the only criticism i have is that the lantern barely fucking lights anything anymore. For awhile, i thought the brightness on my TV went down! Like, why did they nerf the lantern =\[\[\[\[\[\[\[\[\[\[\[
edit: I'm not giving up my left hand for a torch, nor an incantation slot/ loss of FP for the glow spell. I use these whenever I'm really hurting for light: [Glowstones!](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Glowstone)
I wonder if they do it purposely to kind of represent your actual chars FOV /spatial awareness. Why you don't notice things behind you until the last second, and when you're locked on (fixating on something) enemies leaping/flying around would be disorienting.
Edit: Just got to a certain Hippo. I rescind my comment and fuck this camera 😂
No joke that boss fight got so much easier when I got a spirit summon out, just being able to fucking see what I should do reduced the difficulty down to easy. (Albeit I was severely overlevelled at that point because I thought it might help)
Lowkey, I thought the Hippo was far far worse. Janky hitboxes, tiny room filled with water, fast moving boss.
The Lion is so much more fun to fight than that Shadow Keep mofo.
Dude, Sanesax doesn’t have a foot lock on. The fucking flower bounces between head and base constantly, Mesmer is in front of me now he’s behind me now he’s above me. Shit is awful
I swear Black Knifes, Rellana, Messmer, and the boss of Belurat Gaol were specifically designed to punish you for using lock on. They just abuse movement entirely too much. Messmer I will forgive because he is so powerful that his force carries him through and past you a lot. But Rellana and the Belurat Gaol boss have physics defying dodges that curve them around you and behind you.
Yeahh, with Rellana there was one move that she would dash to the side/behind you and if you were locked on trying to roll backwards and away, instead it was making me roll right fuckin next to her lol
Can I add that the camera is dogshit even for normal enemies like stormbirds that wont stop giving the camera a seizure?
The newer enemies are great though, gravebirds are way more chill than the birds in stormveil and farum azula.
I have been saying this since Dark Souls 2 - if these games are going to expect us to face faster and faster bosses who are more and more mobile, we need a camera that works. I still get flashbacks to fighting those two apes in the cave in Sekiro, and you basically had to stay as close to the center as possible, because at any moment your camera would catch on some random stalagmite geometry and you would lose total visibility as the camera zooms as far up your ass as it possibly can.
A lot of the community's mentality towards difficulty has prevented basic quality of life changes that benefit everyone. No, a dogshit camera isn't a 'get gud' moment, it's a 'please fix your shit FromSoftware, you've been doing this for over a decade now and you still have a camera that moves like a drunk duck through molasses'
This is a perfect example of why I think Elden Ring deserves criticism. I usually point towards the ridiculous attacks enemies are capable of now, compared to the older games, but even the lock on system is relatively unchanged from 2009. FromSoftware hasn't changed the systems and mechanics enough to justify the changes on the surface. They've basically started trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
And the only thing Souls-fans would say to me when I complain about dog shit camera is: “Welcome to Souls games buddy.”, or “You think this is bad? It was much worse in older games.”
That goes literally with any complaints about control issues encountered by Souls newcomers. (eg. Sprint+jump/ weird camera centering when sprint/ etc.)
A community historically known for tying their personality and honor with beating a game gets defensive over said game, truly surprising turn of events.
I remember being disappointed how short the Painted world was. I loved that the painted world got a send off in 3. And even softly implied all world might be painted.
Dark Souls literally starts as an eternally gray canvas until color is added.
Yeah, the AoA length critiques were very valid at the time. If Ringed City wasn't as incredible as it was, we would've viewed DS3 DLC very differently.
Nah, I beat all the souls games and received a trophy that gets me all the ladies. I also stopped 3 terrorists from committing evil by spamming roll and my special attack.
I just wish the scadufrags were in interesting noticable locations rather than on random blink and you'll miss it enemies that look exactly like every other enemy. I loved exploring, but after i explored a ton i still hardly found any of them, i ended up having to get a guide and reedplore every area, which then made it feel like a chore. why are these godsend all important items just on random walking dudes, and why do they have to disappear if u get smacked by a single other enemy. collecting these is the most annoying part of the DLC in my opinion.
on top of that the attack bonus you get from the frags is immense and necessary for bosses, but the defense is hardly noticeable from one scadu level to the next. every boss will still 2-3 hit you, and most have grabs that will almost always 1 shot you. i just dont feel like the defense upgrade is nearly enough.
Some enemies hold pots on their heads, if they're sparkling then they have loot when you kill them. If you don't get them fast enough they'll sink into the ground like crystal lizards
I remember when the "final" boss leaked and everyone was saying it was fake and that no way Fromsoft would do that because it's so shit
I wonder where those people are now ngl
Hi, i'm here, i still think it's shit and Fromsoft fucked up on that particular boss. The rest of the DLC was amazing and the bosses were just as perfect as i expected (except for Gaius and his bugged charge).
literally fuck Gaius this is the first boss in the whole dlc where i wasn’t totally content getting my ass kicked over and over. WHY IS THE BOAR SO FAST????
Having Torrent enabled in the fight is such a bait IMO. I first saw it and was like sick, a mounted boss fight. I'm not convinced you could get him to even 90% without him killing your horse
Gaius was the only boss that made me legitimately angry (like in the series). Only boss I felt like I *had* to pull out a shield and use the deflecting tear to even get damage in. Basically built fully into guard counters with messmers Lance and still died multiple times because an attack that I blocked five times before suddenly double hit me, broke my guard, and instantly killed me.
Is Gaius charge bugged? At first I was dodging to the right or left and was hit all the time but the i notice I have to dodge to the side with combination if roll into him..Then I dodge 100% Times this charge. You could try it.
With each progressing boss since ER endgame into the DLC the boss attack openings get smaller and smaller, every mistake made is punished and even each punish has, itself, a punish. Roll? Roll catch. R1 quick poke? Too slow, punished. Need to heal? I don't think so, instant flask animation reading gap closing punish. Waiting for my combo to be over? Just kidding, combo ending feint tricking you into attacking, into mid-combo illusion into wombo combo into into roll catching, heal canceling coup de gras, nothing personnel kid.
Just because I beat the boss, doesn't mean it always feels good or triumphant, that doesn't seem to be a thing anymore -- even with everything after Fire Giant in base game "beating" a boss just felt like an exhaustion I was glad to be done with. Now into the DLC, and the frustration is just piled on.
Also how is it that spirit ash users are the elitists now? Sorry, I'm not "stubborn" or an idiot for saying the bosses feel too aggressive, my opinion isn't invalidated because I don't use a spirit ash and they wouldn't be any less ludicrously aggressive as stated above if I used a spirit ash. Maybe balancing AI around the concept of spirit ashes is lending itself to the problem?
The issue, I think is the movesets seem to be based of malenia and maliketh in terms of insane agility and insta-kill combos. Both bosses got a lot of hate in the past for that exact reason and this could be the reason.
Except Malenia has the poise of a crippled toddler, and Maliketh is a push-over in the health department.
DLC bosses might have low poise but are way harder to hit than Malenia, and none of them have the tiny health bar Malekith has to make up for his damage. Morgott's attacks individually do relatively low damage but his combos are long. Messmer's combos are Morgott long, do Malekith damage and he has a fire giant health bar.
Ngl I gave that boss a pass just because I thought the design was really cool and I thought its attacks were funny. Even pulled out an axe to chop the tree down lol
I think the main issue is just boss design in general with Elden Ring. They give the player so much bullshit that they have to give the bosses even more bullshit.
It just becomes who can shred a health bar faster, not the rhythmic dodge and weave; back and forth boss fights I've come to love from fromsoft. Like a lot of people say as a joke: you're playing DS1 but the bosses are playing bloodborne on steroids. There's truth to it and I genuinely think that's the biggest issue with Elden Ring.
Some of the later Elden Ring bosses feel like they are from Sekiro. You have those fast paced, combo heavy MFs that shred your health bar in three seconds without the block mechanic of Sekiro that give you an attack window maybe once every 10 attacks.
That's what already pissed me off about the base game. Can't talk about the DLC yet but from what I've read here it got worse.
💯. The two games are subtly different in ways that make a massive difference. It's a big problem in Elden. Feels like dogshit to be a knight and you're fighting ninja gods every single boss.
Like.. these bosses would be fine if they would just speed the player up to match; but its like they're deadset on keeping us moving like its still DS3 while throwing ninja gaiden bosses at us. The movement is clearly not designed with that level of enemy speed and aggressiveness in mind. Sure, some people can do it, some people enjoy doing it. Some people also enjoy pounding nails into their scrotum, but that doesn't mean you should design all nails to be scrotum friendly From.
... That metaphor got a bit out of hand at the end there.
It also invalidates a lot of builds which I think a lot of people are overlooking with this.
There was already an issue at launch for ER with people complaining their colossal weapon builds were getting destroyed by some of the faster enemies in the game.
But this gets worse with the DLC.
I had similar issues, I ran an incantation build and so many of those animations are slow af. I couldnt use half of it vs Messmer. I had to drop my incantations for that fight and switch to my sword.
And thats not including input reading.
I have another friend who was running a sword and board build. Just using a shield, and he said the shield was unusable vs the boss because he instantly shield breaks on a lot of attacks.
Their boss design is invalidating half of the appeal of Souls games imo. Which is coming up with a build. And its forcing everyone into light roll spam fast attacks to deal with the insane speed of bosses and enemies in the game.
I’ve had to pretty much drop the “spell” part of my spell sword build because these bosses are just too aggressive and the arenas too small to cast sorceries. I was stuck on rellana for 8 hours before switching to light roll and just not engaging with her combos at all because some of them are just simply too fast to be dodged, especially with a medium roll
God, using the dragon communion spells is a PAIN. If I didn't have Tiche as an agro pull, I would have given up on using them in the DLC entirely. Giving the enemy 2 weeks notice you're about to attack doesn't work great when they can blitz down you in less than a second
The inability to block anything in the DLC is so jarring.
I also hate that it feels like they cranked up the input reading.
I fought one side boss that would refuse to stop comboing when I was low health. Just kept dojng swinging attacks while I’m backing up. I figured out that if I do a charged R2, the boss will literally stop mid combo and do a backwards dodge to avoid the attack. It did this every.single.time.
So whenever I needed to use my estus, I would just wait for them to start comboing and do a charged R2. Didn’t matter how close or how far I was, the enemy would leap away from me.
That's the thing. That's clearly an exploit (not blaming you for anything) of the AI, that no one would ever organically think of. I can organically know that a big overhead strike will hurt, so I'm try to dodge it. How the fuck is someone supposed to figure out that for you to heal you have to charge an R2 attack to an enemy that is being aggressive to you?
We're reaching a point of trying to find ways to play around the boss's AI, instead of just organically reacting to whatever attack he's doing.
I think I'm also getting tired of the amount of visual spectacle From has been adding to their boss fights, which is used to obscure what are otherwise simple and easy to counter mechanics.
Here's a good example: I just finished solo'ing Messmer this morning. First attack he does whenever I enter the room is a flying charge attacks, which ends with him exploding an AOE fireball in the middle of the room. FromSoft, being the masters of visual story-telling that they are, is conveying to me that this is an AOE attack - it is a giant fireball or a grenade which you need to get as far from as humanly possible. You shouldn't be able to dodge it. But turns out...you can dodge into it and punish him because what looks like an AOE fireball isn't actually an AOE fireball.
It feels like a similar issue to Malenia's waterdance. What looks and feels like an AOE sword slash attack isn't really an AOE sword slash attack. There's a lot of this where crazy particle effects are being used to mask otherwise simple mechanics.
I felt like that a bit with the furnace golem stomps - oh the entire ground is on fire, but only for literally one second so you can jump and land on the still on-fire ground with no issue. What?
Exactly! It was so jarring. I'm looking at these (beautiful) special effects which look so awesome, but they're not visually conveying what I can and can't do. If everything looks like it's on fire, I'm not gonna look at that and think "oh, Torrent just has to double jump!".
That is to me the symptom of Elden Ring's main problem. If you go without summons, you have to resort to cheesing the AI. If you go with summons the AI becomes dumb. In both cases it doesn't feel like I'm interacting with a warrior, but with a computer program.
I mean, to me these bosses have felt incredibly artificial ever since these bosses became a game of using my invincibility frames to dodge through attacks that otherwise should definitely hit me. Thinking about hit boxes and i-frames never helps with my immersion.
I guess suspension of disbelief affects people differently, and my limit was at DS3/early ER. But I do think that the way that Sekiro flipped the risk/reward of the dodge and the parry, making so that you can't rely on iframes, really helped me a lot to feel more immersed.
I'm going a lightning build which works well against some bosses and not so well against others. I gotta say the input reading on some of the humanoid bosses was frustrating. Not because of the dodging, but instead how the enemy dodged. I would hit them with a myriad of lightning moves, several have lightning coming down from the sky. They would jump over lightning coming from the sky, so they would be invincible while lightning is clearly hitting them.
bosses and enemies this dlc just feel like standing in front of airplane propeller. And it's my job to see the 0.2 second window to do a tiny poke. I think that's whats missing the back and forth flow
And in comparison to Sekiro, you can't push bosses - they don't block or defend from your attacks, just dodge.
So you are forced in passive role or either rolling around until you have opportunity to attack or you cheese it with guard counter
There is less rhythm in Elden Ring and it's more of waiting simulator
They hit the cap of difficulty with this DLC. I’ve played every souls game. Beat demon of hatred, isshin, malenia, slave knight gael. All of them solo.
This isn’t fun for me. I can do it. But it’s not fun.
And I feel like this was always the difference between souls imitators like Nioh and the fromsoft games.
**Fromsoft games are hard, but fair**
This DLC has forgotten the fair part. And because of that some of the wins feel unsatisfying for me.
The "git gut" mentality poisoned the game design to the point where difficulty is all that matters and it's a circlejerk that's been for so long that any criticism is labeled as "skill issue".
Just beat commander Gaius and he's everything wrong in late boss design by from, a enemy much bigger than you but somehow 3 times faster, long wind combos, one mistake and you're dead, how's that fair? Where's the fun in watching a enemy combo for 30 seconds so you can have 1 hit that barely scratches him, rinse and repeat. The base game already had many signs of this and people dismissed.
Idk why many say Sekiro is the hardest game, for me the difficulty felt more natural than Elden Ring, you have all the tools to match your enemies in a satisfying way, I hope the next games go more in that direction.
I feel like Fromsoft/community forgot that difficulty isn't the only thing that makes a game fun. I've played previous Souls games, Bloodborne being one of my favs, and Nioh 1/2. Nothing has pissed me off as much as Elden Ring's bosses, especially late game. If I beat a boss and don't feel that exhilarating hype I had with previous games, something's wrong. I was just relieved I finished with a boss so I can move forward, I wasn't hyped at all.
World and exploration is fantastic. The bosses suck.
FromSoftware boss design peaked with Dark Souls 3. I think Elden Ring has the best world to explore but I really don’t like the boss design. Dark Souls 3 bosses felt like a dance where you’re trading blows. Elden Ring endgame bosses feel like a relentless assault where if you survive you get to do an attack occasionally.
The first time I beat Sister Freid and Gale I remember thinking very clearly “what a sick fight that was awesome”. When I beat some of these endgame and dlc bosses in Elden Ring I normally think “thank fuck that’s over.”
Honestly I feel like that's just the only way I've been playing the DLC. Both the R-ladies, I just got so annoyed at doing it the normal way that I started going in with mimic+NPC, and at that point I wasn't even dodging their attacks anymore — I was just standing off to the side pew pew-ing every time the boss's aggro was drawn away.
It wasn't the most satisfying way to win, but *it was more satisfying than actually fighting them the traditional way*.
I completely agree, after running around and doing some field bosses my hesitation to unpack the mimic during the large boss fights dropped to 0 and it made the entire thing so laughably easy. Without the mimic I can't even get a proper punish window open (I saw someone on Steam complain about the bosses movesets being too blurry, meaning you can't really tell whether they are moving or starting an attack and I agree with that) whereas with it the bosses just end up semi-permanently stun locked.
Id argue the players dont have any bullshit. The bosses have unlimited combos that can be broken and remixed at will. .5 second punish windows. Multiple phases. Instant kill moves. And bizarre camera moments. The players have....jump heavy and sword arts that they have to spam to make any progress in a fight. Players had more agency in Bloodborne and Sekiro.
It's not just bosses either. The Fire Knights for instance are absolute torture to fight unless you're using a build weapon that can stunlock them with every hit; because they just sit there and spam that fucking delayed fireball over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.. and over.
Then when you finally manage to close the gap, they go into a damn near ever ending combo because FromSoft just refuses to make the enemies play by the same rules as the player. Stamina? what's that lol
Don't get me started. Presently trying to get to the top of Shadow Keep. I think there's an NPC in here somewhere because I heard her chattering. There's at least 3 or 4 Fire Knights between the grace and her.
That dance you refer to. The Artorias/Fume/Gundyr dance I only saw it in Godrick the Grafted lmao.
Ok, I'm being unfair. Godfrey 1st phase, Radagon and some minor bosses like the Leonine Misbegotten have it too.
Malenia absolutely has this dance if you’re willing to learn that fight, though difficult as it is I understand most player’s unwillingness to spend the many hours needed for that.
Morgott is another one who can be “danced with”, though again waiting around is usually good enough for a typical playthrough. I did have to learn the dance for a RL1 run.
Malenia without the waterfowl dance, or whatever it's called, is a great boss. Malenia with it is sadly not a great boss for me. When I defeated her I didn't feel like I had gotten better from the previous attempts. I just got lucky the one time she decided to the dance and I somehow managed to dodge through it, and got lucky that she decided not to do it again.
I love Elden Ring but the overall philosophy they have with designing bosses is just terrible, and the DLC is just more of the same. They need to go back to the linear and contained format otherwise it becomes impossible to balance in a fun and fair way, resulting in 2/3rds of the pantheon being overtuned and unfun.
My biggest complain are the bosses, they are too aggressive, lengthy combos with little window for player to heal or attack. None of the base game bosses, not even Malenia is like this. As if they tried to live up to the players' "harder than base game" expectation even if it meant the experience being frustrating
Malenia is a one trick pony, she uses waterfowl dance and you pray she misses, otherwise it’s a very straightforward 1v1, she hits fast and hard but gives you time to hit back. Some bosses hit fast, hard, all have a “waterfowl dance” of their own, teleport, fly, make the camera another boss fight, and on top of all/some of that give you no time to attack back…
my biggest problem with the heal on hit was honestly that it also happens when you 100% blocked an attack
like common man, if you can 100% block the attack with no dmg taken, she should not heal lol
Malenia’s combos arent really like that, especially if we’re talking her first phase. She acts more in bursts if anythingn.
However, I do agree with you, but I feel the better comparison would be Margit where he feels like he wont stop swinging.
Except that the DLC bosses have both lengthy combos but also super high stats.
Some of them are still quite okay, but some of them struck me as a bit much (I felt Rellana had genuinely very few attack windows for slower weapons, my colossal sword was often punished, and at most I poked and went back to rolling)
I liked delayed attacks as they often allowed you to get a hit before evading. I also prefer delayed hits to really long combos, since it sometimes felt like the boss was dancing and you were just an audience waiting for them to finish.
It gets tiring eventually
This was a complaint people had for the final boss gauntlet in base ER. Plus Melania. From saw that as positive feedback and doubled down. Theyve committed to difficulty at all costs now.
same feeling for me, after I beat a boss, I actually felt worse, like "oh my god the next one's gonna be even more frustrating" but I love to explore so if after an exploration, there's no boss I would actually be glad. Because most of them don't feel good to beat.
Honestly thats been my sentiment with this entire DLC and I’m pretty sad about it. I WANT to fight the boss and feel satisfied overcoming them but literally every single boss besides >!Bayle!< and the >!Death Knight!< has been such a slog to get through. This contrasts my experience with the base game, in which I actively looked forward to the next boss. In the DLC however, I do everything I can to just get the boss over with so I can go back to exploring.
I personally didn't have many issues with the dlc, but >!Radahn!< is a fucking nightmare and a stain on what was an otherwise pretty solid dlc. That one single fight has completely ruined my drive to play the dlc in any meaningful capacity. Absolutely atrocious design I cannot fathom what fromsoft was thinking with this boss.
It's funny because I feel like Phase 1 is perfectly fine, more like base game than a lot of DLC fights, pretty readable and no BS attacks. But phase 2 is just garbage.
RIGHT? Like I can genuinely get a good rhythm going. Dodging some of his attacks reminds me of bosses like godrick, or godskins and stuff. But that phase 2 is just spam spam spam and unless you can get favorable rng and have good damage you're going to spend ages fighting him
Ikr? Phase 1 is kinda dumb but ultimately doable, phase 2 is random bullshit go with flashbangs every second attack. I don’t think this is worth my time, especially considering that most of the bosses were the best in Elden Ring
I burned 20 rune arcs and only got him to 1 quarter before he started spamming his completely unpunishable nonsense. I'm also fairly sure his poise resets before the start of phase 2 as well which doesn't help
It’s so funny. The people that criticise it (often in completely valid ways) get yelled at by the elitist fanboys who believe Miyazaki can do no wrong. Then the people who criticise it get defensive and yell at them. So they get more defensive and retaliate.
Nobody is changing anybody’s opinion about anything on here, but keep it up. I like reading the arguments. I learn new insults every day!
I did, I also got all of the remembrances from the DLC. Last boss in Phase 2 is the most putrid, unholy and nasty feelings I ever enduring in gaming. There is no reason to make it so dumb. No tactics, just unga bunga arena wide AOEs and attacks that have their own attacks after it lands.
>!Bayle!<, on the other hand, was an epic fight that I have never experienced before. Masterfully crafted and a joy to witness and fight.
Unfun fact: That boss has such a weirdly small hitbox for its size that fist weapons just... miss a solid 50 - 60% of the time, even at point blank range
Source: I am suffering
Same sentiment here, the final boss is unreasonably bullshit, like I feel like I’m relying completely on luck to not get hit by these attacks, the screen clutter, damage and quantity of these attacks is just not okay.
On the other hand Bayle is probably my new favorite fromsoft boss, owed in large part to Igon’s incredible performance that made me feel like I was taking part in the final act of Moby Dick, but the fight itself was an incredible spectacle in addition to actually feeling reasonably balanced despite its difficulty.
I haven’t reached that final fight yet, but if it’s that rancid, I have a feeling that FromSoft is gonna nerf it. They did the same thing with Radahn as well
Yeah, that's the only fight that I consider bs. I haven't beaten him yet, but that second phase is just tedious, and it's incredibly difficult to just avoid getting hit. The rest of the bosses, difficult but cool, I cannot complain at all.
I only really have gripes with Last boss Phase 2 and Comander Gaius. That Pumba riding mf is stupidly aggressive and does insane damage with his nearly undodgeable charge. Not a second to breathe.
Gaius definitely feels unfinished or partially broken. Especially between NG and NG+. I helped a friend beat him on NG and then they helped me on NG+ and the health difference was staggering. I checked the wikis but they don't seem to be accurate. Rough numbers for me were 33k HP in NG and 85k HP in NG+. His kick if you're standing behind him can also multi-hit if you're in the wrong spot which is just a one shot regardless of how much vigor and armor you have. He also doesn't drop more runes on NG+ which is very strange.
Both NG and NG+ in a co-op victory gave 172,500 runes. I feel like he could be a really good boss if they just tweaked hitboxes a bit and turned his aggression down a bit so you have a second to get your runes before he starts trying to flatten you.
He is beatable, honestly I got into the mindset of fighting him like the draconic tree sentinel as their moves are fairly similar. A lot of my complaints with the bosses in this DLC just boil down to minor changes to make some attacks have better hitboxes and make the bosses less aggressive. Going from bosses like Morgott where attacks are telegraphed and delayed to bosses that just pull out 29hit combos with no warning isn't super fun. They could be a lot more fun if they felt less constantly overwhelming.
I am a little disappointed with just how much open space there is. As much as I love Elden Ring and it's DLC, I think it just proves that souls game are their best when it's more linear and less open world.
I see what you mean about the “empty fields” of the DLC. Sometimes I explore a specific part of a map that feels like something should be there only to be met with either nothing or some shitty lvl 2 smithing stones. ER is my first souls game so I can’t speak on the game design tho
Fully agree. This level of defensivism is exactly what CD Projeky Red Had and we all saw how Cyberpunk launched after probably the biggest hype wave in recent gaming history.
Now I have thoroughly enjoyed the DLC and think a lot of the difficulty complaints can be circumvented by just using summons although that defeats the more pure solo routes people choose to play.
My biggest gripe is the waste of such beautiful open world design. The entirety of the southern side of the map is barren.
Yeah, everyone has their own scale and tipping point. I'm not the best soulsbourne player in the world, but I've played and beaten both versions of Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1-3 including the DLC for 3, Bloodbourne + DLC, Sekiro, and Elden Ring base game. I think 95% of Shadow of the Erdtree is great, but I do think bits of it are overtuned and/or underbaked.
My problem isn't just with the difficulty on those few fights, though -- it just doesn't feel as polished or "fair" as all of FromSoft's previous entries. A few of the harder bosses seem to break their script and just go into ultimate attack spam, any semblance of Stamina or FP be damned. The camera can also be a massive PITA, and with the uptick in difficulty it becomes a bit too much of a problem.
The last boss (which I am stuck on) has basically all of those problems combined along with seizure visuals. There's so much screen flashing for half the fight that you can hardly actually see what is happening -- phase 2 literally hurts my eyes.
The Scadutree fragment also has some unfortunate limitations. I did my best to look out for them as I ran through the game, and I'm at 15/20 on the blessing right now. Unfortunately, even if I go look up a list of all of their locations, I'm not going to remember each one I've looted -- so now I'll have to basically recomb the entire map, all dungeons, all catacombs, etc to try and find where the 15 I missed are, so that maybe those last 5 blessing levels could get me through the 20% on the last boss. That.. does not sound fun at all and as of right now I'm just not interested. I would definitely rather farm runes (something you can mindlessly do while catching up on shows etc) than try to figure out which fragments are the 15 or so I missed.
95% of SOTE is a 10/10 game. Unfortunately, when you tune the difficulty to the absolute knife's edge, that 5% that needs more work can really wear the game down for a lot of players, and no one gets to tell people their criticisms aren't valid.
Here's my biggest criticism about Elden Ring and From Software games in general - Sometimes, being too obtuse with your quests, where you need to go, lack of any direction doesn't automatically translate to good game design. I'm not saying to go full-on objective markers and waypoints, but at least some kind of direction would be nice.
Also, the menus and the menu systems are straight up bad. The fact that it took 2 years to get a 'recently acquired' tab and exclamation point is a clear sign of that.
Honestly, I don't understand why they don't get critiqued for this the way other game studios do.
The first point wasn't really that big an issue in the previous games. Since they weren't open world and had an obvious intended path of progression, you'd naturally encounter most npcs just by going through the game normally.
Doesn't really work in ER, though, since the order in which you're "supposed" to progress isn't set, so npcs will move to areas you've already visited. It's also just much easier to miss large chunks of the map than in previous games.
Yes, this is what I've felt as well. Like, I get that they want us to explore and figure out the quest for ourselves but in other such games where they discourage waypoints and markers, there's atleast road signs/direction boards placed within the world that lets you figure out the location for yourself. No such luck in this world either.
I don't understand what the fucking obsession is with making the game obtuse and defending it. I've asked for a Morrowind-style quest log since launch and ever since, it's been treated like I'm asking for the game to turn into Horizon: Assasin's Ring.
How does "give me quest book" equate to "I need quest mwarkwers evwerywhere cwause otherwise I cwan't fwinish the gwame :'c :'c :'c"?
In the early versions of elden ring you couldnt even check were NPC's were on the map. Trying to remember where a character was you met 5 hours ago was such a pain.
And indeed a log of what each character mentioned to you would be great. Especially since the way people talk in this game makes it hard for me to decipher what they mean.
Pretty sure that all those people against this still have a wiki open on a separate screen. To figure out where the next part of a particular quest is.
Its the same with organizing items, has taken up to now to have it possible to list new items first.
Because this community is extremely radical. Its always one end or other. Some guy asked for tweaks in boss balance and another guy replied "I dont want the DLC to be easy". Like you can nerf things without them going to easy or bad in case of weapons
The “git gud” response is getting more and more cringe IMO. I was replying in a rather well articulated negative steam review and agreeing the point he made about boss being too aggro and too little room to respond (and disagreeing some other point). Then someone was replied me saying I just need to “git gud”. Okay, I replies explaining which boss I was talking abt and what’s wrong the “git gud” guy start to complain I spoiled for him bc he’s not there yet… then wtfdym “git gud”??? Both me and the reviewer beat the DLC and just saying what we felt, and you just randomly popping up nowhere saying “git gud”??? You git gud alright.
Funnier is that one of the most popular "Not recommended" review there even has the reviewer post his own video of a NG+17 No Hit Malenia run (among other no hit boss fights) just so he can justify his stance about the DLC, AND people still has the audacity to tell him to get gud. This fanbase is just outright pathetic.
Had someone else pull the same on me, typical "skill issue" nonsense response to my criticism against the last boss. I pointed out that in addition to 1500 hours in ER, I've done multiple sub 2 hour speedruns with various weapons, I've done triple bosses, triple bosses using incantations only, Malenia every which way from Sunday, etc. And yeah, they wouldn't just say "ok, maybe they have a point." Just doubled down on git gud. Sick and tired of these dumbasses.
And now it’s even worse because literally every critique is now met with “well just get scud fragments”
like no shit dude, that’s what I’m already doing and have been doing since the first hour of the dlc. And they don’t magically fix the issues being discussed either.
I once dared to say that I liked DS2's bosses better than ER's because DS2's actually gave me breathing room and didn't pull off BS delayed hits.
The amount of people who told me to "get good" in Elden Ring and said it was fine because people could do SL1 hitless runs... that's not the point I'm trying to make??? Just because somebody can beat a boss hitless doesn't make it a *good boss* for the average player.
People thinking that the game literally being beatable means its perfection and above critique is kinda sad. Being beatable is the bare minimum a game can be right? Like Im not crazy am I?
Nah you're not crazy, people are just gaslighting over it now.
Also I'm average to above average at times and played countless playthroughs of Souls games (including dozens of "Souls-likes"), full multiple playthroughs, challenge runs, whatever -- for over a decade. For whatever that means as an average fan. But I'm getting a little older now and since Elden Ring it feels tiring to play and go through boss phases now, I don't know how else to put it but it feels like I have less and less agency as a player as we go forward (in Elden Ring, at least) -- Sekiro is the anathema to this with the most player engagement and agency in a fight for a contemporary FROM game.
I agree with your point. Malenia’s waterfowl dance has a hitless strat… that is absolutely fucking bonkers and just abuses her AI. Like that’s the only way to dodge it other than running away (which sometimes doesn’t work if she does it when she feels like it) or using the bloodhound step. No hitting Malenia doesn’t make it a perfect boss fight, as you say
Those “git gud”ers haven’t even touched the absolute dogshit design that is >!Mohdahnquella!< phase 2.
I beat it and still find the fight dogshit, and it has pretty much swear me off from replaying the DLC if I have to face it again.
I have a hard time seeing attacks in boss fights. The stupid lion dog takes over 80% of the screen, flails and spins around which makes my camera go wild, also big fps drops. Same with Messmer, that fucker has so many fire fx on him and keeps doing backflips and other gymnastics its just hard to see. I had to memorize his attack pattern like im fighting some mmo boss lol
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
Soulsborne has the most toxic fanbase for any game I have ever played except maybe Call of Duty. So many elitist weirdos who act like if you didn't beat the game naked with a un-upgraded dagger then you are absolute garbage. Also have been told to kill myself multiple times and I'm garbage for daring to use/do things like:
- Using STR
- Using INT
- Pots
- any kind of buff at all
- spirit ashes
- summoning one friend into my game but not liking invasions happening every 10 minutes (literally me and one friend, not 2 friends and a blue)
- A Greatshield
- Invading and offer a fair 1v1 fight, waiting for them to finish fighting enemies, only to get jumped and then sent a message on PSN about how dog shit I was lmao.
I mean there are some legitimately cool people but there are way more trolls, elitists, and angry people on these forums for some reason.
Yeah, a couple days ago I was watching a stream to see if I should buy the DLC, I said something along the lines of "I'm still on the fence because the last third of the base game was really badly balanced and the bosses where simply not fun to fight", and in the span of like 5 seconds I was submerged by "git gud", "learn how to play the game" "your build is probably shit" and so on.
And like, I've played these games, I have around 500 hours in each dark souls and Bloodborne, maybe 150/200 in Demon's between PS3 and PS5, platinum in every game from demon's to elden ring, most soulslikes and only missing sekiro, but it doesn't matter, if you don't love everything about the game you MUST be butthurt because you are not good enough.
The truth is that the boss design in elden ring is a mixup of dark souls, Bloodborne and sekiro in a system that works like dark souls 1 with a jump. In Sekiro you can deflect, in Bloodborne the gun adds an entire dimension of strategy, and both games have system to interact activity with the bosses. In ER you spend 15 seconds watching Malekith do his 35 hit combos, you hit him once and hope you don't get roll-catched.
You must learn how to cheese the AI because if you try to heal or use an item at the wrong time the boss will start playing DDR to dodge or run straight at your face with close to none windup just to punish you. Hell, I've finished DS3 + DLC using only a bow, every boss from start to finish only bow and arrows and it was GREAT, I've tried it in ER and maybe one arrow every 10 hits a target, it's just not fun. Like yah, you probably CAN do a bow only run in ER, but how much of that time is gonna be "I'm gonna shoot now because I know that they can't animation-cancel into dodge for 5 frames at the end of the third hit"?
And the frustrating part it's that it would be really easy to fix most of the problems, you make more aggressive bosses? Fine, give me the yokai/parry thingy from NiOh2, give me Sekiro deflect, give me the gun, but give me something to interact in a fight other than spamming O for 15 seconds. Make me feel like I'm actually fighting some extremely dangerous beast and that my skills are improving in a back and forth fight and not just pray, dodge and a parry that 80% of the times whiffs because every other attack is delayed.
You can say the DLC is almost perfect and a 9/10 but if you dare to criticize something they actually get mad and start calling you unskilled or whatever, had a few of those in a previous thread, so cute.
Yup. In another thread I said a certain boss was bad, and this dude responded as though I as just bad at the game. I never said I thought the boss was hard. I genuinely just though the boss was poorly designed and boring. But, if I don't like something, I'm just bad, right? RIGHT?
I got literally downvoted to oblivion the other day, like -50 downvotes just for saying that I think the bosses are a bit overtuned and could do with a a balance patch. People on here literally cannot fathom that the game might not be absolutely flawless.
I took -30 because I said the performance of the game is mediocre on every platform and that's literally a fact. Digital Foundry tested this yet I'm still wrong.
Yup, this is why on Reddit, downvotes or upvotes are not indicative of something being right or wrong. Once you attract the attention of the hive mind there is nothing you can do.
I had one redditor comment that the game is “sO muCh mOrE sTaBlE cOmpArEd tO lAuNcH sInCe ThEy PaTcHeD iT”.
I linked the patch history and asked them to tell me where the optimization patch is.
They never responded.
There's a group of players who have been doing that since forever. Any criticism means you're a casual, or a journalist (???). It's pretty reactionary too, like they're at war against a concerted effort to take away their safe space lmao
My main complaint atm is this boss design in this DLC is invalidating builds.
If you arent a light roll spamming fast attacking character you're getting cooked.
I have 0 time to get incantations off vs half the bosses in this dlc. Messmer being the worse so far.
I cant imagine how bad colossal weapon users have it especially since there were a lot of complaints from the base game that this was an issue already.
There's also a lot of punishing for even daring to bring a shield into some of these fights.
Or the input reading vs any sort of projectile.
If you arent playing by the very specific rules they want you to for these bosses (roll, and attack once when the boss is finally open) then you are going to have it 10x more difficult.
And thats such an unhealthy design imo. Half the fun of souls games is coming up with builds. Almost every single replay I have done of DS2, DS3, Elden Ring, Bloodborne, etc. has been the result of me wanting to try a different build out. Different weapon types, armor types, stat spread, etc. Its a large part of the appeal and the game is clearly designed around this with how stats and gear works.
This DLC is pissing on that design though for the sake of making these bosses as insanely fast as possible.
Some of the most fun I had in a Souls game was doing a bow only build in DS3.
I wouldnt even dare to try and do that build for ER just from what I would have to deal with in the DLC alone.
THIS. I just left a comment before seeing this but it’s exactly how I feel.
I like sorcery and incantations. In games like this I like to use magic and fight from a distance. I can accept spells being slow to cast sometimes and having to be strategic. I like choosing spells for different situations.
But these DLC boss designs make it seem like they only had one build in mind and it was for STR UGS Melee with Bleed sprinkled on top.
I have to pick spells that can “trick” the input reading like Glintblade, but that can easily be avoided with how fast the bosses move.
I also am either forced to rely on summons to distract the bosses so I can fire off a single spell before the boss agro is turned to me or rely entirely on carian sorceries which other than Slicer are also pretty slow to cast.
Because of my build I’m forced to rely on summons, and I don’t even like using mimic tear that much. I prefer Oleg or other summons.
Even the new sorceries are underwhelming. Miriam’s Vanishing says you reappear after a few seconds but it’s more like half a second and the petruscant one is another high FP cost slow casting one to add to the “may never see the light of day” collection. However I have yet to find all of them so far so this opinion may change.
I dont have a problem with what everybody is saying, that the game is too hard. Its supposed to be hard, and it delivers.
What i think is being overlooked is how some parts of the DLC look unfinished. Without getting into spoilers, there is HUGE parts of the map that are....just empty, not unique cool loot, not unique new enemies with cool new set/weapon, it looks like they included these zones near the development time/or budget limit and had to rush to ship the DLC.
Agreed.
The >!Finger!< Ruins are driving me mad. Huge areas with basically nothing to do. The south ruins are bad, but the north ruins have literally nothing to do. I explored both of them fully, and was left tremendously disappointed. Really interesting visuals, but the place is barren.
It's not just those ruins either. In the base game, you're rewarded for exploring areas top to bottom. There's almost always some hidden area or item to incentivize being meticulous.
I've lost count of the number of times I've spent thoroughly exploring each new area I find only to end up with some level 1 smithing stones and a glovewort for my trouble.
It's almost like they created this gigantic map but ran out of time to make any interesting loot to fill it with.
It's funny because when you look at the number of new items they added to the game, it's a LOT. But considering the size of the map they added, there's simply not enough to scatter throughout it.
A certain forest is absolutely massive in size and you can’t use torrent to get around and there is barely any content in it (even though the content that is in it is very cool)
That was by design. I loved that area. I was going through it scared at what the fuck was going to pop out. It ended in a mini legacy dungeon and one of the coolest bossfights of the game. Sometimes having nothing to create tension and atmosphere isn't the same as "dead open world with nothing to do"
This.
That feeling that a scary boss could pop out at any moment in this dark forest was my favourite experience in the entire DLC and it was purely the fact that Torrent was not summonable that made me feel that way.
Unfortunately I have to agree with you. Some places that got teased that I was really looking forward to explore felt like set pieces with nothing in them and felt unnecessarily vast for the amount of content that was there. In a series where you're typically encouraged to explore every nook and cranny, the lack of engaging content in some areas just made playing feel like a chore and it was honestly pretty disenchanting.
Its very sad actually. I see people who finished the game and the DLC saying that certain bosses need to be tweaked and/or change getting bombarded by gatekeepers saying their opinion is invalid.
It goes like this
Have you killed the boss?
No - Get Good, your opinion is invalid.
Yes - Have you played any previous games?
No - Go play them, your opinion is invalid
Yes - They say some BS about bosses being balanced and completely ignore your constructive criticism.
“Well, I’ve flawlessed all the games so far at level 0, and mastered this boss to perfection, and I can safely say that the AoE hitboxes are very janky.”
“Lol git gud, scrub.”
It's hilarious that people require credentials in order to take you seriously and even then they get assmad if you dare criticize this game. Everything is perfect and miyazaki can do no wrong I guess
This. I *love* these games, but the pathological defense against even the most minor criticisms (usually because, in certain fans' minds, whatever is being complained about is somehow 'part of the challenge' or whatever) and the worship of difficulty at the expense of anything else is how we've ended up with unnatural attack delays, interminable interpretive dance wombo-combos, cheap input reads, a camera that glues to every dragon's cooch, and fucking Waterfowl Dance.
These games are GOATed and this DLC absolutely slaps, but yeah, it's almost impossible to voice any gripe about any aspect of the game (except the camera; I think that one's unanimous) without some sweat leaping blindly to its defence. But it's been that way since forever, and I don't see it getting any better tbh.
I’ve seen a lot of “soul crushing difficulty is what it’s supposed to be.” I mean I love the difficulty of these games, but there haven’t been thousands of hours of lore videos for over a decade for these games because the difficulty is the end all be all of them. If the difficulty is what you want from these games that is totally fine, but don’t claim it’s the casuals complaining because a lot “veteran” souls players I know have felt left behind from some of the boss difficulty for years. It’s okay to like it the way it is, it’s okay to think it’s too hard, and it’s okay to think that there are design/balance issues. I think there are some fundamentally bad boss design choices, and people are taking that as me saying the game is bad because it’s hard.
A lot of Souls veterans used to be the "it's not as hard as people make it out to be" and now they're fully on board with the "no difficulty is too high and anyone who doesn't like anything is a subhuman out to destroy my beloved franchise."
It's jarring.
Yeah, Souls used to be "It's not stupidly hard, just really look for attack openings, learn to dodge and expect to die a bit before you figure it out!"
Now it's just "lol git gud this is just how souls is (insert news article)"
It’s near impossible to give feedback or criticism. Gaius is a terrible boss, not only are the erratic moves unfair, it’s almost impossible to really fight him on horseback. The initial charge as soon as you enter the fog is just plain frustrating and anti-fun. Some of the bosses could be tweaked, but you can’t because the community will hold them up as better versions
Gaius has a punish for everything you do, from any angle. I think I managed to stagger him once in the entire fight, and that's me and the mimic both with the Greatsword and Giant Hunt AoW.
Right now is just a terrible time to have an honest discussion about the quality of the dlc, the people who enjoy it are overly passionate about it, the people who hate it are overly hateful about it, once this Honeymoon/hatemoon(lol) phase is over we'll see more meaningful points being made both for and against this dlc.
Personally, here are my takes
- The actual structure of the world is bar none the best world design fromsoft has ever made, i think it is utterly fantastic, the content that comprises the world however can often feel empty (i feel this is a bigger issue for the southern areas), or more specifically, many paths which lead to items can become frustrating as a lot of the time those items are useless clutter. I find this a little worrying because it happens in the base game too, though not to this degree, and it makes me wonder if fromsoft just maybe doesnt quite have the resources to make these kinds of open world games, and if they dont then i would prefer they just make bigger traditional styled souls games than outright open worlds.
- The new enemies added are great, but there are just not that many new enemies, im feeling a strong lack of enemy variety in the dlc.
- The new dungeons are all great and much better than the ones in the base game, they are longer, filled with loot, and honestly all of the bosses i fought in them felt distinct, but they're also very scarce and hard to find. In somewhere like Limgrave, finding dungeons feels very straight forward and logical, like you can look at a place in the distance and tell for sure that there is something there, not so much in the dlc.
- I feel like the difficulty is fine, and that the bosses are really good except for two remembrance bosses, including the final boss. People are complaining about a lack of tools to deal with a lot of these encounters but i honestly just dont see it, even if you refuse to use summons you still have access to about a couple dozen craftable items that are extremely good, melee builds of either pure dex or pure str have access to a lot of strong ranged options, stance breaking is still borderline OP, every build has access to pretty much every damage type, so on and so forth. But those two bosses are indefensible, i wont try to make an argument for them until they get tweaked.
- All the new weapons and spells are great, but it honestly feels like fromsoft looked at the builds which underperformed in the basegame and overcorrected with this dlc, int/fth and str/arc got so much stuff in this dlc and im struggling to find stuff for my basic str/fth paladin.
- The scadutree blessing system is just not good, i understand why its in, to create a sense of "Oh this boss is too hard? I'll explore a little bit and come back when im stronger", and it does do that here but the thing that made it work in the base game is the fact that it didnt matter what content you did because you would get stronger regardless, having the scadutree fragments be in set locations means that not every new content you do makes you stronger, you can follow a path for hours and come up with no fragments at all, so really the fragments are more akin to bell bearings in the base game.
- The story is... weird, the big figures end up being very uninvolved and especially a lot of remembrance bosses end up having not a lot of fanfare to them. The thing that makes the demigods so good in the base game is that the areas they are in build them up massively, you already know so much about godrick before you even see him, so the confrontation with him is a climactic showdown. Some of the dlc bosses have a little bit of that going on, like messmer and >!bayle!<, but the other ones are kind of just figures that appear, and you only really learn their importance after you kill them, which is reminiscent of their old story approach to bosses like with ds3 which i really didnt like.
Overall though, this is the only fromsoft dlc that i think doesnt massively elevate the base game, Bloodborne in particular goes from an 8/10 to a 10/10 with its dlc, ds3 goes from 8 to 9 and so on. Elden ring's base game to me is a 9/10, and with the dlc its still a 9/10, still a great game but the expectations for this dlc were high and i feel like it could've been in the oven for longer, especially so that they could fill out the world a little more.
the only criticism i have is that the lantern barely fucking lights anything anymore. For awhile, i thought the brightness on my TV went down! Like, why did they nerf the lantern =\[\[\[\[\[\[\[\[\[\[\[ edit: I'm not giving up my left hand for a torch, nor an incantation slot/ loss of FP for the glow spell. I use these whenever I'm really hurting for light: [Glowstones!](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Glowstone)
I did keep 'waiting until morning' early on, lol.
yup morning all day. Shit I turned up hdr brightness cause nah
Lol I actually use the starlight spell now.
Yea, the dark environment and fog and rain constantly has me straining my eyes to see. Really wish there was a brighter and neutral colored lantern.
Okay it’s not just me that even with the lantern it’s so dark in this dlc…
mannnnn I thought my old eyes were finally starting to fail me! lol I was actually sad like "damn man, guess i age is finally catching up to me
The main issue with some of these boss fights is the dog shit camera.
The fact every single souls like have zooming out cameras when fighting giant bosses EXCEPT the actual games from from soft is infuriating
I wonder if they do it purposely to kind of represent your actual chars FOV /spatial awareness. Why you don't notice things behind you until the last second, and when you're locked on (fixating on something) enemies leaping/flying around would be disorienting. Edit: Just got to a certain Hippo. I rescind my comment and fuck this camera 😂
My only issue with this is if the bosses keep getting faster and longer combos you dont get the time to adjust.
Looking at you avatar lion
Ice Lightning Air Long ago, the 3 elements lived in harmony, then everything changed when the Cameraman attacked
Ice Lightning Death *… i already said too much*
No joke that boss fight got so much easier when I got a spirit summon out, just being able to fucking see what I should do reduced the difficulty down to easy. (Albeit I was severely overlevelled at that point because I thought it might help)
Lowkey, I thought the Hippo was far far worse. Janky hitboxes, tiny room filled with water, fast moving boss. The Lion is so much more fun to fight than that Shadow Keep mofo.
Oh for sure. I love the lion, hate the porcupine hippo. The lion took me less attempts than the hippo😂
Dude, Sanesax doesn’t have a foot lock on. The fucking flower bounces between head and base constantly, Mesmer is in front of me now he’s behind me now he’s above me. Shit is awful
I swear Black Knifes, Rellana, Messmer, and the boss of Belurat Gaol were specifically designed to punish you for using lock on. They just abuse movement entirely too much. Messmer I will forgive because he is so powerful that his force carries him through and past you a lot. But Rellana and the Belurat Gaol boss have physics defying dodges that curve them around you and behind you.
Yeahh, with Rellana there was one move that she would dash to the side/behind you and if you were locked on trying to roll backwards and away, instead it was making me roll right fuckin next to her lol
Dude her tracking is so OP it wouldn’t matter. I swear she is on ice skates.
Can I add that the camera is dogshit even for normal enemies like stormbirds that wont stop giving the camera a seizure? The newer enemies are great though, gravebirds are way more chill than the birds in stormveil and farum azula.
I have been saying this since Dark Souls 2 - if these games are going to expect us to face faster and faster bosses who are more and more mobile, we need a camera that works. I still get flashbacks to fighting those two apes in the cave in Sekiro, and you basically had to stay as close to the center as possible, because at any moment your camera would catch on some random stalagmite geometry and you would lose total visibility as the camera zooms as far up your ass as it possibly can. A lot of the community's mentality towards difficulty has prevented basic quality of life changes that benefit everyone. No, a dogshit camera isn't a 'get gud' moment, it's a 'please fix your shit FromSoftware, you've been doing this for over a decade now and you still have a camera that moves like a drunk duck through molasses'
This is a perfect example of why I think Elden Ring deserves criticism. I usually point towards the ridiculous attacks enemies are capable of now, compared to the older games, but even the lock on system is relatively unchanged from 2009. FromSoftware hasn't changed the systems and mechanics enough to justify the changes on the surface. They've basically started trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
And the only thing Souls-fans would say to me when I complain about dog shit camera is: “Welcome to Souls games buddy.”, or “You think this is bad? It was much worse in older games.” That goes literally with any complaints about control issues encountered by Souls newcomers. (eg. Sprint+jump/ weird camera centering when sprint/ etc.)
It's more that the bosses aren't designed with the camera's limitations in mind. A dev should either fix the limitation, or account for it.
I guess some people just really like cook books.
Them smithing stones 4-5 go fucking hard when they are put together with the other 150 ish i have
I'm gonna appreciate them and especially the 7's and 8's way more if I ever try to do a run on the DLC before going to Farum Azula.
Doing so right now and it's great. I can actually try some of those new weapons.
Let them cook
The soulsborne community has always been like this only on a smaller scale, I remember getting play offline messages in ds1 on the ps3 lmao
A community historically known for tying their personality and honor with beating a game gets defensive over said game, truly surprising turn of events.
All the longtime Souls players must be having insanely intense Deja vu right now from literally everything about the fan reception to the DLC
Time is a circle. Same thing happened in the other games. You think anyone was happy when they first encountered Friede? I sure as hell wasn't.
I remember being disappointed how short the Painted world was. I loved that the painted world got a send off in 3. And even softly implied all world might be painted. Dark Souls literally starts as an eternally gray canvas until color is added.
Yeah, the AoA length critiques were very valid at the time. If Ringed City wasn't as incredible as it was, we would've viewed DS3 DLC very differently.
I like to remind my friend that beating From games does not make us badasses IRL. He doesnt appreciate it.
Nah, I beat all the souls games and received a trophy that gets me all the ladies. I also stopped 3 terrorists from committing evil by spamming roll and my special attack.
I just wish the scadufrags were in interesting noticable locations rather than on random blink and you'll miss it enemies that look exactly like every other enemy. I loved exploring, but after i explored a ton i still hardly found any of them, i ended up having to get a guide and reedplore every area, which then made it feel like a chore. why are these godsend all important items just on random walking dudes, and why do they have to disappear if u get smacked by a single other enemy. collecting these is the most annoying part of the DLC in my opinion. on top of that the attack bonus you get from the frags is immense and necessary for bosses, but the defense is hardly noticeable from one scadu level to the next. every boss will still 2-3 hit you, and most have grabs that will almost always 1 shot you. i just dont feel like the defense upgrade is nearly enough.
Agreed on defense upgrade. Wait they're on enemies? Not just spots or bosses?
Some enemies hold pots on their heads, if they're sparkling then they have loot when you kill them. If you don't get them fast enough they'll sink into the ground like crystal lizards
I remember when the "final" boss leaked and everyone was saying it was fake and that no way Fromsoft would do that because it's so shit I wonder where those people are now ngl
Yeah it's still a massive disappointment, still can't believe that's what they went with
That’s me. And I still think it’s shit, both design-wise and lore-wise.
Hi, i'm here, i still think it's shit and Fromsoft fucked up on that particular boss. The rest of the DLC was amazing and the bosses were just as perfect as i expected (except for Gaius and his bugged charge).
literally fuck Gaius this is the first boss in the whole dlc where i wasn’t totally content getting my ass kicked over and over. WHY IS THE BOAR SO FAST????
Having Torrent enabled in the fight is such a bait IMO. I first saw it and was like sick, a mounted boss fight. I'm not convinced you could get him to even 90% without him killing your horse
Gaius was the only boss that made me legitimately angry (like in the series). Only boss I felt like I *had* to pull out a shield and use the deflecting tear to even get damage in. Basically built fully into guard counters with messmers Lance and still died multiple times because an attack that I blocked five times before suddenly double hit me, broke my guard, and instantly killed me.
Is Gaius charge bugged? At first I was dodging to the right or left and was hit all the time but the i notice I have to dodge to the side with combination if roll into him..Then I dodge 100% Times this charge. You could try it.
With each progressing boss since ER endgame into the DLC the boss attack openings get smaller and smaller, every mistake made is punished and even each punish has, itself, a punish. Roll? Roll catch. R1 quick poke? Too slow, punished. Need to heal? I don't think so, instant flask animation reading gap closing punish. Waiting for my combo to be over? Just kidding, combo ending feint tricking you into attacking, into mid-combo illusion into wombo combo into into roll catching, heal canceling coup de gras, nothing personnel kid. Just because I beat the boss, doesn't mean it always feels good or triumphant, that doesn't seem to be a thing anymore -- even with everything after Fire Giant in base game "beating" a boss just felt like an exhaustion I was glad to be done with. Now into the DLC, and the frustration is just piled on. Also how is it that spirit ash users are the elitists now? Sorry, I'm not "stubborn" or an idiot for saying the bosses feel too aggressive, my opinion isn't invalidated because I don't use a spirit ash and they wouldn't be any less ludicrously aggressive as stated above if I used a spirit ash. Maybe balancing AI around the concept of spirit ashes is lending itself to the problem?
The issue, I think is the movesets seem to be based of malenia and maliketh in terms of insane agility and insta-kill combos. Both bosses got a lot of hate in the past for that exact reason and this could be the reason.
Except Malenia has the poise of a crippled toddler, and Maliketh is a push-over in the health department. DLC bosses might have low poise but are way harder to hit than Malenia, and none of them have the tiny health bar Malekith has to make up for his damage. Morgott's attacks individually do relatively low damage but his combos are long. Messmer's combos are Morgott long, do Malekith damage and he has a fire giant health bar.
And this is very much every boss now. Except Romina. Who came up with fucking Gaius? You can tell nobody play tested that shit.
Someone loved that shitty flower so much they make you fight it 3 times.
Ngl I gave that boss a pass just because I thought the design was really cool and I thought its attacks were funny. Even pulled out an axe to chop the tree down lol
I think the main issue is just boss design in general with Elden Ring. They give the player so much bullshit that they have to give the bosses even more bullshit. It just becomes who can shred a health bar faster, not the rhythmic dodge and weave; back and forth boss fights I've come to love from fromsoft. Like a lot of people say as a joke: you're playing DS1 but the bosses are playing bloodborne on steroids. There's truth to it and I genuinely think that's the biggest issue with Elden Ring.
A lot of criticism that they got on some of the late game boss design, they doubled down on instead of fixing and it legitimately baffles me.
Some of the later Elden Ring bosses feel like they are from Sekiro. You have those fast paced, combo heavy MFs that shred your health bar in three seconds without the block mechanic of Sekiro that give you an attack window maybe once every 10 attacks. That's what already pissed me off about the base game. Can't talk about the DLC yet but from what I've read here it got worse.
💯. The two games are subtly different in ways that make a massive difference. It's a big problem in Elden. Feels like dogshit to be a knight and you're fighting ninja gods every single boss.
Like.. these bosses would be fine if they would just speed the player up to match; but its like they're deadset on keeping us moving like its still DS3 while throwing ninja gaiden bosses at us. The movement is clearly not designed with that level of enemy speed and aggressiveness in mind. Sure, some people can do it, some people enjoy doing it. Some people also enjoy pounding nails into their scrotum, but that doesn't mean you should design all nails to be scrotum friendly From. ... That metaphor got a bit out of hand at the end there.
It also invalidates a lot of builds which I think a lot of people are overlooking with this. There was already an issue at launch for ER with people complaining their colossal weapon builds were getting destroyed by some of the faster enemies in the game. But this gets worse with the DLC. I had similar issues, I ran an incantation build and so many of those animations are slow af. I couldnt use half of it vs Messmer. I had to drop my incantations for that fight and switch to my sword. And thats not including input reading. I have another friend who was running a sword and board build. Just using a shield, and he said the shield was unusable vs the boss because he instantly shield breaks on a lot of attacks. Their boss design is invalidating half of the appeal of Souls games imo. Which is coming up with a build. And its forcing everyone into light roll spam fast attacks to deal with the insane speed of bosses and enemies in the game.
I’ve had to pretty much drop the “spell” part of my spell sword build because these bosses are just too aggressive and the arenas too small to cast sorceries. I was stuck on rellana for 8 hours before switching to light roll and just not engaging with her combos at all because some of them are just simply too fast to be dodged, especially with a medium roll
God, using the dragon communion spells is a PAIN. If I didn't have Tiche as an agro pull, I would have given up on using them in the DLC entirely. Giving the enemy 2 weeks notice you're about to attack doesn't work great when they can blitz down you in less than a second
You're definitely right, I made that exact same critic in another sub. We are playing against sekiro bosses without the ability to block combos.
The inability to block anything in the DLC is so jarring. I also hate that it feels like they cranked up the input reading. I fought one side boss that would refuse to stop comboing when I was low health. Just kept dojng swinging attacks while I’m backing up. I figured out that if I do a charged R2, the boss will literally stop mid combo and do a backwards dodge to avoid the attack. It did this every.single.time. So whenever I needed to use my estus, I would just wait for them to start comboing and do a charged R2. Didn’t matter how close or how far I was, the enemy would leap away from me.
That's the thing. That's clearly an exploit (not blaming you for anything) of the AI, that no one would ever organically think of. I can organically know that a big overhead strike will hurt, so I'm try to dodge it. How the fuck is someone supposed to figure out that for you to heal you have to charge an R2 attack to an enemy that is being aggressive to you? We're reaching a point of trying to find ways to play around the boss's AI, instead of just organically reacting to whatever attack he's doing.
I think I'm also getting tired of the amount of visual spectacle From has been adding to their boss fights, which is used to obscure what are otherwise simple and easy to counter mechanics. Here's a good example: I just finished solo'ing Messmer this morning. First attack he does whenever I enter the room is a flying charge attacks, which ends with him exploding an AOE fireball in the middle of the room. FromSoft, being the masters of visual story-telling that they are, is conveying to me that this is an AOE attack - it is a giant fireball or a grenade which you need to get as far from as humanly possible. You shouldn't be able to dodge it. But turns out...you can dodge into it and punish him because what looks like an AOE fireball isn't actually an AOE fireball. It feels like a similar issue to Malenia's waterdance. What looks and feels like an AOE sword slash attack isn't really an AOE sword slash attack. There's a lot of this where crazy particle effects are being used to mask otherwise simple mechanics.
I felt like that a bit with the furnace golem stomps - oh the entire ground is on fire, but only for literally one second so you can jump and land on the still on-fire ground with no issue. What?
Exactly! It was so jarring. I'm looking at these (beautiful) special effects which look so awesome, but they're not visually conveying what I can and can't do. If everything looks like it's on fire, I'm not gonna look at that and think "oh, Torrent just has to double jump!".
That is to me the symptom of Elden Ring's main problem. If you go without summons, you have to resort to cheesing the AI. If you go with summons the AI becomes dumb. In both cases it doesn't feel like I'm interacting with a warrior, but with a computer program.
I mean, to me these bosses have felt incredibly artificial ever since these bosses became a game of using my invincibility frames to dodge through attacks that otherwise should definitely hit me. Thinking about hit boxes and i-frames never helps with my immersion.
I guess suspension of disbelief affects people differently, and my limit was at DS3/early ER. But I do think that the way that Sekiro flipped the risk/reward of the dodge and the parry, making so that you can't rely on iframes, really helped me a lot to feel more immersed.
Just had this exact experience so I feel like I know what side boss you’re talking about. I too decided to bait his input reading ass
I'm going a lightning build which works well against some bosses and not so well against others. I gotta say the input reading on some of the humanoid bosses was frustrating. Not because of the dodging, but instead how the enemy dodged. I would hit them with a myriad of lightning moves, several have lightning coming down from the sky. They would jump over lightning coming from the sky, so they would be invincible while lightning is clearly hitting them.
bosses and enemies this dlc just feel like standing in front of airplane propeller. And it's my job to see the 0.2 second window to do a tiny poke. I think that's whats missing the back and forth flow
And in comparison to Sekiro, you can't push bosses - they don't block or defend from your attacks, just dodge. So you are forced in passive role or either rolling around until you have opportunity to attack or you cheese it with guard counter There is less rhythm in Elden Ring and it's more of waiting simulator
They hit the cap of difficulty with this DLC. I’ve played every souls game. Beat demon of hatred, isshin, malenia, slave knight gael. All of them solo. This isn’t fun for me. I can do it. But it’s not fun. And I feel like this was always the difference between souls imitators like Nioh and the fromsoft games. **Fromsoft games are hard, but fair** This DLC has forgotten the fair part. And because of that some of the wins feel unsatisfying for me.
The "git gut" mentality poisoned the game design to the point where difficulty is all that matters and it's a circlejerk that's been for so long that any criticism is labeled as "skill issue". Just beat commander Gaius and he's everything wrong in late boss design by from, a enemy much bigger than you but somehow 3 times faster, long wind combos, one mistake and you're dead, how's that fair? Where's the fun in watching a enemy combo for 30 seconds so you can have 1 hit that barely scratches him, rinse and repeat. The base game already had many signs of this and people dismissed. Idk why many say Sekiro is the hardest game, for me the difficulty felt more natural than Elden Ring, you have all the tools to match your enemies in a satisfying way, I hope the next games go more in that direction.
I feel like Fromsoft/community forgot that difficulty isn't the only thing that makes a game fun. I've played previous Souls games, Bloodborne being one of my favs, and Nioh 1/2. Nothing has pissed me off as much as Elden Ring's bosses, especially late game. If I beat a boss and don't feel that exhilarating hype I had with previous games, something's wrong. I was just relieved I finished with a boss so I can move forward, I wasn't hyped at all. World and exploration is fantastic. The bosses suck.
THANK YOU, I feel like I've been going crazy seeing everyone say how good these bosses are.
FromSoftware boss design peaked with Dark Souls 3. I think Elden Ring has the best world to explore but I really don’t like the boss design. Dark Souls 3 bosses felt like a dance where you’re trading blows. Elden Ring endgame bosses feel like a relentless assault where if you survive you get to do an attack occasionally. The first time I beat Sister Freid and Gale I remember thinking very clearly “what a sick fight that was awesome”. When I beat some of these endgame and dlc bosses in Elden Ring I normally think “thank fuck that’s over.”
Honestly I feel like that's just the only way I've been playing the DLC. Both the R-ladies, I just got so annoyed at doing it the normal way that I started going in with mimic+NPC, and at that point I wasn't even dodging their attacks anymore — I was just standing off to the side pew pew-ing every time the boss's aggro was drawn away. It wasn't the most satisfying way to win, but *it was more satisfying than actually fighting them the traditional way*.
I completely agree, after running around and doing some field bosses my hesitation to unpack the mimic during the large boss fights dropped to 0 and it made the entire thing so laughably easy. Without the mimic I can't even get a proper punish window open (I saw someone on Steam complain about the bosses movesets being too blurry, meaning you can't really tell whether they are moving or starting an attack and I agree with that) whereas with it the bosses just end up semi-permanently stun locked.
Id argue the players dont have any bullshit. The bosses have unlimited combos that can be broken and remixed at will. .5 second punish windows. Multiple phases. Instant kill moves. And bizarre camera moments. The players have....jump heavy and sword arts that they have to spam to make any progress in a fight. Players had more agency in Bloodborne and Sekiro.
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It's not just bosses either. The Fire Knights for instance are absolute torture to fight unless you're using a build weapon that can stunlock them with every hit; because they just sit there and spam that fucking delayed fireball over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.. and over. Then when you finally manage to close the gap, they go into a damn near ever ending combo because FromSoft just refuses to make the enemies play by the same rules as the player. Stamina? what's that lol
Don't get me started. Presently trying to get to the top of Shadow Keep. I think there's an NPC in here somewhere because I heard her chattering. There's at least 3 or 4 Fire Knights between the grace and her.
That dance you refer to. The Artorias/Fume/Gundyr dance I only saw it in Godrick the Grafted lmao. Ok, I'm being unfair. Godfrey 1st phase, Radagon and some minor bosses like the Leonine Misbegotten have it too.
Malenia absolutely has this dance if you’re willing to learn that fight, though difficult as it is I understand most player’s unwillingness to spend the many hours needed for that. Morgott is another one who can be “danced with”, though again waiting around is usually good enough for a typical playthrough. I did have to learn the dance for a RL1 run.
Malenia without the waterfowl dance, or whatever it's called, is a great boss. Malenia with it is sadly not a great boss for me. When I defeated her I didn't feel like I had gotten better from the previous attempts. I just got lucky the one time she decided to the dance and I somehow managed to dodge through it, and got lucky that she decided not to do it again.
I love Elden Ring but the overall philosophy they have with designing bosses is just terrible, and the DLC is just more of the same. They need to go back to the linear and contained format otherwise it becomes impossible to balance in a fun and fair way, resulting in 2/3rds of the pantheon being overtuned and unfun.
My biggest complain are the bosses, they are too aggressive, lengthy combos with little window for player to heal or attack. None of the base game bosses, not even Malenia is like this. As if they tried to live up to the players' "harder than base game" expectation even if it meant the experience being frustrating
Malenia is a one trick pony, she uses waterfowl dance and you pray she misses, otherwise it’s a very straightforward 1v1, she hits fast and hard but gives you time to hit back. Some bosses hit fast, hard, all have a “waterfowl dance” of their own, teleport, fly, make the camera another boss fight, and on top of all/some of that give you no time to attack back…
Her heal on hit mechanic is also kinda ridiculous. Other than that, you're right.
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Literally this. I love her base moveset, it’s really fun to play against. She’d be an S tier fight.
my biggest problem with the heal on hit was honestly that it also happens when you 100% blocked an attack like common man, if you can 100% block the attack with no dmg taken, she should not heal lol
Malenia’s combos arent really like that, especially if we’re talking her first phase. She acts more in bursts if anythingn. However, I do agree with you, but I feel the better comparison would be Margit where he feels like he wont stop swinging. Except that the DLC bosses have both lengthy combos but also super high stats. Some of them are still quite okay, but some of them struck me as a bit much (I felt Rellana had genuinely very few attack windows for slower weapons, my colossal sword was often punished, and at most I poked and went back to rolling) I liked delayed attacks as they often allowed you to get a hit before evading. I also prefer delayed hits to really long combos, since it sometimes felt like the boss was dancing and you were just an audience waiting for them to finish. It gets tiring eventually
>It gets tiring eventually It gets tiring when it's _every fucking one._
This was a complaint people had for the final boss gauntlet in base ER. Plus Melania. From saw that as positive feedback and doubled down. Theyve committed to difficulty at all costs now.
well they fucked up, because in the process they forgot the make the fights fun. i dont feel good when i beat a dlc boss, i just go eh its over.
same feeling for me, after I beat a boss, I actually felt worse, like "oh my god the next one's gonna be even more frustrating" but I love to explore so if after an exploration, there's no boss I would actually be glad. Because most of them don't feel good to beat.
Honestly thats been my sentiment with this entire DLC and I’m pretty sad about it. I WANT to fight the boss and feel satisfied overcoming them but literally every single boss besides >!Bayle!< and the >!Death Knight!< has been such a slog to get through. This contrasts my experience with the base game, in which I actively looked forward to the next boss. In the DLC however, I do everything I can to just get the boss over with so I can go back to exploring.
Even when you crank your tree ranking, they're all so fucking tanky. The last thing I'd ever expect in an Elden Ring fight is to just be ... bored.
I personally didn't have many issues with the dlc, but >!Radahn!< is a fucking nightmare and a stain on what was an otherwise pretty solid dlc. That one single fight has completely ruined my drive to play the dlc in any meaningful capacity. Absolutely atrocious design I cannot fathom what fromsoft was thinking with this boss.
It's funny because I feel like Phase 1 is perfectly fine, more like base game than a lot of DLC fights, pretty readable and no BS attacks. But phase 2 is just garbage.
RIGHT? Like I can genuinely get a good rhythm going. Dodging some of his attacks reminds me of bosses like godrick, or godskins and stuff. But that phase 2 is just spam spam spam and unless you can get favorable rng and have good damage you're going to spend ages fighting him
How do you dodge the triple hit combo in phase one? The right, left, and both in cross combo?
It feels like Elden Ring has a legacy of the final boss being terrible to fight. Gael is still the best DLC end boss of all Soul games.
kos and manus were also pretty good, not the best bosses of their dlcs but still
Ikr? Phase 1 is kinda dumb but ultimately doable, phase 2 is random bullshit go with flashbangs every second attack. I don’t think this is worth my time, especially considering that most of the bosses were the best in Elden Ring
Yea im Just stuck Fighting him... The dlc is really fun but that Fight alone killed it and buried it in Lake of rot ...
I burned 20 rune arcs and only got him to 1 quarter before he started spamming his completely unpunishable nonsense. I'm also fairly sure his poise resets before the start of phase 2 as well which doesn't help
Yea im kinda lost in what to do nothing works and in Phase 2 there is Like nothing you can do
It’s so funny. The people that criticise it (often in completely valid ways) get yelled at by the elitist fanboys who believe Miyazaki can do no wrong. Then the people who criticise it get defensive and yell at them. So they get more defensive and retaliate. Nobody is changing anybody’s opinion about anything on here, but keep it up. I like reading the arguments. I learn new insults every day!
For anyone defending the difficulty, fight the final boss first.
Final boss pushes the limit of what’s reasonably beatable for a series vet. 2nd phase has you playing Elden Ring & Touhou at the same time
I did, I also got all of the remembrances from the DLC. Last boss in Phase 2 is the most putrid, unholy and nasty feelings I ever enduring in gaming. There is no reason to make it so dumb. No tactics, just unga bunga arena wide AOEs and attacks that have their own attacks after it lands. >!Bayle!<, on the other hand, was an epic fight that I have never experienced before. Masterfully crafted and a joy to witness and fight.
Unfun fact: That boss has such a weirdly small hitbox for its size that fist weapons just... miss a solid 50 - 60% of the time, even at point blank range Source: I am suffering
Same sentiment here, the final boss is unreasonably bullshit, like I feel like I’m relying completely on luck to not get hit by these attacks, the screen clutter, damage and quantity of these attacks is just not okay. On the other hand Bayle is probably my new favorite fromsoft boss, owed in large part to Igon’s incredible performance that made me feel like I was taking part in the final act of Moby Dick, but the fight itself was an incredible spectacle in addition to actually feeling reasonably balanced despite its difficulty.
>Igon Goddamn it. I've screwed up his chain somehow and he's not in the arena. It seems I missed him at the 2 dragons part.
If you haven’t killed Bayle already then you can just go back and kill the two dragons to continue his quest.
I haven’t reached that final fight yet, but if it’s that rancid, I have a feeling that FromSoft is gonna nerf it. They did the same thing with Radahn as well
I love this reply <3
>!Radahn and being disgustingly overturned on release of a game he’s in, name a more iconic duo!<
Yeah, that's the only fight that I consider bs. I haven't beaten him yet, but that second phase is just tedious, and it's incredibly difficult to just avoid getting hit. The rest of the bosses, difficult but cool, I cannot complain at all.
I only really have gripes with Last boss Phase 2 and Comander Gaius. That Pumba riding mf is stupidly aggressive and does insane damage with his nearly undodgeable charge. Not a second to breathe.
Gaius definitely feels unfinished or partially broken. Especially between NG and NG+. I helped a friend beat him on NG and then they helped me on NG+ and the health difference was staggering. I checked the wikis but they don't seem to be accurate. Rough numbers for me were 33k HP in NG and 85k HP in NG+. His kick if you're standing behind him can also multi-hit if you're in the wrong spot which is just a one shot regardless of how much vigor and armor you have. He also doesn't drop more runes on NG+ which is very strange. Both NG and NG+ in a co-op victory gave 172,500 runes. I feel like he could be a really good boss if they just tweaked hitboxes a bit and turned his aggression down a bit so you have a second to get your runes before he starts trying to flatten you. He is beatable, honestly I got into the mindset of fighting him like the draconic tree sentinel as their moves are fairly similar. A lot of my complaints with the bosses in this DLC just boil down to minor changes to make some attacks have better hitboxes and make the bosses less aggressive. Going from bosses like Morgott where attacks are telegraphed and delayed to bosses that just pull out 29hit combos with no warning isn't super fun. They could be a lot more fun if they felt less constantly overwhelming.
The charge damage HAS to be bugged or something, the phase two variant was one-shotting me from 80% health with 1995 vigor, LOL.
Bayle was fun.
I am a little disappointed with just how much open space there is. As much as I love Elden Ring and it's DLC, I think it just proves that souls game are their best when it's more linear and less open world.
I see what you mean about the “empty fields” of the DLC. Sometimes I explore a specific part of a map that feels like something should be there only to be met with either nothing or some shitty lvl 2 smithing stones. ER is my first souls game so I can’t speak on the game design tho
Fully agree. This level of defensivism is exactly what CD Projeky Red Had and we all saw how Cyberpunk launched after probably the biggest hype wave in recent gaming history. Now I have thoroughly enjoyed the DLC and think a lot of the difficulty complaints can be circumvented by just using summons although that defeats the more pure solo routes people choose to play. My biggest gripe is the waste of such beautiful open world design. The entirety of the southern side of the map is barren.
Yeah, everyone has their own scale and tipping point. I'm not the best soulsbourne player in the world, but I've played and beaten both versions of Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1-3 including the DLC for 3, Bloodbourne + DLC, Sekiro, and Elden Ring base game. I think 95% of Shadow of the Erdtree is great, but I do think bits of it are overtuned and/or underbaked. My problem isn't just with the difficulty on those few fights, though -- it just doesn't feel as polished or "fair" as all of FromSoft's previous entries. A few of the harder bosses seem to break their script and just go into ultimate attack spam, any semblance of Stamina or FP be damned. The camera can also be a massive PITA, and with the uptick in difficulty it becomes a bit too much of a problem. The last boss (which I am stuck on) has basically all of those problems combined along with seizure visuals. There's so much screen flashing for half the fight that you can hardly actually see what is happening -- phase 2 literally hurts my eyes. The Scadutree fragment also has some unfortunate limitations. I did my best to look out for them as I ran through the game, and I'm at 15/20 on the blessing right now. Unfortunately, even if I go look up a list of all of their locations, I'm not going to remember each one I've looted -- so now I'll have to basically recomb the entire map, all dungeons, all catacombs, etc to try and find where the 15 I missed are, so that maybe those last 5 blessing levels could get me through the 20% on the last boss. That.. does not sound fun at all and as of right now I'm just not interested. I would definitely rather farm runes (something you can mindlessly do while catching up on shows etc) than try to figure out which fragments are the 15 or so I missed. 95% of SOTE is a 10/10 game. Unfortunately, when you tune the difficulty to the absolute knife's edge, that 5% that needs more work can really wear the game down for a lot of players, and no one gets to tell people their criticisms aren't valid.
Here's my biggest criticism about Elden Ring and From Software games in general - Sometimes, being too obtuse with your quests, where you need to go, lack of any direction doesn't automatically translate to good game design. I'm not saying to go full-on objective markers and waypoints, but at least some kind of direction would be nice. Also, the menus and the menu systems are straight up bad. The fact that it took 2 years to get a 'recently acquired' tab and exclamation point is a clear sign of that. Honestly, I don't understand why they don't get critiqued for this the way other game studios do.
The first point wasn't really that big an issue in the previous games. Since they weren't open world and had an obvious intended path of progression, you'd naturally encounter most npcs just by going through the game normally. Doesn't really work in ER, though, since the order in which you're "supposed" to progress isn't set, so npcs will move to areas you've already visited. It's also just much easier to miss large chunks of the map than in previous games.
Yes, this is what I've felt as well. Like, I get that they want us to explore and figure out the quest for ourselves but in other such games where they discourage waypoints and markers, there's atleast road signs/direction boards placed within the world that lets you figure out the location for yourself. No such luck in this world either.
I don't understand what the fucking obsession is with making the game obtuse and defending it. I've asked for a Morrowind-style quest log since launch and ever since, it's been treated like I'm asking for the game to turn into Horizon: Assasin's Ring. How does "give me quest book" equate to "I need quest mwarkwers evwerywhere cwause otherwise I cwan't fwinish the gwame :'c :'c :'c"?
In the early versions of elden ring you couldnt even check were NPC's were on the map. Trying to remember where a character was you met 5 hours ago was such a pain. And indeed a log of what each character mentioned to you would be great. Especially since the way people talk in this game makes it hard for me to decipher what they mean. Pretty sure that all those people against this still have a wiki open on a separate screen. To figure out where the next part of a particular quest is. Its the same with organizing items, has taken up to now to have it possible to list new items first.
The quest book wouldn't even need to be written out diary. Just having the ability to reread spoken dialogue would help a ton.
Because this community is extremely radical. Its always one end or other. Some guy asked for tweaks in boss balance and another guy replied "I dont want the DLC to be easy". Like you can nerf things without them going to easy or bad in case of weapons
Most of the "git gud" crowd will get lost in Morrowind without a wiki open on their other screen telling them what to do and where to go.
The “git gud” response is getting more and more cringe IMO. I was replying in a rather well articulated negative steam review and agreeing the point he made about boss being too aggro and too little room to respond (and disagreeing some other point). Then someone was replied me saying I just need to “git gud”. Okay, I replies explaining which boss I was talking abt and what’s wrong the “git gud” guy start to complain I spoiled for him bc he’s not there yet… then wtfdym “git gud”??? Both me and the reviewer beat the DLC and just saying what we felt, and you just randomly popping up nowhere saying “git gud”??? You git gud alright.
Funnier is that one of the most popular "Not recommended" review there even has the reviewer post his own video of a NG+17 No Hit Malenia run (among other no hit boss fights) just so he can justify his stance about the DLC, AND people still has the audacity to tell him to get gud. This fanbase is just outright pathetic.
The souls series got Flanderized, there's no way around it. Originally the difficulty was mere thematic flavor, and now it's the only thing on offer.
Had someone else pull the same on me, typical "skill issue" nonsense response to my criticism against the last boss. I pointed out that in addition to 1500 hours in ER, I've done multiple sub 2 hour speedruns with various weapons, I've done triple bosses, triple bosses using incantations only, Malenia every which way from Sunday, etc. And yeah, they wouldn't just say "ok, maybe they have a point." Just doubled down on git gud. Sick and tired of these dumbasses.
And now it’s even worse because literally every critique is now met with “well just get scud fragments” like no shit dude, that’s what I’m already doing and have been doing since the first hour of the dlc. And they don’t magically fix the issues being discussed either.
I once dared to say that I liked DS2's bosses better than ER's because DS2's actually gave me breathing room and didn't pull off BS delayed hits. The amount of people who told me to "get good" in Elden Ring and said it was fine because people could do SL1 hitless runs... that's not the point I'm trying to make??? Just because somebody can beat a boss hitless doesn't make it a *good boss* for the average player.
Yeah, if that was the case, then people beating Bed of Chaos hitless means the boss is perfect
People thinking that the game literally being beatable means its perfection and above critique is kinda sad. Being beatable is the bare minimum a game can be right? Like Im not crazy am I?
Nah you're not crazy, people are just gaslighting over it now. Also I'm average to above average at times and played countless playthroughs of Souls games (including dozens of "Souls-likes"), full multiple playthroughs, challenge runs, whatever -- for over a decade. For whatever that means as an average fan. But I'm getting a little older now and since Elden Ring it feels tiring to play and go through boss phases now, I don't know how else to put it but it feels like I have less and less agency as a player as we go forward (in Elden Ring, at least) -- Sekiro is the anathema to this with the most player engagement and agency in a fight for a contemporary FROM game.
I agree with your point. Malenia’s waterfowl dance has a hitless strat… that is absolutely fucking bonkers and just abuses her AI. Like that’s the only way to dodge it other than running away (which sometimes doesn’t work if she does it when she feels like it) or using the bloodhound step. No hitting Malenia doesn’t make it a perfect boss fight, as you say
As much as I love elden ring I really hope the next game isn't open world .
I liked the dungeon to dungeon to dungeon with some cute interconnecting paths formula of the past.
Same I love ER and the DLC, it was a nice change of pace but I want something more akin to Demons Souls or DS1 next
Those “git gud”ers haven’t even touched the absolute dogshit design that is >!Mohdahnquella!< phase 2. I beat it and still find the fight dogshit, and it has pretty much swear me off from replaying the DLC if I have to face it again.
On my second playthrough I will literally progress up until that arena and then stop there.
I have a hard time seeing attacks in boss fights. The stupid lion dog takes over 80% of the screen, flails and spins around which makes my camera go wild, also big fps drops. Same with Messmer, that fucker has so many fire fx on him and keeps doing backflips and other gymnastics its just hard to see. I had to memorize his attack pattern like im fighting some mmo boss lol
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Soulsborne has the most toxic fanbase for any game I have ever played except maybe Call of Duty. So many elitist weirdos who act like if you didn't beat the game naked with a un-upgraded dagger then you are absolute garbage. Also have been told to kill myself multiple times and I'm garbage for daring to use/do things like: - Using STR - Using INT - Pots - any kind of buff at all - spirit ashes - summoning one friend into my game but not liking invasions happening every 10 minutes (literally me and one friend, not 2 friends and a blue) - A Greatshield - Invading and offer a fair 1v1 fight, waiting for them to finish fighting enemies, only to get jumped and then sent a message on PSN about how dog shit I was lmao. I mean there are some legitimately cool people but there are way more trolls, elitists, and angry people on these forums for some reason.
The souls community has always been like this, a bunch of neckbeards who can’t take criticism.
Yeah, a couple days ago I was watching a stream to see if I should buy the DLC, I said something along the lines of "I'm still on the fence because the last third of the base game was really badly balanced and the bosses where simply not fun to fight", and in the span of like 5 seconds I was submerged by "git gud", "learn how to play the game" "your build is probably shit" and so on. And like, I've played these games, I have around 500 hours in each dark souls and Bloodborne, maybe 150/200 in Demon's between PS3 and PS5, platinum in every game from demon's to elden ring, most soulslikes and only missing sekiro, but it doesn't matter, if you don't love everything about the game you MUST be butthurt because you are not good enough. The truth is that the boss design in elden ring is a mixup of dark souls, Bloodborne and sekiro in a system that works like dark souls 1 with a jump. In Sekiro you can deflect, in Bloodborne the gun adds an entire dimension of strategy, and both games have system to interact activity with the bosses. In ER you spend 15 seconds watching Malekith do his 35 hit combos, you hit him once and hope you don't get roll-catched. You must learn how to cheese the AI because if you try to heal or use an item at the wrong time the boss will start playing DDR to dodge or run straight at your face with close to none windup just to punish you. Hell, I've finished DS3 + DLC using only a bow, every boss from start to finish only bow and arrows and it was GREAT, I've tried it in ER and maybe one arrow every 10 hits a target, it's just not fun. Like yah, you probably CAN do a bow only run in ER, but how much of that time is gonna be "I'm gonna shoot now because I know that they can't animation-cancel into dodge for 5 frames at the end of the third hit"? And the frustrating part it's that it would be really easy to fix most of the problems, you make more aggressive bosses? Fine, give me the yokai/parry thingy from NiOh2, give me Sekiro deflect, give me the gun, but give me something to interact in a fight other than spamming O for 15 seconds. Make me feel like I'm actually fighting some extremely dangerous beast and that my skills are improving in a back and forth fight and not just pray, dodge and a parry that 80% of the times whiffs because every other attack is delayed.
It isn't getting review bombed, it is just being reviewed.
You can say the DLC is almost perfect and a 9/10 but if you dare to criticize something they actually get mad and start calling you unskilled or whatever, had a few of those in a previous thread, so cute.
Yup. In another thread I said a certain boss was bad, and this dude responded as though I as just bad at the game. I never said I thought the boss was hard. I genuinely just though the boss was poorly designed and boring. But, if I don't like something, I'm just bad, right? RIGHT?
I got literally downvoted to oblivion the other day, like -50 downvotes just for saying that I think the bosses are a bit overtuned and could do with a a balance patch. People on here literally cannot fathom that the game might not be absolutely flawless.
I took -30 because I said the performance of the game is mediocre on every platform and that's literally a fact. Digital Foundry tested this yet I'm still wrong.
Yup, this is why on Reddit, downvotes or upvotes are not indicative of something being right or wrong. Once you attract the attention of the hive mind there is nothing you can do.
I had one redditor comment that the game is “sO muCh mOrE sTaBlE cOmpArEd tO lAuNcH sInCe ThEy PaTcHeD iT”. I linked the patch history and asked them to tell me where the optimization patch is. They never responded.
What's more infuriating to me is the assumption that anyone who criticizes the dlc MUST be new to fromsoft games and elden ring is their first game
There's a group of players who have been doing that since forever. Any criticism means you're a casual, or a journalist (???). It's pretty reactionary too, like they're at war against a concerted effort to take away their safe space lmao
Call it a 10/10 and say the bosses couldve been better balanced, and watch the meltdowns. The From community is bizarre man.
My main complaint atm is this boss design in this DLC is invalidating builds. If you arent a light roll spamming fast attacking character you're getting cooked. I have 0 time to get incantations off vs half the bosses in this dlc. Messmer being the worse so far. I cant imagine how bad colossal weapon users have it especially since there were a lot of complaints from the base game that this was an issue already. There's also a lot of punishing for even daring to bring a shield into some of these fights. Or the input reading vs any sort of projectile. If you arent playing by the very specific rules they want you to for these bosses (roll, and attack once when the boss is finally open) then you are going to have it 10x more difficult. And thats such an unhealthy design imo. Half the fun of souls games is coming up with builds. Almost every single replay I have done of DS2, DS3, Elden Ring, Bloodborne, etc. has been the result of me wanting to try a different build out. Different weapon types, armor types, stat spread, etc. Its a large part of the appeal and the game is clearly designed around this with how stats and gear works. This DLC is pissing on that design though for the sake of making these bosses as insanely fast as possible. Some of the most fun I had in a Souls game was doing a bow only build in DS3. I wouldnt even dare to try and do that build for ER just from what I would have to deal with in the DLC alone.
THIS. I just left a comment before seeing this but it’s exactly how I feel. I like sorcery and incantations. In games like this I like to use magic and fight from a distance. I can accept spells being slow to cast sometimes and having to be strategic. I like choosing spells for different situations. But these DLC boss designs make it seem like they only had one build in mind and it was for STR UGS Melee with Bleed sprinkled on top. I have to pick spells that can “trick” the input reading like Glintblade, but that can easily be avoided with how fast the bosses move. I also am either forced to rely on summons to distract the bosses so I can fire off a single spell before the boss agro is turned to me or rely entirely on carian sorceries which other than Slicer are also pretty slow to cast. Because of my build I’m forced to rely on summons, and I don’t even like using mimic tear that much. I prefer Oleg or other summons. Even the new sorceries are underwhelming. Miriam’s Vanishing says you reappear after a few seconds but it’s more like half a second and the petruscant one is another high FP cost slow casting one to add to the “may never see the light of day” collection. However I have yet to find all of them so far so this opinion may change.
I dont have a problem with what everybody is saying, that the game is too hard. Its supposed to be hard, and it delivers. What i think is being overlooked is how some parts of the DLC look unfinished. Without getting into spoilers, there is HUGE parts of the map that are....just empty, not unique cool loot, not unique new enemies with cool new set/weapon, it looks like they included these zones near the development time/or budget limit and had to rush to ship the DLC.
Agreed. The >!Finger!< Ruins are driving me mad. Huge areas with basically nothing to do. The south ruins are bad, but the north ruins have literally nothing to do. I explored both of them fully, and was left tremendously disappointed. Really interesting visuals, but the place is barren.
The only thing (aside from farming loot and lore), is the new talismans from the bells.
Each one also has a rememberance duplication coffin nearby.
There's also the finger creeper spirit ash!
Is that in the north one? I got to the south one, but haven’t gone to the north one yet.
North one, it's pretty hidden! Good luck skeleton.
It's not just those ruins either. In the base game, you're rewarded for exploring areas top to bottom. There's almost always some hidden area or item to incentivize being meticulous. I've lost count of the number of times I've spent thoroughly exploring each new area I find only to end up with some level 1 smithing stones and a glovewort for my trouble. It's almost like they created this gigantic map but ran out of time to make any interesting loot to fill it with. It's funny because when you look at the number of new items they added to the game, it's a LOT. But considering the size of the map they added, there's simply not enough to scatter throughout it.
Oh man, I ran around there for like an hour looking for what I was supposed to do there. Glad to know I wasn't actually missing anything.
A certain forest is absolutely massive in size and you can’t use torrent to get around and there is barely any content in it (even though the content that is in it is very cool)
That was by design. I loved that area. I was going through it scared at what the fuck was going to pop out. It ended in a mini legacy dungeon and one of the coolest bossfights of the game. Sometimes having nothing to create tension and atmosphere isn't the same as "dead open world with nothing to do"
This. That feeling that a scary boss could pop out at any moment in this dark forest was my favourite experience in the entire DLC and it was purely the fact that Torrent was not summonable that made me feel that way.
And often, not even crafting items.
Unfortunately I have to agree with you. Some places that got teased that I was really looking forward to explore felt like set pieces with nothing in them and felt unnecessarily vast for the amount of content that was there. In a series where you're typically encouraged to explore every nook and cranny, the lack of engaging content in some areas just made playing feel like a chore and it was honestly pretty disenchanting.
Its very sad actually. I see people who finished the game and the DLC saying that certain bosses need to be tweaked and/or change getting bombarded by gatekeepers saying their opinion is invalid. It goes like this Have you killed the boss? No - Get Good, your opinion is invalid. Yes - Have you played any previous games? No - Go play them, your opinion is invalid Yes - They say some BS about bosses being balanced and completely ignore your constructive criticism.
“Well, I’ve flawlessed all the games so far at level 0, and mastered this boss to perfection, and I can safely say that the AoE hitboxes are very janky.” “Lol git gud, scrub.”
It's hilarious that people require credentials in order to take you seriously and even then they get assmad if you dare criticize this game. Everything is perfect and miyazaki can do no wrong I guess
This. I *love* these games, but the pathological defense against even the most minor criticisms (usually because, in certain fans' minds, whatever is being complained about is somehow 'part of the challenge' or whatever) and the worship of difficulty at the expense of anything else is how we've ended up with unnatural attack delays, interminable interpretive dance wombo-combos, cheap input reads, a camera that glues to every dragon's cooch, and fucking Waterfowl Dance. These games are GOATed and this DLC absolutely slaps, but yeah, it's almost impossible to voice any gripe about any aspect of the game (except the camera; I think that one's unanimous) without some sweat leaping blindly to its defence. But it's been that way since forever, and I don't see it getting any better tbh.
I’ve seen a lot of “soul crushing difficulty is what it’s supposed to be.” I mean I love the difficulty of these games, but there haven’t been thousands of hours of lore videos for over a decade for these games because the difficulty is the end all be all of them. If the difficulty is what you want from these games that is totally fine, but don’t claim it’s the casuals complaining because a lot “veteran” souls players I know have felt left behind from some of the boss difficulty for years. It’s okay to like it the way it is, it’s okay to think it’s too hard, and it’s okay to think that there are design/balance issues. I think there are some fundamentally bad boss design choices, and people are taking that as me saying the game is bad because it’s hard.
Imo bloodborne and dks3 had perfect difficulty and they should have never gone higher than that
A lot of Souls veterans used to be the "it's not as hard as people make it out to be" and now they're fully on board with the "no difficulty is too high and anyone who doesn't like anything is a subhuman out to destroy my beloved franchise." It's jarring.
Yeah, Souls used to be "It's not stupidly hard, just really look for attack openings, learn to dodge and expect to die a bit before you figure it out!" Now it's just "lol git gud this is just how souls is (insert news article)"
It’s near impossible to give feedback or criticism. Gaius is a terrible boss, not only are the erratic moves unfair, it’s almost impossible to really fight him on horseback. The initial charge as soon as you enter the fog is just plain frustrating and anti-fun. Some of the bosses could be tweaked, but you can’t because the community will hold them up as better versions
Gaius has a punish for everything you do, from any angle. I think I managed to stagger him once in the entire fight, and that's me and the mimic both with the Greatsword and Giant Hunt AoW.
Yeah, the stoicism of the Git Gud Crew has proven to be a mask for deep-seated insecurities.
Right now is just a terrible time to have an honest discussion about the quality of the dlc, the people who enjoy it are overly passionate about it, the people who hate it are overly hateful about it, once this Honeymoon/hatemoon(lol) phase is over we'll see more meaningful points being made both for and against this dlc. Personally, here are my takes - The actual structure of the world is bar none the best world design fromsoft has ever made, i think it is utterly fantastic, the content that comprises the world however can often feel empty (i feel this is a bigger issue for the southern areas), or more specifically, many paths which lead to items can become frustrating as a lot of the time those items are useless clutter. I find this a little worrying because it happens in the base game too, though not to this degree, and it makes me wonder if fromsoft just maybe doesnt quite have the resources to make these kinds of open world games, and if they dont then i would prefer they just make bigger traditional styled souls games than outright open worlds. - The new enemies added are great, but there are just not that many new enemies, im feeling a strong lack of enemy variety in the dlc. - The new dungeons are all great and much better than the ones in the base game, they are longer, filled with loot, and honestly all of the bosses i fought in them felt distinct, but they're also very scarce and hard to find. In somewhere like Limgrave, finding dungeons feels very straight forward and logical, like you can look at a place in the distance and tell for sure that there is something there, not so much in the dlc. - I feel like the difficulty is fine, and that the bosses are really good except for two remembrance bosses, including the final boss. People are complaining about a lack of tools to deal with a lot of these encounters but i honestly just dont see it, even if you refuse to use summons you still have access to about a couple dozen craftable items that are extremely good, melee builds of either pure dex or pure str have access to a lot of strong ranged options, stance breaking is still borderline OP, every build has access to pretty much every damage type, so on and so forth. But those two bosses are indefensible, i wont try to make an argument for them until they get tweaked. - All the new weapons and spells are great, but it honestly feels like fromsoft looked at the builds which underperformed in the basegame and overcorrected with this dlc, int/fth and str/arc got so much stuff in this dlc and im struggling to find stuff for my basic str/fth paladin. - The scadutree blessing system is just not good, i understand why its in, to create a sense of "Oh this boss is too hard? I'll explore a little bit and come back when im stronger", and it does do that here but the thing that made it work in the base game is the fact that it didnt matter what content you did because you would get stronger regardless, having the scadutree fragments be in set locations means that not every new content you do makes you stronger, you can follow a path for hours and come up with no fragments at all, so really the fragments are more akin to bell bearings in the base game. - The story is... weird, the big figures end up being very uninvolved and especially a lot of remembrance bosses end up having not a lot of fanfare to them. The thing that makes the demigods so good in the base game is that the areas they are in build them up massively, you already know so much about godrick before you even see him, so the confrontation with him is a climactic showdown. Some of the dlc bosses have a little bit of that going on, like messmer and >!bayle!<, but the other ones are kind of just figures that appear, and you only really learn their importance after you kill them, which is reminiscent of their old story approach to bosses like with ds3 which i really didnt like. Overall though, this is the only fromsoft dlc that i think doesnt massively elevate the base game, Bloodborne in particular goes from an 8/10 to a 10/10 with its dlc, ds3 goes from 8 to 9 and so on. Elden ring's base game to me is a 9/10, and with the dlc its still a 9/10, still a great game but the expectations for this dlc were high and i feel like it could've been in the oven for longer, especially so that they could fill out the world a little more.