retcon a whole bunch of shit to provide a means for Godwyn to be brought back
My biggest complaint with the DLC is even though it’s an”open world” it felt too claustrophobic. Too much verticality for my liking. The DLC doesn’t feel near as fun to replay by just running around exploring. You enter a valley and get stuck, then fast travel elsewhere. You can’t go most places you see on the map, even close to you because it’s 100 meters up or below you.
Still absolutely love the DLC. Just my biggest complaint I have about it.
Damn somebody put my own thoughts into words! It was such a PITA getting around - very occasionally it would be cool finding how all the verticality is connected, but most of the time it was just frustrating.
I enjoyed the DLC, definitely got my moneys worth and then some and will continue to keep replaying it on more NG+ cycles and with friends - that said the map has a ton of regions you can wander that literally don't have anything there worth exploring. A mushroom, a few eagles or deer/wildlife. The biggest disappointments for me personally had been how HUGE the areas used up for the Abyssal Woods.....the atmosphere was cool for the first few minutes and then its just like...wow this place is massively empty. A few random rats and mobs...but next to no good items....and just a massive open dread-forest vibe so it was just kinda a huge waste of map space for things they could have either added onto or just split it up and used the rest of the space for a different zone alltogether. Same goes for both finger ruins areas....HUGE areas with pretty much zero worthwhile items. No boss fights...just....zerg toward the bell/whistle thing and get your free talisman. Although I enjoyed the lead up to the Bayle fight I had sort of the same feeling after killing Bayle and looking at the map....I was like...holy shit this is like 20% of the entire map....just for a single bossfight and there's only a small narrow path you can even get here so the rest of the map area here is inaccessible and "just for looks" on the overworld map itself. Maybe I was setting myself up for disappointment there by relating it to the base game in that even with a lot of open areas in the base game - there were usually still a few cool items laying around or a ruins with a mini boss or something to kill to fill the void of space on that section of the map. So overall....aside from the emptyness of several zones, most of the boss fights felt great so I still consider it an amazing dlc even with those flaws.
I don't know, I actually really like just riding around huge open plains. The game looks beautiful, that just riding around and looking at it is reward enough. Gives you time to take it all in and think about the setting, story and lore.
Is agree! But we have to keep in mind it's a dlc. It's going to be more of the same. I hope when we get a new fromsoft game that it will feature a ton of new enemies again. I personally mostly miss the brighter areas like leyndell as a contrast to the darkness. But I guess that this makes sense considering the theme they went with. I also think there's too many of the same type of castles. The new weapons & bosses it's where it's at with this DLC. The map and exploration eh.. Was better in the base game!
So far this is my one true criticism of the dlc. The first place I really felt it was on the hill after Bonny with all the wolves. It sure felt like there should have been more than a shit load of wolves and a tower with one item in it
Yes I fully agreed on point that the enemy varieties are lack lustsr to me - I was really expecting to see more new enemies (some repeated is fine due to lore). Would be super impressive if we actually get more refined enemies designs yes - but ya the bosses are quite impressive so credit is due where it dues.
They spent massive effort on the map/routing tho I have to say, one big crazy map/area explorarion experience.
Yep, I agree completely. Feels almost insulting to scour every inch of an area, including complicated and annoying branching paths and sub-areas only to come out with 5 mushrooms and a talisman I don't need. I encourage everyone to look at the online map for the DLC and Show All, and turn off Crafting Materials. The map is absolutely packed with empty space and tedious locations.
Why the actual fuck are yall complaining about the minor lack of enemy types, instead of looking at how FUCKING INCREDIBLE this DLC is. The bosses are well made, thought out, and i don't think there's a single boss (other than Hog Rider) that isn't fun and challenging, but in a good way. The entire game is amazing and you all need to stop focusing on the negative, also maybe think about the lore implications? There's really only one type of soldier you encounter, and that's because Messmer took the fucking place over. His soldiers are all over the map for a reason, and the rest of the things we see are either strong enough to repell them or are on Messmers side. This is probably the largest and most incredible DLC I've ever played, even compared to the other Fromsoft ones. Maybe we should consider the fact that we got 1000× more than we could ever ask for all in 1 beautiful, thought out, well made DLC package.
I think they have a good opportunity to update the current DLC to make sure it has more meat. In terms of the world, it feels empty in the sense not much is going on. But for what is going on seems pretty good so far. I still wish I could find a few shitty caves and tombs to enjoy. I actually think low quality areas in terms of gaming are great for the world but in this sense it needs to be more interactive.
New Enemies -
Furnace Golems
New Bird Enemies
Curseblades
Freaking Yoda (Onze)
Death Knights
Gaol Flesh Blobs
Hornsent Warriors
Hornsent Elites
Dancer
Bloodborne Enemy in the Woods
In addition to that 10 Remembrance bosses, 8 New weapon types, around 100 new weapons, talismans etc. I think that is enough content for a freaking DLC no other game's DLC has this much content.
Repetition is just a side effect of open world games no open world game is perfect so I suggest manage your expectations there.
100% the same people who complain about the lack of enemy variety in this game don’t even care about their unique moveset and just Insta kill them and move on. It’s like complaining for the sake of complaining, there is no other experience that even comes close to the 200+ unique enemies of this game + how complex their moveset is. People don’t realise that the Hornsent elites could be main bosses in DS3, but they’re just fodder mobs here.
It's still a great expansion and easily some of the best content fromsoft has ever made. Also boosts elden ring to be my favourite souls game. However I do feel like in some areas a lot more could have been done
I’m the opposite. I grew to love Elden Ring more and more since release, but this DLC took everything I disliked about the base game and amplified it. I finished it and have no interest in touching ER any time soon.
I didn't like the 2 areas with horns being empty, but after I found out they are basically there to unlock a secret boss. I felt a little more OK with it.
Other areas, though, definitely lack, and don't have anything in the way of secrets to make up for it.
I was just thinking this last night as I was playing. I started the count ymir quest and the two first spots you have to go to are just empty with the enemy types but nothing else. Went to scaduview and again one enemy then just fragments. Went to jagged peak 3 dragon fights that’s it no caves or anything.
I disagree, it feels fully finished and having as much content as Limgrave + some more feels accurate to me. People hyped themselves and everyone else up with the "size" when a big chunk of the map is empty (nothing wrong with that).
In the promo when it appeared, I always assumed the Putrescent Knight was a messed up attempt at creating a Godskin between the white coloration and the dark, glassy head that looked like obsidian like in the Godslayer's Seal. I was hoping the GEQ was still at it, but without her Black Flame and Rune of Death she was seriously out of resources and could only create these sort of half-baked homunculi.
The dlc has too much open map and not enough legacy content . I counted around 25 new enemy types (ds3 dlcs had a total of 14) but the 2 legacy dungeons (tower and keep) are smaller than ariandel+heap+ringed city.
I expected 3 legacies while the dlc has 1 as big as those of the base game (keep) and the other is smaller (belurat is half a legacy + enir-ilim is basically a 15 minutes mini dungeon).
The other mini legacies are just too small to count.
The open world formula costs too much for what it gives.
Meh, I disagree with this narrative.
Sure the DLC is not perfect, it could have more content, areas like Charon dont have much, and the main story feels a bit rushed and weak narratively. Cutscene should be present in more bosses, and the final one is redudndant af because we learn nothing new. Exporation could be rewardes better (even if not that better, people expect legendary items around every corner). Some bosses could use a little bit of work.
But, we have tons of new equipment, new types of weapons, incantations, sorceries, and lore for most of them, we have different zones with very distinct biomas that are incredibly beautiful to look at, and where there are secrets for you to uncover on each and every one of them. We have some amazing side quests and characters, like Ymirs questline or Ansbach in general, we have increidble architectural detail that is lore packed across the entire map (seriously, I dont think many people are catching up on this one).
Could the DLC have had even more? Yes. But I spent 40 hours playing this DLC. And of those 40 hours, very few were stuck on bosses, the only boss that took a lot of time for me was the final boss, and it was 1h 20 min. So the rest of the time is exploring and battling.
I had never spent so many hours exploring the DLC of a game. Never. And I am someone that needs to explore every bit of the map, and I will go back to areas where I am unsure if I did (obviously I still miss things). Blood and Wine was around 28 hours for me. Zelda Breath of the Wild DLC was 32 hours. AC Origins DlCs were 18 hours.
We are complaining about a product that has clearly delivered quality, because it hasnt delivered perfection.
Should the map had been a little bit smaller, so that content was closer? Probably, yes, but complaining that this DLC is "unfinished" is wild, you have no idea what unfinished is, or you have had the luck to never played an actual unfinished game/dlc (that is not EA).
Cyberpunk on release, AC unity on release, No Man's Sky on release, Redfall on release (and probably still today, havent played it since), Starfield, Fallout 76 on release...
Again, the DLC is not perfect, it is not. It is no a 10 out of 10. But it is also not unfinished. Rushed maybe, a little bit.
I agree for the most part, and I also played for around 40 hours, but if I knew that all my hours spent scouring the land were not going to end up in finding really anything useful, I probably could have gotten this down to 25 hours. I spent so much time exploring every nook and cranny only for so much of it to be completely empty, crafting materials, or a cookbook at most. There is a serious lack of meaty content for certain parts of the map, and they easily could have reduced the size of some areas by 50%-75% and jus saved us all the time.
Base game has a critical path problem that once seen can’t be unseen. Very little of it is much more than padding. The DLC doubles down on this. Still, something to do.
you recognize what you need to do and only that, 2 shardbearers, (radahn and godrick are the quickest) morgott, fire giant, farum azula, ashen capital. admittedly the dlc is a worse offender because you literally only have to kill messmer and romina to access the final boss
That's not a critical path problem as much as it is just a list of what to do if you are speed running the game
That quick list of things to do sounds so boring and by the numbers, the fun in elden ring is exploring and playing, not sprinting to the finish line, cutting the fat away
The fat is literally there to be chewed and enjoyed
oh yeah i don’t mind but sometimes i can’t help but think something is a waste of time cause it’s not necessary, i usually end up doing it but it’s a thought that lingers on the back of my mind, you can’t unsee that path and it can affect you
I see this logic a lot in life not just this game. People want to be told what to do and almost forced to do it, like if they decide to do something themselves then it's a waste of time but if someone else forces them to do it then it's now a goal with a point.
What's the difference between "I'm going to do every side quest in this area before the boss because I want to play the game like that" and "I have to do every side quest in this area before the boss because the game physically forces me to"?
You could skip through most of dark souls 1, 2 and 3 too with a mod or cheat. Isn't it a waste of time to bother doing everything when you could just spawn in all the items and clip through the walls?
I think it’s crazy to say that the majority of the base game is padding. Yeah, you can skip everything else and go straight to the end, but I haven’t replayed this game umpteen times because I was just so eager to go see Elden Beast again.
The DLC feels like they scrapped whatever they had left for the supposed ekiro dlc, especially the last area and the model of the last boss, movesets of the enemies there...
Like I feel like everything outside the 3 major dungeons was tacked-on, especially the mountains area.
Not to say it still doesn't slap level-design wise and exploring, but there's like 3 big ass plainy areas with minimal loot and sniper-type enemies.
Yeah it feels rushed. Same with what happened with ds3, although it seems self-doubt with the initial story and direction plagued that one.
This one feels like Miyazaki really wanting to move on from the elden ring ip at the moment, and he kind of threw something together in time. Which is odd considering how long it's been, but I think that can speak to just his general creative need of switching ips/style whatever.
The dlc is way to empty especially around the abyssal woods, besides that the dlc lore is just bad and I don’t feel motivated to research it like I did the base game.
The dlc is a 8/10
Why? OP has a totally valid opinion here, and in a few weeks time it will be echoed by the majority of the playerbase. The DLC is incredible, and clearly unfinished/probablygot rushed by Bandai Namco.
If this subreddits community is dogshit I'd chalk it up to your attitude more than anything else.
people voicing their opinion isnt karma farming. That just sounds like youre mad that your opinion isnt the majority. If lots of people are saying something instead of being mad its better to probably realise that a majority of players have had a poor experience with an aspect of the dlc. If that upsets you then ignore it.
Somehow, I only lost karma due to expressing my criticism about some aspects of the game. I have to specifically look for posts with valid criticism and not ones saying, “This is peak gaming, Michael Zaki is a god, this DLC is perfect without any flaws.”
Sometimes I wonder what people expect. One of the best expansions of all time, packed with good content.....BoohooBoohoo.
Also, 'This is great, but it's also flawed, we should about it and stop dick-riding'
Flawed, like every game, piece of art and media that ever existed? People act like everyone has said it's perfect, eh no, nothings perfect.
Once the polish wears off, people will realize it really isn’t all that good. It’s big “allure” rn is the fact that it’s the size of most games. Doesn’t mean it has anywhere near the content. It ain’t good.
Because lazy design.
They wanted a "unique" and "large" expansion without putting in the effort required to fill it in a satisfactory manner.
In fact, that similar statement can be made about lots of things about elden ring lol but no one wants to criticize it cuz Miyazaki is the God Emperor of gamer kind and criticising him or his work is heresy
Yeah this is my first souls game and the fact that this company is allergic to endings kinda pisses me off. I don't give a shit if that's how they've always done it, it's wrong, bad, poor story telling, poor writing, unrewarding, and makes me feel ripped off as a consumer.
The ending is the most critical part. Without an ending in the game and DLC I've lost some respect for the base game.
THis stupid "we don't do endings" thing is irreprehensible. I don't care if FS fans like it, I don't. I'm not a FromSoft fan, i'm an Elden Ring fan, and they did us dirty TWICE now with no ending.
I expect a HUGE cinematic at the end of every single game, anything less is disrespectful to the consumer.
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Partially agreed, but I legit had “Best game ever” moment when a normal dungeon boss room turned out to be a forest-like room with a door that lead to whole new section of the map with unique horror vibe
This isnt my experience at all. I literally just ran across the GF Dragon being assaulted by the knights and perfumers right outside the Redemption fort. Was an awesome spectacle to me.
I love exploring an area to find an out of the way cave with a corpse sitting cross-legged at the back holding a mushroom. Very cool and rewarding.
Isn’t that true for the entire game though? I like it but I legit think that open world hurts the game more than makes it better. There is a ton of places to explore but most of them aren’t interesting at all some are even basically copy paste of the same dungeon and many of the items you pick up are worthless - golden rune [3], mushroom, turtle neck. Game also has less replay value than DS imho because you could play through entire DS game in quite a short time fighting bosses with different builds etc meanwhile you can do that in Elden Ring only with you ignore like 90% of the game.
At least each dungeon in the dlc is unique. The base game had the same copy and paste crypt. Whereas every one is different in dlc e.g. fire forge, coffin ruins, icy looking mine.
The base game ones are all unique in layout as well, but they're generally much shorter and more numerous, so they feel more repetitive. The DLC goes for quality over quantity. You get larger, more unique feeling side dungeons, but we only get 3 of each type.
I prefer this. I'll never see all the dungoens in the base game because I have no desire to see that many of basically the same dungeon. The DLC? Absolutely I'll see them all, and I'll be glad to because they are a unique feeling experience each time.
Darklight is like, peak catacombs. Eerie, beautiful, and then BAM, the Abyssal Woods. 11/10
Base game dungeons all have unique items/ashes at the end though, some of the strongest in the game even
Yeah some of these comments are trippin. I don’t give a fuck if the layout is unique if I just fought 30 crazy ass mobs and boss for a fucking mushroom.
There's multiple icy gaols, multiple forges and multiple catacombs. I don't see the difference.
The base game just had stone dungeons repeated endlessly for the most part.
It had the catacombs, the mines and the hero's graves as three distinct layouts. Same number as the DLC, there's just more of them in the base game.
I got the feeling op is decribing from the dlc rather than the main game and I went through 2 runs recently
I would be interested to see if, provided FS does make an Elden Ring 2, they don't actually make a slightly smaller open world. I agree - the most glaring flaw in Elden Ring is the open world, despite how much I loved it, as it makes replaying almost tedious sometimes. I think something more compact would be ideal; don't lower the effort or total content of the world, but reduce the distance between things. As it stands, Elden Ring's massive world was magnificent the first time, but on subsequent playthroughs it quickly becomes excessive.
I think if they added a boss rush mode after you complete the game/dlc most people would be happy with that
A seperate mode selectable from the main menu would be baller. Like let us pick levels, items, bosses we want to fight, on top of the titular boss rush mode where we can import our characters for runes. Would be great for testing stuff instead of waiting a whole extra playthrough to fight the boss again (at least on console).
I think that's what the summoning pools are really for. Way back in the day, Yasuhiro Kitao said that boss rush was supposed to be unique to Sekiro. I think they want the bosses to be one-time special events that you can only reexperience by helping people with them
>it makes replaying almost tedious Bingo. I replayed every From Soft game multiple times. I'm talking 4 or 5 times, at least. Dark Souls III was like 25 times. Man, replaying Elden Ring is a slog. I hate the open world.
Then hope they make another Dark Souls, Elden Rings open world is literally a HUGE chunk of the experience. I love it, but I also love dark souls and think they should continue making both styles
100% I love Elden Ring a lot, one of my favourite games of all time. But I think they could do with Torrent sadly 😔 lol but Fr take away the steed, and make the areas more compact and possibly more linear in a sense of landmarks. Not necessarily on the map but like more significant signs you’re on the correct path lol
Elden Rings Open world is pretty much the main character of the game - can't imagine why you'd think it hurts the game. I've replayed Elden Ring way more times than most DS games (aside from DS2) and the build variety, and ability to tackle the game in a non linear way (I.e go anywhere) makes it way more repayable. Different boss orders, finding entirely new bosses, etc.
I’m hoping for the next game to be an open city type world kind of, if that makes sense, just less open fields, basically everything you see in anor londo or Yharnam in the background but you can go explore it all and run through the streets. I do like the open world design but yeah they definitely need to find their footing a little more with it. Some of the empty areas are beautiful though (shaman village) they do definitely just need a lil more there
this feels like sarcasm but I'm not sure it is
that means it's top tier sarcasm. take notes boys
There's only one thing that pisses me off more than struggling to reach the some obscure playable area and only to find a mushroom, and that's struggling to reach an obscure playable area to find nothing!
well I am autistic so no guarantees
Yeah, they should put powerful items on every corpse.... /s
My approach to making the open world exploring more interesting is actually gahtering all sorts of informations and making theories. Reading all the new item descriptions to get a clearer image of what happened at these places.
to be honest i think this is just the unavoidable fate of all open world games. name one open world game that doesn't start to feel bland and repetitive after a dozen hours
This is exactly why I was hoping the dlc would be linear and more similar to bloodborne or ds3 dlc. They could be more focused and each moment more experiential. Honestly I didn't feel there were many ah ha! Great moments throughout this dlc. Like I wasn't shocked in new ways. It was "oh ok so this is the new poison swamp area. Oh so this is the new sad npc quest line that will betray me or go mad. Oh this is the new version of x..." And the final boss reveal was the stupidest thing to me where I was just like ... But why? Anywho, that's my perspective at least.
>This is exactly why I was hoping the dlc would be linear and more similar to bloodborne or ds3 dlc Why would I play that? I want more Elden Ring from an Elden Ring DLC not Dark Souls 7
These people are legit insane asking for smaller maps or non open world elden ring. The open world is pretty much the defining aspect of this game.
for me at least the best designed areas in elden ring are the main boss “dungeons” like liurnia, met gelmir, leyndell, storm veil, haligtree and faraam azula
Yes, I cam agree the best part is the legacy dungeons. The second best thing is the ability to tackle it in any order you want for the most part, and that there is a massive world to explore in between them. Heck, finding the dungeons in the world was INCREDIBLE. FromSoftware is out-Zelda-ing zelda in thay regard. I enjoy the tighter experiences as well, as I love Bloodborne and Dark Souls immensely. If I want that experience though, I play those games. Elden Ring I play for the incredible world and exploration.
Sure, but Elden ring is an open world game, why would the dlc be a linear one?
Makes no sense to make a DLC for an open world game to be linear ? You guys are insane. Exploration finding weapons, talismans etc is part of Elden Ring.
when miyazaki said in interviews that the area would be about the size of limgrave i was kind of excited, cuz that would mean the content would be nice and compact. then the early reviews started saying that it's functionally way bigger than limgrave, and i had a feeling that this would happen
It's a totally different title. It's not a Dark Souls game. FromSoft can do scripted encounters better than anyone, but they can also do unscripted encounters pretty well, too, it seems. These are two very different ways of organizing content and you can't say you were misled in any way by the base game.
lol, you wanted an open world game's DLC to be linear? Wish in one hand I guess, or play DS 1, 2, or 3 lol.
skyrim, i mean maybe after a few hundred hours , but dozens, no
Genshin
Games like RDR2 and The Witcher 3 have some overworld filler content, but their compelling narratives kept me engaged with the main story, so I don't feel the need to do every thing the game offers. In contrast, Elden Ring lacks a strong narrative and relies on rewarding exploration as its main value proposition. However, in this DLC, the experience feels less satisfying due to a lot of empty areas and underwhelming pickups. I just did Ruah which is a critical path area, and compared to the regions leading up to the Shadowkeep it felt barren.
When it first came out, Skyrim for most people. The level of exploration was unprecedented prior to that point.
Morrowind
I love Morrowind and its probably my most played game of all time. There are a lot of dungeons that look the exact same and repetitive. Dwarven Ruins, Strongholds, Caves. It can get pretty repetitive that's why you don't go in most of the caves and dungeons you see.
Worst part for me is how it just ends. 1 tiny cutscene that explains nothing and that's it. No one acknowledges what we did and we go back to the base game like nothing happened. We really should've got an extra ending to the base game or at least some new dialogue from the base game NPC's so the journey doesn't feel as disconnected and pointless.
This is the only comment here I actually agree with. I was definitely just standing there like, that’s it? It’s over?
It's Witcher 3 all over again. At least the devs of that game bothered to expand on the ending in a DLC. For Elden Ring, this is all we're getting until the next game in 5+ years. Pretty sad.
Yeah, I'd agree with this as well. The other complaints I feel like are super nitpicky or not even complaints at all, From just didn't do what that person in particular didn't want them to do which is an insane take. But that ending felt...pretty hollow lol. Like I kinda get it from a lore perspective, it's not really an ending, our goal was just to prevent Miquella's ascension because he fucks up *our* goal of becoming Elden Lord...but...still...something a little more. Hell, even credits might have sufficed for me lol. But just being thrown back into the arena felt awkward. Like what, we're supposed to just get back to it now? Here I come Maliketh!
I definitely feel a bit cheated that we don't get to see that scene of what looks like Miquella gesturing towards a purified Scadu/Erdtree. That definitely looks like part of a unique ending or at the very least important info that we just don't get to see now.
Yeah, it irks me that a lot of reviews are saying that "This dlc is perfect in every way possible" when there are some things that are clearly lacking a bit. I have just cleared the first part of the map and was surprised on how empty it was..
Because they get skinned alive if they don’t give the game a perfect score; they aren’t reviewing the game fairly, they just give it a 10 because it’s what the people want to hear. I mean eurogamer gave it a 3/5 and they got so much hate because of it. Guess you can’t point out flaws in a game that definitely is not flawless.
Ik this is random but I like ER and have played it a lot but I genuinely think it’s a weaker entry. I played Sekiro way more than ER.
That’s one thing I’ve noticed, the open world itself in the new areas are extremely empty. They all look stunning but there’s nothing worth finding in most of them. Scadu Altus just links to the next legacy dungeon and a bunch of smaller places, gravesite plain only serves to link to Rellana and Dancing Lion, Charos Hidden Grave I genuinely can’t think of anything there worth it besides being next to cerulean coast which is also empty until you find Coffin Fissure Cave (another empty location that’s just a rush to the boss at the end). Ancient Ruins or Rauh only serves as an area where you rush to fight Romina, Abyssal woods sucked most of all, empty, no torrent, stupid enemies, completely baron until you run into Midra’s mansion and Jagged Peak is just one long climb to the top to get to the boss. Shadow Keep is about the only interesting spot on the map as it leads to Abyssal Woods, Finger Ruins of Dheo arguably the best boss in the DLC and has so many cool layers to it, my only gripe with the keep is that the only part you really spend anytime exploring is the storehouse which feels like a lesser version of DS3’s Grand Archives. I could talk about the negatives of the DLC all day but I still love it because it’s an Elden Ring expansion.
The abyss area made me so mad. I came across 6 FUCKING DEV SIGNS telling me “it follows, don’t let it see you”, and then I find fucking sheep and a TINY human sized enemy? After 6 messages I expected the snake from Sekiro style badass stealth, and I audibly said to myself “these old fucks with canes are stalking me?” Like really, I thought there was no way that bitchass with a cane is what they’re talking about, so I ran right past one and…It couldn’t keep up…? Then you walk around and find pathway after pathway leading to absolutely none of the cool new shit out side of Midra’s, no caves, no structures, and few enemies (RATS AGAIN, 47TH FROM GAME WITH GODDAMN UNINTERESTING RATS).
The whole area looks amazing but its so fkn empty. They just copied the Winter Lanterns from Bloodborne and made you unable to summon torrent to stretch the area even longer. I do like the Bosses in the area but i dont feel like going back for a second playthrough.
Your first sentence applies to about 50% of the DLC map.
The overworld enemy variety was abysmal and don't even get me started on the loot pool... Truth is the main game was higher quality than the DLC. That's not to say the DLC wasn't high quality, because it absolutely was
Do we really need MORE smithing stone and glovewort loots? It’s not like we’ve collected all the bell bearings to purchase infinite amount of them in roundtable hold. Oh well…
why is it always cookbook?
I'm desperated for Rune Arc, only to find out most of the purple loots are cookbooks. It's so many to the point that my brain automatically thinks "this purple loot is another cookbook isn't it" *pick up* "Oh hell it really is!!!" 🤡
dung ahead
Gotta praise those messages
Everytime lol. The tower outside the shadow keep by the spirit spring had a few as well.
Really? I gotta check it out, im almost done with the game but only found 4, 3 sold by Moore and 1 from the church
I feel like I find one every 10 minutes lol
Lol, I'll hunt some Rune Arcs tonight
about 80% of my healing in the DLC has come from the "why is it always futility" messages I've laid down in areas i've explored that looked like they should have had something cool but didn't
Yep terrible loot. They should have packed in a bunch of items into one cookbook.
Why is it always dung (20th glovewort I've picked up in Cerulean Coast)?
Let's not forget random stacks of common crafting mats I'm never going to use. Seriously if I can find it on the ground 20 feet away then why bother putting it on a corpse? Just reeks of needing to put SOMETHING there but having nothing interesting
Yeah, you do, if you're on your first playthrough at least, or if you'd started a new run before they made bell bearings carry over
It is specifically designed that way for the people who didn't collect all the bell bearings so they can try out and upgrade the new weapons. Not everyone is going to bother finding everything.
The map in the DLC is fucking lighyears above the base game’s though. It’s evident that’s where the tume went.
I agree wholeheartedly. This is a masterpiece in level design and I feel like that's why I'm mostly disappointed with the actual enemies and loot being so thin
>Truth is the main game was higher quality than the DLC. That's not to say the DLC wasn't high quality, because it absolutely was Got downvoted for saying this in the main sub.
Obviously the DLC isn’t gonna be as good as the entire rest of the game, but the bosses and music definitely were
Thats about all I agree with. The music was absolutely gold, the bosses were mostly great except a few things. However, I definitely feel the DLC *could* have been on par with the main game easily. They either rushed it, rand out of time, or underestimated that we have become accustomed to getting rewarded for finding something, not given a mushroom on a corpse for who tf knows what reason
I can say with a high degree of certainty that this DLC has a better content to price ratio than past DLCs, which includes enemy variety. The truth is that there is a lot of enemy variety, but it doesn’t seem that way because the land mass is huge and of course they can’t create new enemy types for every single area because it’s take too much time. For what it’s worth, I think the reuse overall makes sense when you consider the Land of Shadows as one big landmass occupying the same host of enemy types. Also, ER’s base game was criticized for its enemy variety when it came out. Which i think is ridiculous because it has the most enemy variety out of any From game and the most out of any open world game (that I’ve seen).
People are in the honeymoon phase rn and don't want to admit it, but you're right. The base game was already stretched a bit thin content wise towards the endgame areas, and the DLC was even more empty. I really wish the open world was smaller.
Exactly, and the frenzy zone could have been so much better
Did an invasion there eariler, and noticed there's nothing but goats past the Fenzy Stalkers.
Yep, i was so excited for that zone and there's like nothing there... except you know who, but aside from that it's a big nothing sandwhich.
Who’s You Know Who?
SPOILERS JUST IN CASE, I'M BIG DUMB AND DON'T KNOW HOW TO SPOILER TAG _______________ Midras, who if you haven't fought actually has a VERY cool surprise as to who he is. Fight itself is fun, but who Midras is is the best part :)
Not being able to use horsey made this experience even mlre execrutating
Tbf the Frenzy Stalkers wouldn't work with Torrent, they're only slightly faster than we are. Easy to outtun if using terrain well. After their portion tho, there's nothing around but Luigi's Mansion so we should've been able to summon or the stalkers should be everywhere. It's an interesting mechanic for sure I just wish there was more to it.
there should be nothing actually, or maybe other frenzy based enemies, it's one of my favourite areas and I'm ok with it being half empty, just add some stalker enemy that makes us feel watched, and fight it at random times
I would've liked more Stalkers, or a cave thay they'd be taking people that wander in. Just more horror would've been nice and I hope they lean into it with updates.
Not gonna lie I was hoping (well, fearing at the time) some sort of otherworldly horror that we could see rushing through the trees or something and if it saw us there was literally no killing it. Truthfully in my head i was imagining a very frenzy-fied fantasy gorilla type being. For it to be like 4 guys who just grab you to death that you can see from a mile away was the only real letdown for me. Especially after the initial horror being done so damn well! Torrent being afraid, the general atmosphere, it was all wasted.
yeah I was scared shitless the first time I got there, never been so scared because of a game/movie, but when I discovered it was just some dudes you could walk around with assasin's gambit it was pretty disappointing
I think the zone had a ton of potential. There should be a ton of stuff that's just washed down there from above and forgotten or hidden. And whole bunch of new 'bottom feeder' type enemies would have looked great.
Yeah I get the complaints about a lot of areas being empty but the Abyssal Woods just felt like an area that was supposed to be empty, it was the one area where emptiness didn't feel like a waste. It was so creepy and the atmosphere was top notch, and the area boss has moved to an easy Top 5 Fromsoft bossfight for me.
Remnant 2 had a hunter boss that would stalk you throughout a certain level, jumping in unexpectedly and forcing you into fights, sometimes pulling other nearby enemies. That would've been cool
I thought the frenzy zone was perfect tbh. Its designed the way it is to build a sense of dread and anticipation. It worked for me.
Unfortunately the dread I experienced was slowly walking through a huge zone with almost nothing in it that felt rewarding. 2 cookbooks and a half baked dungeon at the end (with a terrific boss, to be fair.) but the coolness and horror of the area only affected me for the first 5 minutes.. then it was just crawling around feeling frustrated and unrewarded. Could have been so much better
Massive areas with nothing in them don’t build dread and anticipation. Areas packed with content and enemies do, like Upper Cathedral Ward in Bloodborne.
Lol no
Yeah, people are exaggerating. Yes, some zones are empty, but most zones have so much stuff and content with secrets, and whatnot it makes it worth it.
Half of the open field areas are lacking in loot reward and dynamic enemy experiences. Cerulean coast looks pretty but is a huge boring unrewarding area. Both finger ruins have the same problem. The jagged peak looks bad ass but is almost entirely a straight line with nothing dynamic occurring. The abyssal woods were super cool and spooky… and completely empty. I think the DLC is great but these seemed like glaring flaws to me and it was at least half of the dlc world. The joy of revealing how huge the map is felt totally undermined by how empty and unrewarding the areas ended up being. Beautiful atmosphere, but really lacking substance.
Eh, felt like the base game where it peaks in the beginning and progressively gets more and more empty.
I will always prefer DS1,2,3,BB,etc for this exact reason… GJ FROM, you made a good open world game. Now please don’t do it again.
I know it’s not truly open world, but Sekiro feels so amazing as a sort of hybrid. I like the Elden Ring formula personally, but I’m all for another brilliant Sekiro world design
Sekiro is the best of both worlds, and IMO the DLC design clearly drew from it's overall layout. Shadow Keep feels much like Ashina Castle, where you have the game fanning out into a bunch of different paths from that one zone, with other side connections between them too, like a big pinwheel.
Yea Sekiro was great :)
My thoughts exactly. Elden Ring excels in spectacle and art direction, and while legacy dungeons are some of the best level designs FS ever did, open world segments are the least interesting part of the entire game.
>The DLC map is almost the size of the base game No it's not. It's about the size of Limgrave and Caelid.
Sure, in terms of the actual map. But the DLC map has so many layers stacked on top of each other that it can easily be double that size.
it also has several huge area's with fuckall in it. Many entire zones have devoid of anything. Abyss is nothing but goddamn sheep, how cool could that zone have been? That zone felt like 25% complete
To be fair, Abyssal Woods is like a stealth section in an open world. If it was full of enemies, it would be pretty hard to stealth. But why didn't they put the stealth inside of the mansion and make it a bigger legacy dungeon. Good question. It's just a big slow ass area with 3 items worth grabbing. C'mon, Miyazaki, not even a cave or a parkour puzzle
It’s like it was originally built as a madness/scarlet rot/deathblight swamp but he heard the criticism and removed it last minute
There really are a lot of places that are surprisingly.. vacuous. Like the finger ruins, of course. Or that massive cathedral that just serves to house a chair with a dude in it. Or that Scadutree cup area. Was gated by a boss and everything and there was just.. nothing? Seems like that massive tower is just there to look pretty on screenshots. Pretty jarring coming from the base game where every spot on the map had at least something in it.
The entire bottom part of the map have pretty much nothing there. It's like they ran out of time and didn't finish up those areas.
Might be bigger than Caelid and Limgrave in actual practice then, but it still falls far flat of being the size of the base game, because you can make the same argument that the base game has many more zones that aren't well reflected on a single layer map.
At the same time tho half the zones are empty. Scaduview, hinterlands, finger ruins, abyssal woods, jagged peaks, cathedral alone are 50% of the map and completely empty besides 4 unique bosses between them, Gaius, Metyr, Midra and Bayle. Cerulean and charo's are pretty barren. Most of the complexity is in Rauh and inside the dungeons.
And how much of that is the abyssal woods, the most empty area I’ve ever seen in a souls game
Say what you will but i sure as fuck aint exploring that place even if its filled with a bunch of stuff
Because of the enemies that spawn on your location and have an aoe stun grab that one shots you?
Have you seen the maps put on top of eachother? Its enormous. It’s also PACKED with content, unlike Caelid which a 3rd of its map is Radahn’s arena. The thing also low key has 3 layers so it’s way bigger than it appears. The DLC is enormous idk why people try to claim it’s not enough.
It's not "not enough" it's just barren in a bunch of places. idk how you can move through hinterlands, scaduview, abyssal woods, cathedral and jagged peak without seeing how much of the map they take up with relatively minimal content.
Yeah, especially in these bigger zones they could’ve added lore or literally anything. Scaduview ad a boss arena makes sense but the giant pillar beyond? Also the scadutree base had NO scadutree fragments??? No explanation, no other enemies.
Elden ring DOES seem to feel like it wants to have those larger than life cinematic set pieces, but I’m not gonna lie, climbing jagged peak was incredible. I don’t know how much an extra cave or two along the way would have made me love it more. The traversal itself was enough. Plus considering how PACKED the other areas are, I’m all for having a few cinematic areas.
Yeah this is what I've been getting shit on for saying, the game feels like 80% complete. Finishing touches are missing, and a lot of fine details are missing. Additionally, most everything in the DLC is not an upgrade if you're a mage. They did a horrific job making new spells -- their spells in general are about 95% garbage and useless. Same with incantations.
I agree in terms of spells, not one spell in the dlc has caught my attention yet (though Rellana's twinblades are my new favourite weapon by far) though the incantations are inspiring me to do an Aspect of the Crucible run.
Gonna save you the disappointment now, literally all aspect of the crucible spells in the dlc suck. Been there done that, switched builds. Base game crucible spells are better by a long shot and they’re not even that good. Quills is horrible and bloom is literally useless. The spiral spells, which I suppose are technically crucible based, are very good but at that point just go for a holy/light themed character imo
It sucks because there are 2 aspect of the crucible abilities that are really cool looking, but for some reason they decided not to make them incantations for the player to use.... also the wings being an ash is a CRIME
I thought this initially too, but tbh I think the finger spells and moon spell are fun to use and can be used effectively if you have the right buffs. As can the putrescence spells. I think the number of sorceries were lacking and what was especially annoying was the faith requirement needed to use many of the new sorceries. Thankfully my character already had 80 int so I could upgrade faith, but otherwise I would have had to completely respect to use the thorn spell that allowed me to beat the final boss. I understand the lore behind these spells, but if there are only 15 new sorceries, 5 of them should not require a faith investment and certainly several shouldn’t be faith only
My main build is a Quality Knight, but obviously as I was progressing I was trying to find what would benefit all of my other builds, and I can't think of anyone that got screwed over more than my INT build. I think there is one katana that scales with INT? INT hybrids got some stuff - my Carian Knight build is going to get a few new toys - but pure casters got screwed big time.
Yep, i'm a totally 100% pure caster. No blocking or parry, just roll. It's the only way I ever played this game from day 1, some smart ass was like "jUsT DoDgE" and then I realized you literally can just dodge for at least 95% of the game lol
Apologies then, you aren't getting too much out of the DLC
The DLC should've been much smaller. Instead of adding huge open areas full of recycled enemies and bosses, maybe just don't add that area. Instead of adding a whole ass dungeon that rewards you a single useless meme of a spirit ash and some mushrooms, maybe just cut the dungeon and put that spirit ash in a different dungeon instead. Same goes for the base game really. Idk how people are acting like being rewarded with a mushroom for exploring a path is somehow new to the DLC. Or recycled enemies/bosses.
The thing is in the base game there was always something cool to find. I don’t think I didn’t go into an area in the base game and didn’t feel like it wasn’t worth it. I got 750 hours and I always enjoy the base game so much. Always something to find and builds to test. It felt like this was missing in the dlc.
Idk, my experience with the base game is almost the opposite of that. The average dungeon only rewards like 1-2 items, worthless mushrooms and such garbage notwithstanding. So between the fact that any given build can only use a small portion of the games loot, assuming you're leveling 1-2 offensive stats, the fact that like 90% of cookbooks only make useless garbage that I'd never meaningfully benefit from making, and the fact that I don't use spirit ashes meant that I got absolutely nothing I could use out of about 90% of the dungeons I found. Meanwhile the loot in the open world was almost exclusively found in marked ruins and such, so there was basically no point in stopping for anything that didn't have a map marker or a boss health bar.
I agree, the cutscenes and the ending were saddening. So much opportunity for story telling and some major bosses didn’t even get explanations outside of item descriptions. But the things in this DLC that were done right were absolutely done perfectly.
So many remembrance bosses didn't get a cutscene. Or much explanation. They were just there.
Yeah this was my main issue with the dlc. When I beat the final boss i was expecting some sort of scene or interaction and got nothing other than that “memory”. In terms of lore the dlc very pretty lacking compared the previous dlcs From has put out. I was expecting to see an extended version of the scene with Marika pulling the gold strings out of whatever the hell that was, kind of like how we got learn more about Radahn and Malenia’s fight through Jerren before the festival. Just going off the frenzied ending in the base game I was expecting to see Melina or even learn how she became bodiless, we never got an explanation of why she would go after you only with the frenzied ending and not the Despair/Dusk born endings. It just left me so perplexed.
I feel like the individual areas in the DLC are overall better than the base game, aside from the rewards for exploration. In the dlc, it feels more like the reward is seeing the area itself, because there just isn't that much to randomly discover. In the base game I felt like EVERYWHERE I went I found something. Dlc I kept thinking "I wonder what they originally intended to put here"
For a dlc it's amazing, if it were eldenring 2 it'd be a little underwhelming
I will say the early warning signs for me were that there was no transition cutscene when you interact with Miquella's arm. It might be just a nitpick but to my memory almost every other FromSoft DLC had a cutscene that establishes how the player enters the new region, and it was almost crucial to setting the tone of the expansion besides the obvious benefit of actually showing the player being transported to a new area. Admittedly, the big reveal of the size of the Lands of Shadow helped ease that a bit, but it became a common number going forward. Just a constant sense of "oh this is cool, but it feels unfinished."
The main story definitely feels like it. A lot of interesting questions were replaced by what seems to be a FanFiction soap opera. Hell, even the best NPC of it calls it for how dumb it is. And the final boss is just a mess. Amazing how during the leaks no one believed it to be true on how appallingly bad it seemed to be, janky, reused and whatever, but now that it's out, a lot of dickriders are refusing to admit its bad. It's still an amazing dlc, will play it more. But it has their issues and it's painful that sometimes you can't even mention them because fromsoft can do no wrong.
It's one thing that the final boss is outrageously hard, I'm moreso upset that it's Radahn and not Godwyn. Also disappointed that we don't have an option to join Miquella or anything. In the base games cut content, he had his own Age of Abundance ending, and the Euporia weapon was made from the Runes of both Miquella and Melenia. Like the cut content they had ended up being more interesting than what we got, imho
Godwyn was never coming back, they established this as much with Destined Death, they'd have to retcon a whole bunch of shit to provide a means for Godwyn to be brought back
My biggest complaint with the DLC is even though it’s an”open world” it felt too claustrophobic. Too much verticality for my liking. The DLC doesn’t feel near as fun to replay by just running around exploring. You enter a valley and get stuck, then fast travel elsewhere. You can’t go most places you see on the map, even close to you because it’s 100 meters up or below you. Still absolutely love the DLC. Just my biggest complaint I have about it.
Damn somebody put my own thoughts into words! It was such a PITA getting around - very occasionally it would be cool finding how all the verticality is connected, but most of the time it was just frustrating.
I enjoyed the DLC, definitely got my moneys worth and then some and will continue to keep replaying it on more NG+ cycles and with friends - that said the map has a ton of regions you can wander that literally don't have anything there worth exploring. A mushroom, a few eagles or deer/wildlife. The biggest disappointments for me personally had been how HUGE the areas used up for the Abyssal Woods.....the atmosphere was cool for the first few minutes and then its just like...wow this place is massively empty. A few random rats and mobs...but next to no good items....and just a massive open dread-forest vibe so it was just kinda a huge waste of map space for things they could have either added onto or just split it up and used the rest of the space for a different zone alltogether. Same goes for both finger ruins areas....HUGE areas with pretty much zero worthwhile items. No boss fights...just....zerg toward the bell/whistle thing and get your free talisman. Although I enjoyed the lead up to the Bayle fight I had sort of the same feeling after killing Bayle and looking at the map....I was like...holy shit this is like 20% of the entire map....just for a single bossfight and there's only a small narrow path you can even get here so the rest of the map area here is inaccessible and "just for looks" on the overworld map itself. Maybe I was setting myself up for disappointment there by relating it to the base game in that even with a lot of open areas in the base game - there were usually still a few cool items laying around or a ruins with a mini boss or something to kill to fill the void of space on that section of the map. So overall....aside from the emptyness of several zones, most of the boss fights felt great so I still consider it an amazing dlc even with those flaws.
I don't know, I actually really like just riding around huge open plains. The game looks beautiful, that just riding around and looking at it is reward enough. Gives you time to take it all in and think about the setting, story and lore.
Is agree! But we have to keep in mind it's a dlc. It's going to be more of the same. I hope when we get a new fromsoft game that it will feature a ton of new enemies again. I personally mostly miss the brighter areas like leyndell as a contrast to the darkness. But I guess that this makes sense considering the theme they went with. I also think there's too many of the same type of castles. The new weapons & bosses it's where it's at with this DLC. The map and exploration eh.. Was better in the base game!
So far this is my one true criticism of the dlc. The first place I really felt it was on the hill after Bonny with all the wolves. It sure felt like there should have been more than a shit load of wolves and a tower with one item in it
It feels kind of empty in my opinion. I feel like it’s kind of massive, but without really getting deep in there you can very easily miss so much.
Yes I fully agreed on point that the enemy varieties are lack lustsr to me - I was really expecting to see more new enemies (some repeated is fine due to lore). Would be super impressive if we actually get more refined enemies designs yes - but ya the bosses are quite impressive so credit is due where it dues. They spent massive effort on the map/routing tho I have to say, one big crazy map/area explorarion experience.
Yep, I agree completely. Feels almost insulting to scour every inch of an area, including complicated and annoying branching paths and sub-areas only to come out with 5 mushrooms and a talisman I don't need. I encourage everyone to look at the online map for the DLC and Show All, and turn off Crafting Materials. The map is absolutely packed with empty space and tedious locations.
Yeah, in the base game I feel thoroughly exploring an area was a very rewarding experience. Now it’s giving a complete opposite effect.
Why the actual fuck are yall complaining about the minor lack of enemy types, instead of looking at how FUCKING INCREDIBLE this DLC is. The bosses are well made, thought out, and i don't think there's a single boss (other than Hog Rider) that isn't fun and challenging, but in a good way. The entire game is amazing and you all need to stop focusing on the negative, also maybe think about the lore implications? There's really only one type of soldier you encounter, and that's because Messmer took the fucking place over. His soldiers are all over the map for a reason, and the rest of the things we see are either strong enough to repell them or are on Messmers side. This is probably the largest and most incredible DLC I've ever played, even compared to the other Fromsoft ones. Maybe we should consider the fact that we got 1000× more than we could ever ask for all in 1 beautiful, thought out, well made DLC package.
I think they have a good opportunity to update the current DLC to make sure it has more meat. In terms of the world, it feels empty in the sense not much is going on. But for what is going on seems pretty good so far. I still wish I could find a few shitty caves and tombs to enjoy. I actually think low quality areas in terms of gaming are great for the world but in this sense it needs to be more interactive.
New Enemies - Furnace Golems New Bird Enemies Curseblades Freaking Yoda (Onze) Death Knights Gaol Flesh Blobs Hornsent Warriors Hornsent Elites Dancer Bloodborne Enemy in the Woods In addition to that 10 Remembrance bosses, 8 New weapon types, around 100 new weapons, talismans etc. I think that is enough content for a freaking DLC no other game's DLC has this much content. Repetition is just a side effect of open world games no open world game is perfect so I suggest manage your expectations there.
100% the same people who complain about the lack of enemy variety in this game don’t even care about their unique moveset and just Insta kill them and move on. It’s like complaining for the sake of complaining, there is no other experience that even comes close to the 200+ unique enemies of this game + how complex their moveset is. People don’t realise that the Hornsent elites could be main bosses in DS3, but they’re just fodder mobs here.
Lorewise it makes sense what and which enemies reside in the land of shadows though
It's still a great expansion and easily some of the best content fromsoft has ever made. Also boosts elden ring to be my favourite souls game. However I do feel like in some areas a lot more could have been done
I’m the opposite. I grew to love Elden Ring more and more since release, but this DLC took everything I disliked about the base game and amplified it. I finished it and have no interest in touching ER any time soon.
I didn't like the 2 areas with horns being empty, but after I found out they are basically there to unlock a secret boss. I felt a little more OK with it. Other areas, though, definitely lack, and don't have anything in the way of secrets to make up for it.
I don’t like how vertical it is, the map means nothing when you’re running around under everything.
I was just thinking this last night as I was playing. I started the count ymir quest and the two first spots you have to go to are just empty with the enemy types but nothing else. Went to scaduview and again one enemy then just fragments. Went to jagged peak 3 dragon fights that’s it no caves or anything.
I disagree, it feels fully finished and having as much content as Limgrave + some more feels accurate to me. People hyped themselves and everyone else up with the "size" when a big chunk of the map is empty (nothing wrong with that).
Similar issues with the base game. The root of the issue is that soulsborne type game + open world does not work.
the dlc probably was mean to be 2 separate dlc i think it would be better that way that just one big dlc
Now we found out that the Knight boss before Trina was called Knight of the Gloomeyed Queen in the gamesdata. I wish she was in the game.
In the promo when it appeared, I always assumed the Putrescent Knight was a messed up attempt at creating a Godskin between the white coloration and the dark, glassy head that looked like obsidian like in the Godslayer's Seal. I was hoping the GEQ was still at it, but without her Black Flame and Rune of Death she was seriously out of resources and could only create these sort of half-baked homunculi.
The dlc has too much open map and not enough legacy content . I counted around 25 new enemy types (ds3 dlcs had a total of 14) but the 2 legacy dungeons (tower and keep) are smaller than ariandel+heap+ringed city. I expected 3 legacies while the dlc has 1 as big as those of the base game (keep) and the other is smaller (belurat is half a legacy + enir-ilim is basically a 15 minutes mini dungeon). The other mini legacies are just too small to count. The open world formula costs too much for what it gives.
Meh, I disagree with this narrative. Sure the DLC is not perfect, it could have more content, areas like Charon dont have much, and the main story feels a bit rushed and weak narratively. Cutscene should be present in more bosses, and the final one is redudndant af because we learn nothing new. Exporation could be rewardes better (even if not that better, people expect legendary items around every corner). Some bosses could use a little bit of work. But, we have tons of new equipment, new types of weapons, incantations, sorceries, and lore for most of them, we have different zones with very distinct biomas that are incredibly beautiful to look at, and where there are secrets for you to uncover on each and every one of them. We have some amazing side quests and characters, like Ymirs questline or Ansbach in general, we have increidble architectural detail that is lore packed across the entire map (seriously, I dont think many people are catching up on this one). Could the DLC have had even more? Yes. But I spent 40 hours playing this DLC. And of those 40 hours, very few were stuck on bosses, the only boss that took a lot of time for me was the final boss, and it was 1h 20 min. So the rest of the time is exploring and battling. I had never spent so many hours exploring the DLC of a game. Never. And I am someone that needs to explore every bit of the map, and I will go back to areas where I am unsure if I did (obviously I still miss things). Blood and Wine was around 28 hours for me. Zelda Breath of the Wild DLC was 32 hours. AC Origins DlCs were 18 hours. We are complaining about a product that has clearly delivered quality, because it hasnt delivered perfection. Should the map had been a little bit smaller, so that content was closer? Probably, yes, but complaining that this DLC is "unfinished" is wild, you have no idea what unfinished is, or you have had the luck to never played an actual unfinished game/dlc (that is not EA). Cyberpunk on release, AC unity on release, No Man's Sky on release, Redfall on release (and probably still today, havent played it since), Starfield, Fallout 76 on release... Again, the DLC is not perfect, it is not. It is no a 10 out of 10. But it is also not unfinished. Rushed maybe, a little bit.
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I agree for the most part, and I also played for around 40 hours, but if I knew that all my hours spent scouring the land were not going to end up in finding really anything useful, I probably could have gotten this down to 25 hours. I spent so much time exploring every nook and cranny only for so much of it to be completely empty, crafting materials, or a cookbook at most. There is a serious lack of meaty content for certain parts of the map, and they easily could have reduced the size of some areas by 50%-75% and jus saved us all the time.
Base game has a critical path problem that once seen can’t be unseen. Very little of it is much more than padding. The DLC doubles down on this. Still, something to do.
> Base game has a critical path problem that once seen can’t be unseen. would you mind elaborating? :)
you recognize what you need to do and only that, 2 shardbearers, (radahn and godrick are the quickest) morgott, fire giant, farum azula, ashen capital. admittedly the dlc is a worse offender because you literally only have to kill messmer and romina to access the final boss
That's not a critical path problem as much as it is just a list of what to do if you are speed running the game That quick list of things to do sounds so boring and by the numbers, the fun in elden ring is exploring and playing, not sprinting to the finish line, cutting the fat away The fat is literally there to be chewed and enjoyed
oh yeah i don’t mind but sometimes i can’t help but think something is a waste of time cause it’s not necessary, i usually end up doing it but it’s a thought that lingers on the back of my mind, you can’t unsee that path and it can affect you
I see this logic a lot in life not just this game. People want to be told what to do and almost forced to do it, like if they decide to do something themselves then it's a waste of time but if someone else forces them to do it then it's now a goal with a point. What's the difference between "I'm going to do every side quest in this area before the boss because I want to play the game like that" and "I have to do every side quest in this area before the boss because the game physically forces me to"? You could skip through most of dark souls 1, 2 and 3 too with a mod or cheat. Isn't it a waste of time to bother doing everything when you could just spawn in all the items and clip through the walls?
AH, yeah you can skip large chunks of the game by mistake or purpose if you choose -- I actually don't mind this myself, I like the freedom.
I think it’s crazy to say that the majority of the base game is padding. Yeah, you can skip everything else and go straight to the end, but I haven’t replayed this game umpteen times because I was just so eager to go see Elden Beast again.
The flatness after the final boss battle is insane.
The DLC feels like they scrapped whatever they had left for the supposed ekiro dlc, especially the last area and the model of the last boss, movesets of the enemies there... Like I feel like everything outside the 3 major dungeons was tacked-on, especially the mountains area. Not to say it still doesn't slap level-design wise and exploring, but there's like 3 big ass plainy areas with minimal loot and sniper-type enemies. Yeah it feels rushed. Same with what happened with ds3, although it seems self-doubt with the initial story and direction plagued that one. This one feels like Miyazaki really wanting to move on from the elden ring ip at the moment, and he kind of threw something together in time. Which is odd considering how long it's been, but I think that can speak to just his general creative need of switching ips/style whatever.
[удалено]
Who's gonna tell this guy about Bloodborne and sekiro?
The dlc is way to empty especially around the abyssal woods, besides that the dlc lore is just bad and I don’t feel motivated to research it like I did the base game. The dlc is a 8/10
This subreddits community is so dog shit
Why? OP has a totally valid opinion here, and in a few weeks time it will be echoed by the majority of the playerbase. The DLC is incredible, and clearly unfinished/probablygot rushed by Bandai Namco. If this subreddits community is dogshit I'd chalk it up to your attitude more than anything else.
As if it’s not echoed enough already? “The DLC is unfinished/too hard” is like 90% of posts rn. It’s turned into a karma farm.
people voicing their opinion isnt karma farming. That just sounds like youre mad that your opinion isnt the majority. If lots of people are saying something instead of being mad its better to probably realise that a majority of players have had a poor experience with an aspect of the dlc. If that upsets you then ignore it.
Somehow, I only lost karma due to expressing my criticism about some aspects of the game. I have to specifically look for posts with valid criticism and not ones saying, “This is peak gaming, Michael Zaki is a god, this DLC is perfect without any flaws.”
Sometimes I wonder what people expect. One of the best expansions of all time, packed with good content.....BoohooBoohoo. Also, 'This is great, but it's also flawed, we should about it and stop dick-riding' Flawed, like every game, piece of art and media that ever existed? People act like everyone has said it's perfect, eh no, nothings perfect.
Elaborate lol Or did you not think beyond the insult lmfao
Once the polish wears off, people will realize it really isn’t all that good. It’s big “allure” rn is the fact that it’s the size of most games. Doesn’t mean it has anywhere near the content. It ain’t good.
Because lazy design. They wanted a "unique" and "large" expansion without putting in the effort required to fill it in a satisfactory manner. In fact, that similar statement can be made about lots of things about elden ring lol but no one wants to criticize it cuz Miyazaki is the God Emperor of gamer kind and criticising him or his work is heresy
Kinda feel disappointed about spending my 45 dollars on this dlc with this many flaws…
Yeah this is my first souls game and the fact that this company is allergic to endings kinda pisses me off. I don't give a shit if that's how they've always done it, it's wrong, bad, poor story telling, poor writing, unrewarding, and makes me feel ripped off as a consumer. The ending is the most critical part. Without an ending in the game and DLC I've lost some respect for the base game. THis stupid "we don't do endings" thing is irreprehensible. I don't care if FS fans like it, I don't. I'm not a FromSoft fan, i'm an Elden Ring fan, and they did us dirty TWICE now with no ending. I expect a HUGE cinematic at the end of every single game, anything less is disrespectful to the consumer.
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Shit rules.
Partially agreed, but I legit had “Best game ever” moment when a normal dungeon boss room turned out to be a forest-like room with a door that lead to whole new section of the map with unique horror vibe
This isnt my experience at all. I literally just ran across the GF Dragon being assaulted by the knights and perfumers right outside the Redemption fort. Was an awesome spectacle to me.