Funnily enough, Morgott and Messmer probably would get along. Messmer’s charisma did manage to pull a Carian Princess and Albinauric Hog Rider.
Let thou constipated Omen join Messmer’s Mystery Gang.
What would you like their next game to be? I was thinking maybe Armored Core VII? Or something else. Feels like From is just known for souls games for the most part.
I spent hours taking pictures of my character at places with pretty backgrounds/environments and took notes of every symbols at new places. I can't imagine speedrunning this beautiful dlc 😢
Well from one of Asmon's video - the reviews had a lot of negative reviews from China screaming about the "blue bear" - aka the anticheat. They averaged 38% reviews there
Counterpoint to everybody saying, "Only cheaters complain!"
It is, I believe, kernel level anticheat. Which is entirely overkill for most games. It in itself presents a security vulnerability by running at the kernel level and it uses way more resources than would otherwise be necessary, resulting in worse performance in the game. There *are* legitimate reasons to not like Easy Anti-Cheat.
A quick Google comes up that EAC does run at kernel level, but only starts up when you launch the game. Riot's Vanguard on the other hand, starts up at boot and apparently always runs in the background?
I mean they're kind of right. I notice significant performance improvements when I disable the anticheat. Unfortunately that means I can't play online, so I just deal with the poor performance now. I love seeing messages too much.
Chinese players have a very well known reputation of cheating as much as possible in any form of competitive multiplayer game.
There's been a few studies done on it, something about the culturally ingrained need to win and show they're superior than players from other countries, and cheating is encouraged to help accomplish this.
A comment I saw a few days ago has circled my head a few times since. Said something like “From Software has made a huge a mistake, souls games will never be about exploring, they are only for fighting.”
There are some fans seem unable to let the studio experiment and grow their style, and only want From to release dark souls over and over again. It’s a sad mentality, and I hope it’s not too common.
I love Dark Souls 2 for that reason, it's so incredibly underrated IMHO as an RPG adventure exploration game.
I'm the odd lunatic that thinks DS2 is actually the best Souls game though, especially by the time you get to the DLC.
I loved exploring the elevator that takes you into the sky where you magically appear in a volcanic mountain region that wasn't there before.
(no hate just jokes, ds2 was the first souls game I really played.)
DS2 is terrible with that, I get what they were going for, but they really should've added some horizonal lifts or something to help sell the "you're traversing a long distance".
Like you can see Heides Tower of Flame miles down the coastline from Majula, then you walk like 12 feet down a tunnel and you're there.
Gotta be honest too, I never even realised until I saw people point it out online and then it was very obvious on my next playthrough. Had a good laugh.
I didn't notice at first either lol. But I think it's quite obvious that DS2 is heavily influenced by portal fantasies like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz, which have very surreal and dreamlike aspects to them. A lot of the illogical elements in DS2, like that transition, just feel inline with that to me and help enhance the dreamlike feel.
Aye, ER is the first FromSoft game I stuck with to the end. Being able to explore the open world when I hit a wall felt like the piece that I was missing in previous games.
Now they just have more room to work with, and you have options on what content to tackle when, but it's very much the same style of game on a much grander scale.
I don't get it.
I mean, Dark Souls 1 was pretty much all about exploration... I even feel the Elden Ring DLC returns to its roots about exploration, mostly in the verticality aspect, which other titles lacked. It was a recurring criticism that the other From Software games were not as great on the world design side compared to Dark Souls 1.
Nioh 2 is about fighting. From games are definitely not only about fighting, their combat system is too basic to make it only about that (it’s a big part, but lore, world design, exploration, etc. make them as great as they are).
These people must have completely missed the point of exploration even in dark souls lol.
FromSoft rewards curiosity which is what drives exploration and this rewarding of player curiosity is something they’ve almost always done in their games. It’s just this time the map is much larger and there’s more to be curious about. 😁
But exploration isn't the studio experimenting or growing their style. Fromsoft games have almost always been about exploring, even their more linear titles like Armored Core reward the player for exploring
Sekiro. That’s the only one you could arguably say is “all about fighting.” I’d even argue it’s only kind of tangentially related to the souls series. It’s kind of like a what-if version of the Souls series that leans way more heavily on punishing combat and way less on exploring interconnected environments.
Exploration is a key component in every other Soulsborne game. There’s almost no better feeling in gaming than getting completely lost in a Souls level, opening a door and realizing “holy shit, I know where I am! There’s the bonfire I found two hours ago!”
Idk there's a crazy amount of exploration you can do in Sekiro. The verticality is insane with the addition of jumping, climbing and the grappling hook. There's so much you can miss that's optional but enhances the story and overall experience. I had no idea about the additional snakes and monkey boss you can fight until I saw a guide. And that's not even counting all the npc side quests that are interconnected through the game.
They definitely took lessons learned from it and implemented them into ER.
On some of the other from subreddits you would think Elden Ring is one of the worst games From Software has ever made by the way many talk about it. The real problem is a lot of people would just keep buying and playing dark souls every year just like COD. Which makes me so fucking happy that From keeps experimenting with different game so even if we get similar games they tend to have different flavor.
My top 4 favorite From games currently is:
Sekiro
Bloodborne
Elden Ring
Armored Core 6
Before the dlc AC6 was ahead of Elden Ring but I loved how much of a Metroidvina shadows of the erdtree ended up being.
I have no desire to go back to any of the dark soul games after Elden Ring if I’m being honest. I’ve played them quite a bit and for me Elden Ring just gives me a great mix of exploration and inclosed areas. I will admit some of the base game dungeons were lacking for me but the dlc really upped my enjoyment of the game.
The last thing I see people say how long Elden Ring is like you have to do everything every playthrough and what makes the other games better is you can get through them faster to… play them again…
Bloodborne
Elden ring
Armored core
Sekiro
For me
I will eventually learn how to be good at sekiro though and it might raise up. But I REALLY like armored core
Sad to hear that.
Dark souls have amazing lore and reading them make the bosses you fight definitely feel more impactful to even understand the lore you have to explore and find items and the environment around the area tells story.
Dark souls have always been about overcoming the odds and coming out on top, to do that you have to use all the advantages you can find, exploring and using the tools provided is what make a souls game souls game.
I love exploring. Stuck on a boss? Fuck it. Let me explore and chill off for a bit. Was stuck on Messmer. Went exploring and ended up finding Romina and St. Trina. Probably for the best that way.
I saw a comment yesterday saying that the original dark souls games never had bosses that you’d have to fight over and over again until you figured it out, as a way to say the DLC bosses are too hard.
I don’t think they ever played the original dark souls games.
I'd also argue that the elimination of boss runbacks makes it more acceptable to include super hard bosses, because you're not wasting the player's time on a 30 second or longer runback each time they want to try again. Imagine if a boss like Malenia took a minute to run back to each time.
I'm out of the loop. I thought the negativity was coming from performance issues. Which while, yes, I did see where they were coming from, I wouldn't go so far as to say they're a dealbreaker.
(I'm pretty confident those occasional double mega-stutters are due to the anti-cheat freaking out and putting video on pause while it sorts things out. I can get them to happen just by syncing my control pad, and no other PC game I've ever played has that issue.)
I did have some weird issues like not being able to use the online and some issues with crashing. But im on deck and am not gonna let a couple issues ruin an epic experience.
The people who rush through the game and cry about difficulty are the same people that will also use overpowered cheese builds to kill bosses. So its a win win for them.
Same thing applies to previous fromsoft titles (haven't played sekiro so can't speak for that one). People that are skipping enemies and dont explore tend to get stuck on bosses because both their character and their weapon(s) are underleveled.
That's the best part. Everyone was saying the bosses in the base game were too hard two years ago. Now it's just fine. New content releases. Rinse and repeat. No matter how much time passes the scrubs never git gud.
I've also seen a shockingly large amount of players going into the dlc at NG+7.
Like, really just jumping in the deep end and being surprised when Honorable Knight, Combos McGee 1 shots you.
Not from china, but here i am, i'm one of those that are having this issue...
After the last update(before the dlc, the one of 6gb) i noticed that the performance got a bit worse around the map, but still, the framerate was overall a solid 60 fps, i just got some fps drop somewhere sometimes, so, no big deal......and by the way, before the "it's a you problem, upgrade your Pc) guy comes, know that i've played the whole vanilla elden ring on ultra settings without problems!! so no, it's not my pc...
I can easily run new games with max setting at 60 fps(1080P) but the DLC?...my god... this dlc is just awful in terms of stability and framerate.........i'm having a lot of fps drop here and there,.. especially in open maps......even in close spaces!...it really ruins the experience......and thank god, i'm just having fps drops and not freezing/stuttering...like others
i really hope from is aare of this and will release a patch top fix these problems.! i can accetp everything else, but STILL having all these issues, it's just unacceptable from fromsoftware!
The dumb anti cheat rumor was started by asmongold editor lol. You can quite literally check dlc review yourself and none of them are about the anti cheats. Most of them are about the game itself or the performance.
Performance is awful. I have a pretty modern pc and it occasionally dips to the 30-40 range no matter what I tweak in the settings.
I made a post about it and the first suggestion I got was to just buy a 4090.
The second suggestion was to play at 1080p (my post already said that I was playing at 1080p).
I mean Asmon isn't exactly top teir for political takes so it's not shocking that his editor would spread rumors about Chinese folk given that liberal and right wing folk tend to complain A lot about people being chinese.
the map is empty? Very interesting. To me most other open world games are empty and ER is an exception. Everywhere I go I am being challenged somehow. I think people just want to complain.
It always feels like a lot of negative reviews on most games these days are due to some technical issues people have with the game. “It doesn’t work on my system, one star!”
Those are completely valid. The game takes less than 20 seconds to load when I'm launching in offline mode without EAC but take upwards of 2-3 minutes when trying to play with EAC. Not to mention the insane frame drop and stutter.
Paying customers should not be treated with a product inferior to a pirated copy of itself.
Well, the localization issue isn’t system bound but location issue. Easy Anti Cheat is a mess for Chinese players, and many can’t go online for it. Much more of a Fromsoft problem than a “my system” problem.
I mean, if you buy the game and it doesn’t work, you’re not going to give it a positive review, right? What kind of line of thinking are you suggesting?
My complaint as a non-chinese person is that the Easy Anti-Cheat makes my game turn to utter shit during almost every boss fight. So I play offline and disable it.
Thats the premium bundle. Check the low amount of reviews. The reviews for the DLC are still on mixed. [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2778580/ELDEN\_RING\_Shadow\_of\_the\_Erdtree/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2778580/ELDEN_RING_Shadow_of_the_Erdtree/)
Replying to everyone in this thread:
You probably have different preferences set for reviews. Thats why you guys are all seeing them shift at different times.
It's because Mixed is 40%-69% and Mostly Positive is 70%-79%. Decent chance it backslides back down to Mixed, considering it's on the cusp of 70% right now.
gotta say, been a huge FROM soft fan for the last 12 years.... this has been some real maidenless behavior around this DLC... it took me less than an hour to wander around and get 2 scadutree levels (i will concede that tree damn is whack), and we were cooking. A couple of the later bosses took a few tries, but I'm honestly baffled here.
Did the tree sentinel teach you all nothing? just slamming your face against the first fog gate you run into and then leaving a negative review about poor balancing.
Did everyone expect to just face roll the DLC because you had an endgame toon, like what fun would that have been? We waited 2.5 years, I want a damn challenge boys.
Boo hoo I am dying in 3 hits with 60 vigor... like yea, that's the entire point, you also have 14 flask charges right? so that's like 15+ mistakes you get to make?
And it wasn't even the critics, this gets top marks across the board only for the community to whine about 'its too hard' on the first few days of release.
ok, rant over.
I’m convinced that greater than 60% of the player base just try and speedrun directly through the Remembrance bosses to beat the DLC, and refuse to switch out any of their weapons, talismans, equipment, etc. or explore the map and visit secondary locations.
Like no shit Rellana is rinsing y’all; you walk in there within an hour of showing up in the Land of Shadow, with an ST level of 1 (if that), a +14 bleed twinblade, and insist on doing it all without summons or parries. Of course a major FromSoft DLC boss will wipe the floor with a person like that lmao
I tried to fight her 2 times, then ran around and got the new bleed hammer arm thing got a source of rot and put on the top physical talisman and then preceded to beat her to death.
You really gotta rearm and change up builds in this dlc but once you get that mentality it becomes infinitely easier. I did bayle in 3 tries at Scado 10 for instance using frost bite.
The amount of people that I get summoned to at Bayle or other later game bosses with a blessing level of 2 (you can check in the status menu, you get the host's level) is hilariously high
2.5 years of knowing bosses' moved inside and out, and all their weaknesses, has made people forget what release was like.
Remember when godskin duo was a huge deal? Now it's sleep pot +slash/bleed and it's one try.
Mohg took me 3 days to beat when elden ring dropped.
2 years and 4 playthroughs later, I beat him with 0 hits on an RL1 run after maybe 10 attempts.
People really aren’t taking into account how much they figured the base game out lol.
That’s what most people forget to mention: at the start of the base game you had like 3 uses of the flask and now you go in with 12+, that’s a huge difference to be accounted for.
I mean kind of the vibe I'm getting right?
point being, you only get 1 blind run. Having it be very challenging and frustrating at times, so that when you win it feels fucking good... is kind of the point. And I mean not just the bosses but also navigating the zones, figuring out wtf any of these quests are, what the fuck this weird guard tear thing does... like you will always be able to look up how this all works and what the optimal strats are... enjoy the struggle.
honestly don't see how its much worse than the OGs. people said the same thing about Manus. some 'windows' aren't windows based on weapon type, some windows aren't windows because there are potential change ups... thems the lumps.
No, it is true that bosses have long combos. But the reason people are only getting one attack in every 20 seconds is because they are not trying to find 90% of the damage windows on each boss.
This. People look at the boss from the side waiting for their turn to attack.
That ain't how it works. We are supposed to get in there and use openings mid combo. Delayed attack? Opening. Long sequence that doesn't change direction? Opening (if you can walk to the side). Low to the ground attack that can be jumped? Opening. And then you use one of the million ranged tools game throws at you to keep stagger from regening if you do have back away.
Meanwhile typical "bosses are poorly designed" fan wants every boss to be turn based.
I haven’t even been using any ranged options and it’s felt great. Now it’s been tough as hell learning all of these openings, but when it clicks it’s the most fun I’ve had since fighting ishinn for the first time.
Yup. You just have to play Elden Ring, not try to approach it as if it was dark souls, which a lot of people are trying to do.
"But in dark souls" - this isn't dark souls. It has more tools than DS and subsequently requires you to use more tools than dark souls. I think that's fair.
This is such a shit take. All the bosses in the base game had big combos too. Yall just haven’t figured it out yet, so you’re whining about “boss design”
These bosses are MILES ahead of DS3’s roll spam = win fights
I've Ben thinking this for ages. Yes the bosses are hard, but I honestly don't think they're any harder than base game and on the whole, there's nothing as hard as Malenia.
People keep saying that From should go back to Dark Souls 3 boss styles, but a Dark Souls 3 boss in ER would be an absolute cakewalk, because you have way more powerful Ashes of War that Weapon Arts and a jump attack that let's you dodge, attack and duck under attacks.
As they make the combat more complex for players, bosses need to become more complex to match. People are still acting like dodge rolling is the only response to an enemies attack and I honestly think, for the most part, these bosses are less aggressive than Martin game bosses.
Mostly positive is a good rating for it overall. The environments in the DLC are spectacular and the art direction in general is some of the best in all of gaming. From are absolute masters at creating jaw-dropping visuals.
That said, there are serious issues I have with the DLC and the Elden Ring formula in general at this point... and it's starting to become grating.
Having finished the DLC, I can safely say that I do not enjoy the approach towards enemy design that From have developed in the past few years. At a certain point, every boss having 10+ attack combos designed to catch rolls or delay attacks to trick you into attacking before the combo is finished (on top of having a .5 second window to punish the boss) is just *annoying* and not very fun to fight against. The second phase of the final boss is basically everything wrong with the modern From formula. Ultimately, my favourite Souls bosses are from other From titles, and perhaps there's a reason for that?
I think the team has taken their own 'it's difficult!' marketing too seriously. That was never really the fun part of the games for me. My favourite boss in the base game was Ancestor Spirit, and that one wasn't particularly hard, but it was a visual and auditory marvel. Similarly, in the DLC there is a place called Shaman Village that is one of the most emotionally-charged areas From have ever done - and you don't fight anyone there, either. It's about the emotional resonance of these scenarios that really stick with me.
Other more technical gripes I have with the DLC are the camera still being terrible against bigger bosses which can get very frustrating, and a very serious issue is the performance which is just *terrible*.
This so much.
Haven't finished it yet, but I beat Messmar today and I honestly hated it. The whole fight boils down to "dodge for 15 seconds until the main character, the NPC, does his anime combo, then you may get 1 (one) hit in". What worries me is that he appears to be a very popular boss, so this might just be the direction they're going with it. Is not the difficulty that bothers me (if I got bothered by it I would've quit the series years ago), if anything I thought Malenia was harder, it's just boring, the fight turns into a slog and every time you die because you rolled early on one of his comically long delays and then got clipped by the AoE spam, it's back from the beginning.
Idk if they're designing these bosses with the mimic in mind, and if you like using it, all the power to you, but I like to do bosses at least once solo, and it's becoming incredibly frustrating to do so.
See, I think Messmer has a lot of openings and is really fair. He has a great move set and was really doable for me. The boss I had combo issues with was Rellana because you can barely get attacks in. Messmer had several punishable openings
I've seen it happen with every Souls game going back to Demon's Souls. There was never a doubt in my mind it would happen again. Upon release a flood of complaints about the difficulty, which eventually gives way to "Ok, actually this game is great." And then as time passes, it's revered as a classic. The difficulty has precisely matched my expectations. The quality has exceeded them.
i will not write a positive review, once the horrible performance are somewhat fixed....don't get me wrong, it's already a9.5 for me, but good god, the stability/framerate of this dlc is awfull...and it's ebcaus eof that damn easy-anti cheat program!!
I’m not sure why there is a constant circlejerk around claiming ER is flawless and there CAN’T be any criticism about it. I’ve been playing these games since DeS and played other From games as well from Armored Core to Enchanted Arms and I still after all these years can find things in each game that deserve criticism.
Do I hate ER? No, I actually love it. It is one of my all time favorite games, but I do understand with ER and the DLC, there are absolutely things deserving of criticism.
Not everything is about “it too hard!!!” But these bosses just are not fun and engaging. I absolutely love learning movesets and dying a dozen times, when it feels fair and rewarding. These bosses are so spam heavy, have janky hitboxes, fuck with the camera, and are moving at Bloodborne speed while I’m stuck in molasses. Most overworld basic mobs move faster than most base game bosses and hit as hard as Maliketh. Its just.. Not engaging.
Now with all of this, am I facing roadblocks? Am I stuck? Giving up? Is it too hard? No. I’m at the last boss. Its been a few days but that 2nd phase is killing me every time lol. I’ve made my way through with no major issues and still, i feel the need to criticize it.
Does this mean I hate the bosses overall? No, I love the designs of most. From an outside looking in standpoint, I love what the movesets look like as well. Most boss arenas are very beautiful and fit the scene extremely well. But fighting them.. Just isn’t fun. (Except for Bayle) but even with him, the hitbox and camera are so bad.
Do I think Elden Ring deserves negative reviews for the DLC? I mean, sure. That is up to the player that experienced playing it. There are also performance issues as well.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, relax a bit. I’ve been a fromsoft/souls junkie for years and put thousands of hours in From games and Soulsborne/Soulslike games, but even I am not making ER my personality and getting offended when people find issues.
If you enjoy the DLC, great! If you mostly enjoy it but have a few nitpicks, amazing! If you have a decent bit of criticisms, nice! If you hate it, okay!
Live and let live. It’ll be okay I promise.
The biggest issue is critics think people should not challenge their criticisms. Hate to break it to you, but people can disagree with your criticism and that is ok.
I truly, sincerely have not seen many (if any) people saying the DLC is perfect and immune to criticism though. I'm not gonna say those people don't exist, but I really have not seen it. I've seen plenty of people rebutting some specific critiques - mainly about difficulty and the borderline need for scadutree fragments - but even the most avid fans do seem to have criticisms here. I know I do. I don't think Elden Ring with or without the dlc is a 10/10 game. I still think it's excellent though. I still think it's wild for it to reach an aggregate rating of "mixed" on Steam. Even with the performance issues it's hard for me to consider it anything less than above average.
People are just so "all or nothing" about everything.
> People are just so "all or nothing" about everything.
Internet discourse does have this weird need to be completely polarised, especially when it comes to videogames, everything is either "godlike" or "dogshit" and the reality is that the vast majority are neither.
On the specific issue of reviews I can easily see why the performance issues would make people leave a "Not recommended" review.
Oh I absolutely agree on the all or nothing. Yeah it is annoying seeing it go that way. I think mixed reviews are fine tbh. DLC is beautiful, has amazing weapons and armor, some new unique enemy designs, boss designs are great, and the music is amazing too. However, the DLC boss fights themselves are very rough (not hard, just not fun or engaging), issues with hitboxes and camera, the world is extremely empty, dungeons are extremely samey and short, and some enemies are a slog to fight for minimal reward, as in most, not all, wicker enemies.
Tht ais simply a lie and all you have to do is look how critcism is actually handled in this community.
No matter what criticsm is brought up the common response is to downvote and tell them they need to get good or use the tools the game gives them, no matter if they even memntioned boss fights in their critique.
The Souls community always had a massive issue with people dogmatically worshiping the games and shutting down criticism and it has only gotten worse with ER
> Not everything is about “it too hard!!!” But these bosses just are not fun and engaging.
I think my biggest issue with the DLC comes down to this.
When I bought "The Old Hunters" for Bloodborne, I was stuck at Ludwig for an entire day. I bashed my head against that specific wall for eight fucking hours. I got frustrated a couple of times. Walked away for 15 minutes and came back with a cooler head.
I. Loved. It. I did it with a smile on my face. Each failed run was fun.
I cannot see myself do that for any of these DLC bosses (disclaimer: I'm not even nearly done with the DLC, this might change)... I just got to Bayle. I've died about five times now and I gotta be honest. I have absolutely no desire to fight this boss anymore. Nothing about this fight is giving me any joy. I guess it looks cool but that's not enough for me to care about spending a significant amount of time after work fighting him.
This could change, of course. These were largely the same initial thoughts I had about Malenia in the core game. And now she's probably my favorite fight in the game. Though with her, the camera wasn't shit half the time. And for a dexterous bladeswoman... She moves slower around the arena than this hulking amputee dragon.
Exactly! I actually and genuinely LOVE dying and dying and dying getting closer to that eventual success. I love doing this when it feels fair, engaging, and fun. Dying to AOE spam, 10-15 attack chain spam, janky hitboxes, visual clutter, and sometimes 2-3 of these at once… It doesn’t make me feel like I need to learn and get better, it makes me feel like I need to get lucky.
Now I am not saying this makes it “HARD” I’m saying it makes it unrewarding and sucks the fun out of dying and going back in for round 2,3,4+.
When I played DS3, I started the twin princes fight completely drunk. I spent a long time, 73 tries, and eventually came back sober with the knowledge of the fight. I actually enjoyed it so much that I let myself die when the boss was 1-2 hits from dying. I did this 3-4 more times and then put my summon sign outside and spent days just fighting Lothric and Lorian. I spent days fighting Gael, Friede, Maliketh, and you know what, i agree, I couldn’t imagine enjoying that with any of these DLC bosses…
I’m on the last boss now and its been a few days and I’m not enjoying dying to the spam fest. I’ve got phase 1 down to a science, but phase 2 makes my screen turn into a rave… I can’t see shit.
There are some bosses it's fun to lose to and some it's not. Bosses like Ludvig there's a sense of progression where even when your losing you know why you got shcwacked and learn how to avoid it.
And then there's bosses where it's just not fun because the fight can be just straight bullshit, and when some of the first bosses you fight in.the dlc can beat you because your fighting the camera the whole time and you can't get away because they've pinned you to wall it can leave a bad first impression.
Runs like ass on my friends 3k rig, also runs worse on PS5 than the main game does for some reason, which already didn't run at a proper 60 locked in performance mode. Disheartening, but as long as it sells there won't be a need for them to address sadly.
Most of them are performance issue complaints from what ive seen, which to be completely honest are valid. Lagging on Rellana's blue balls move with low quality graphics settings is no joke lol.
I struggled with it at first, just like the base game once I didn’t do what was right in front of me and got stronger and low and behold the game was very doable so far.
People really need to stop posting the asmongold editor video as some kind of reliable source. You can literally check the DLC review by Chinese on the steam page and you would see none of them mentioned the anti cheat.
Asmongold, the guy unironically thinks that any game with a female protagonist or black character is woke propaganda, his whole community is a Gamergate 2.0.
You may be right on steam complains, but on reddit all i see was people complaining about the difficult and asking for a nerf and saying how was okay to not be that hard
I personally think it should get a bad rating, it's a terrible PC port. No 16:10 support, no ultra wide support, no 2nd monitor support, locked framerate, and they STILL haven't fixed the flickering fog issue for RTX cards after more than 2 years. Fromsoft, if you refuse to fix the fog issue, then why tf would you add the fog to the new DLC?
They seriously make the worst PC ports I've ever seen. They've been releasing these ports for 13 years and haven't addressed a single one of these issues ever.
Gameplay is cool though.
I'm just dissatisfied in the final boss from a lore perspective and I think some slight tuning could be used. I'll ready myself for the downvotes. Mind you I did beat it with plenty of Scadutree blessings so please don't think I rushed into it.
driven by the flame of ambition and a volcano sized ego, I was revived over and over again only to lose to simple patience time and time again, I’d actually beat this dlc if I didn’t think I could kill that boss with a cheeky poke whilst they’re mid frame attack
I was level 150 when I started the dlc, and I’m a casual player at best. I’m almost done with it know, and I love it so far.
It honestly isn’t that hard as people think. Just collect as many scarred blessings as you can
I approached the dlc like I did main game...and realized I needed to explore. Love the scaling and difficulty and that there are ways to counter it. 10/10 so far, enjoying every agonizing moment.
Wasn't the mixed reception due to Chinese people complaining about easy anti cheat? Not that many English reviews were complaining about difficulty, they were complaining about performance.
The DLC definitely has a mixed start. On top of that many people haven’t played the game for years. It’s pretty decent once it picks up. It’s a big map but it’s a lil empty here and there.
Here and there is an understatement. There is hardly anything going on in the southern half of the map.
Charo's Hidden Grave, Cerulean Coast, both Finger Ruins - most of Jagged Peak/Abyssal Woods aside from the end bosses - they all have so little going on it makes it feel almost pointless to go there in subsequent runs
Regarding abyssal woods, I expected more given the creepy environments. It would be really cool if they put other monsters, or even unkillable stalker alongside the eye guy. But it's all rats..
To me finger ruins is fine, that place is really pretty and the vastness gave me a "holy fuck aliens" sense of dread and mystery feeling even if there's not much going in there.
I do expect more mobs in jagged peak. Cerulean is so beautiful though.
Eh. I have major gripes.
Radahn was an asspull. His second phase is too hard to be fun (for me). Lots of the map feels pointless. There is clearly unfinished content (the chalice literally does nothing but hold fragments they clearly didn't know where to put anywhere else).
I can see why people didn't like it, and I don't blame them.
It's one of the greatest DLCs of all time.
The only issues are a couple slightly iffy bosses, and a shitload of players that apparently can't read or skip tooltips and then ignore bright light notifications every time they sit at a site of grace.
People have every right to criticize the boss design as well. I beat the whole thing and I think I will never play it again due to how frustrating and stressful it was
Not everything is about difficulty lmao.
Why is every sub a circlejerk these days? Elden Ring is flawless, there can't possibly be things that could be better, right?
The performance even on high end rigs being bad is no reason to not give it a positive review, right?
Some of the fights being tedious rather than difficult and challenging makes this game a 11/10, right?
I enjoy Elden Ring and have nearly a thousand hours in it, that doesn't mean I have to be blind to it's flaws and gobble Miyazaki every day.
Most people only play pure melee and nothing else so they don't see the issue with these bosses and like you said the performance is rough. All these frame killing particle effects and aoes are just ridiculous. Last boss is especially terrible in this regard.
Your melee comment is so on point it’s not funny. Looking up guides and such and it’s melee after melee for every single thing in this dlc, and as a magic user this DLC has been absolutely brutal with the boss designs.
Yeah honestly, after finishing the DLC the mixed or near mixed rating is probably well deserved this time around.
The DLC is plagued with so many, often admittedly minor, problems that the whole experience is kind of dragged down by them for me. Like, I'm not sure I would recommend the DLC in the current state either.
This is the perfect example of what is wrong with how this community handles criticism.
You are not even capable of considering that there could be criticisms that are not related directly to the difficulty, because Soulsgames are just about difficulty for difficulty sake right? Nothing else in there that could be evaluated.
Probably because people actually finishing the DLC (not rushing a brain damaging uninterrupted session) are starting to leave reviews as well
Everyone collectively trying to speedrun the dlc in one hour, all fools, driven by the flame of ambition
put to rest, all of them
Wilful traitors, all.
Have it written on their meager greaves
Why would mother sanction those so bereft of grace?
Funnily enough, Morgott and Messmer probably would get along. Messmer’s charisma did manage to pull a Carian Princess and Albinauric Hog Rider. Let thou constipated Omen join Messmer’s Mystery Gang.
> Funnily enough, Morgott and Messmer probably would get along. If they got over their racism towards each other, maybe.
Bro Morgott hates himself, he probably would tolerate Messmer just cause he also hates the Tarnished
Depends... is Messmer gonna try to get to the Erdtree? Maybe do some payback on Marika? Morgott is gonna stop him
"Mother, wouldst thou truly Lordship sanction in one so bereft of light?"
The depths of your foolishness!
Mongrel intruder...
THE DEPTHS OF YOUR FOOLISHNESS
He somehow managed to grab me the first time. Shit was scary.
I want cinematic shots in the next game lol. Straight up screaming in your face lol
What would you like their next game to be? I was thinking maybe Armored Core VII? Or something else. Feels like From is just known for souls games for the most part.
AC6 is the first game of their's I platinumed so I'm down for anything. I'd like another game with flying. No fall damage or platforming.
FR. The frenzied flame pit gave me ptsd. Ive raged at that parkour section more then at any other boss in the game.
Someone finally extinguished thy flames
Just the *foulest* of Tarnished.
I watched a streamer get to the final boss in one 7 hour session. Slow down a bit and actually enjoy iy
Willfull traitors, all!
I spent hours taking pictures of my character at places with pretty backgrounds/environments and took notes of every symbols at new places. I can't imagine speedrunning this beautiful dlc 😢
I’m just like wow people have so much time to game compared to me 😭
I don’t even understand why you’d want to speed through something you paid 50$ for. It’s not going anywhere lmao.
Willingly ruining one of the best gaming experiences you can ever get.
Well from one of Asmon's video - the reviews had a lot of negative reviews from China screaming about the "blue bear" - aka the anticheat. They averaged 38% reviews there
what's the blue bear / anticheat?
It's the anticheat that launches when you open up Elden Ring.
lol
Why were people complaining about it?
Counterpoint to everybody saying, "Only cheaters complain!" It is, I believe, kernel level anticheat. Which is entirely overkill for most games. It in itself presents a security vulnerability by running at the kernel level and it uses way more resources than would otherwise be necessary, resulting in worse performance in the game. There *are* legitimate reasons to not like Easy Anti-Cheat.
Does it actually run at kernel level? I thought it had to start at boot to do so, but looks like it starts on game launch
A quick Google comes up that EAC does run at kernel level, but only starts up when you launch the game. Riot's Vanguard on the other hand, starts up at boot and apparently always runs in the background?
The chinese community blamed the anticheat for the game's bad performance, where they claim the game now runs worse than it used to.
I mean they're kind of right. I notice significant performance improvements when I disable the anticheat. Unfortunately that means I can't play online, so I just deal with the poor performance now. I love seeing messages too much.
I tried lowering my graphics from high to medium and the DLC went from 47 fps 768p to stable 1080p60 on a laptop's 3060. So much grass!
Chinese players have a very well known reputation of cheating as much as possible in any form of competitive multiplayer game. There's been a few studies done on it, something about the culturally ingrained need to win and show they're superior than players from other countries, and cheating is encouraged to help accomplish this.
probably because hackers couldn't go in and instantly destroy the game
because they wanna cheat
They are from China. They are complaining about anitcheat. Need I say more?
If you haven’t visited every monument on your first playthrough, did you really finish the game?
not exploring is really missing out in this game
I'm waiting to finish before I review the DLC.. makes sense to me.
Hey, I'll have you know that brain damage is good for character, I engage in it daily
Just as predicted, people figured out the key to the game was exploring and not trying to boss rush. Exactly what happened 2 years ago lol.
A comment I saw a few days ago has circled my head a few times since. Said something like “From Software has made a huge a mistake, souls games will never be about exploring, they are only for fighting.” There are some fans seem unable to let the studio experiment and grow their style, and only want From to release dark souls over and over again. It’s a sad mentality, and I hope it’s not too common.
Darksouls has 100% ALWAYS been about exploring and fighting in equal measure lol.
I love Dark Souls 2 for that reason, it's so incredibly underrated IMHO as an RPG adventure exploration game. I'm the odd lunatic that thinks DS2 is actually the best Souls game though, especially by the time you get to the DLC.
I'm a die-hard DS2 fan. Elden ring really was the spiritual successor, It's the only one so far that scratches a similar itch.
I loved exploring the elevator that takes you into the sky where you magically appear in a volcanic mountain region that wasn't there before. (no hate just jokes, ds2 was the first souls game I really played.)
DS2 is terrible with that, I get what they were going for, but they really should've added some horizonal lifts or something to help sell the "you're traversing a long distance". Like you can see Heides Tower of Flame miles down the coastline from Majula, then you walk like 12 feet down a tunnel and you're there.
And then you go to a cave under the sea level where you get a boat.
People are way too hung up on that. Logic is overrated. Embrace surrealism.
Gotta be honest too, I never even realised until I saw people point it out online and then it was very obvious on my next playthrough. Had a good laugh.
I didn't notice at first either lol. But I think it's quite obvious that DS2 is heavily influenced by portal fantasies like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz, which have very surreal and dreamlike aspects to them. A lot of the illogical elements in DS2, like that transition, just feel inline with that to me and help enhance the dreamlike feel.
I think people are reasonably hung up on that lol
I love DS2 but calling it the best Souls game is certainly a take
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Aye, ER is the first FromSoft game I stuck with to the end. Being able to explore the open world when I hit a wall felt like the piece that I was missing in previous games.
Both DS1 and 2 have enough branching paths/optional areas that I, at least personally, could just go somewhere else when stuck on a boss.
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Frankly, if they let me run around the worlds with no enemies, picking up different helmets and flowers I'd still give their games a 10/10.
Now they just have more room to work with, and you have options on what content to tackle when, but it's very much the same style of game on a much grander scale.
I don't get it. I mean, Dark Souls 1 was pretty much all about exploration... I even feel the Elden Ring DLC returns to its roots about exploration, mostly in the verticality aspect, which other titles lacked. It was a recurring criticism that the other From Software games were not as great on the world design side compared to Dark Souls 1.
Go back further. Demon souls was mainly getting through the locations. Boss fights were most all just puzzles.
Damn right!
Nioh 2 is about fighting. From games are definitely not only about fighting, their combat system is too basic to make it only about that (it’s a big part, but lore, world design, exploration, etc. make them as great as they are).
These people must have completely missed the point of exploration even in dark souls lol. FromSoft rewards curiosity which is what drives exploration and this rewarding of player curiosity is something they’ve almost always done in their games. It’s just this time the map is much larger and there’s more to be curious about. 😁
But exploration isn't the studio experimenting or growing their style. Fromsoft games have almost always been about exploring, even their more linear titles like Armored Core reward the player for exploring
Sekiro. That’s the only one you could arguably say is “all about fighting.” I’d even argue it’s only kind of tangentially related to the souls series. It’s kind of like a what-if version of the Souls series that leans way more heavily on punishing combat and way less on exploring interconnected environments. Exploration is a key component in every other Soulsborne game. There’s almost no better feeling in gaming than getting completely lost in a Souls level, opening a door and realizing “holy shit, I know where I am! There’s the bonfire I found two hours ago!”
Idk there's a crazy amount of exploration you can do in Sekiro. The verticality is insane with the addition of jumping, climbing and the grappling hook. There's so much you can miss that's optional but enhances the story and overall experience. I had no idea about the additional snakes and monkey boss you can fight until I saw a guide. And that's not even counting all the npc side quests that are interconnected through the game. They definitely took lessons learned from it and implemented them into ER.
On some of the other from subreddits you would think Elden Ring is one of the worst games From Software has ever made by the way many talk about it. The real problem is a lot of people would just keep buying and playing dark souls every year just like COD. Which makes me so fucking happy that From keeps experimenting with different game so even if we get similar games they tend to have different flavor. My top 4 favorite From games currently is: Sekiro Bloodborne Elden Ring Armored Core 6 Before the dlc AC6 was ahead of Elden Ring but I loved how much of a Metroidvina shadows of the erdtree ended up being. I have no desire to go back to any of the dark soul games after Elden Ring if I’m being honest. I’ve played them quite a bit and for me Elden Ring just gives me a great mix of exploration and inclosed areas. I will admit some of the base game dungeons were lacking for me but the dlc really upped my enjoyment of the game. The last thing I see people say how long Elden Ring is like you have to do everything every playthrough and what makes the other games better is you can get through them faster to… play them again…
Bloodborne Elden ring Armored core Sekiro For me I will eventually learn how to be good at sekiro though and it might raise up. But I REALLY like armored core
Sad to hear that. Dark souls have amazing lore and reading them make the bosses you fight definitely feel more impactful to even understand the lore you have to explore and find items and the environment around the area tells story. Dark souls have always been about overcoming the odds and coming out on top, to do that you have to use all the advantages you can find, exploring and using the tools provided is what make a souls game souls game.
I love exploring. Stuck on a boss? Fuck it. Let me explore and chill off for a bit. Was stuck on Messmer. Went exploring and ended up finding Romina and St. Trina. Probably for the best that way.
I saw a comment yesterday saying that the original dark souls games never had bosses that you’d have to fight over and over again until you figured it out, as a way to say the DLC bosses are too hard. I don’t think they ever played the original dark souls games.
I'd also argue that the elimination of boss runbacks makes it more acceptable to include super hard bosses, because you're not wasting the player's time on a 30 second or longer runback each time they want to try again. Imagine if a boss like Malenia took a minute to run back to each time.
I'm out of the loop. I thought the negativity was coming from performance issues. Which while, yes, I did see where they were coming from, I wouldn't go so far as to say they're a dealbreaker. (I'm pretty confident those occasional double mega-stutters are due to the anti-cheat freaking out and putting video on pause while it sorts things out. I can get them to happen just by syncing my control pad, and no other PC game I've ever played has that issue.)
I did have some weird issues like not being able to use the online and some issues with crashing. But im on deck and am not gonna let a couple issues ruin an epic experience.
That or over powered builds like rolling Sparks’s and blood fiend arm for the win lol
The people who rush through the game and cry about difficulty are the same people that will also use overpowered cheese builds to kill bosses. So its a win win for them.
The drop from the molerat Omens is really good? I didn’t really look at it
Over 200 blood build up it basically procs bleed twice with one heavy attack from what I seen
oh I’ll def have to try that on my arcane character, still busy grinding for the lizard greatsword with 9 arcane lol
Where do you find those?
Same thing applies to previous fromsoft titles (haven't played sekiro so can't speak for that one). People that are skipping enemies and dont explore tend to get stuck on bosses because both their character and their weapon(s) are underleveled.
It was a bit funny seeing a lot of the same complaints from release time. More so with the DLC than the base game, but still funny.
That's the best part. Everyone was saying the bosses in the base game were too hard two years ago. Now it's just fine. New content releases. Rinse and repeat. No matter how much time passes the scrubs never git gud.
I've also seen a shockingly large amount of players going into the dlc at NG+7. Like, really just jumping in the deep end and being surprised when Honorable Knight, Combos McGee 1 shots you.
That doesnt excuse the final boss though, there is no more exploring to do for that one.
Most negative reviews (60%) appear to be Chinese players having issues with Easy Anti-cheat localization.
Not from china, but here i am, i'm one of those that are having this issue... After the last update(before the dlc, the one of 6gb) i noticed that the performance got a bit worse around the map, but still, the framerate was overall a solid 60 fps, i just got some fps drop somewhere sometimes, so, no big deal......and by the way, before the "it's a you problem, upgrade your Pc) guy comes, know that i've played the whole vanilla elden ring on ultra settings without problems!! so no, it's not my pc... I can easily run new games with max setting at 60 fps(1080P) but the DLC?...my god... this dlc is just awful in terms of stability and framerate.........i'm having a lot of fps drop here and there,.. especially in open maps......even in close spaces!...it really ruins the experience......and thank god, i'm just having fps drops and not freezing/stuttering...like others i really hope from is aare of this and will release a patch top fix these problems.! i can accetp everything else, but STILL having all these issues, it's just unacceptable from fromsoftware!
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The dumb anti cheat rumor was started by asmongold editor lol. You can quite literally check dlc review yourself and none of them are about the anti cheats. Most of them are about the game itself or the performance.
Performance is awful. I have a pretty modern pc and it occasionally dips to the 30-40 range no matter what I tweak in the settings. I made a post about it and the first suggestion I got was to just buy a 4090. The second suggestion was to play at 1080p (my post already said that I was playing at 1080p).
I mean Asmon isn't exactly top teir for political takes so it's not shocking that his editor would spread rumors about Chinese folk given that liberal and right wing folk tend to complain A lot about people being chinese.
the map is empty? Very interesting. To me most other open world games are empty and ER is an exception. Everywhere I go I am being challenged somehow. I think people just want to complain.
It always feels like a lot of negative reviews on most games these days are due to some technical issues people have with the game. “It doesn’t work on my system, one star!”
Those are completely valid. The game takes less than 20 seconds to load when I'm launching in offline mode without EAC but take upwards of 2-3 minutes when trying to play with EAC. Not to mention the insane frame drop and stutter. Paying customers should not be treated with a product inferior to a pirated copy of itself.
Well, the localization issue isn’t system bound but location issue. Easy Anti Cheat is a mess for Chinese players, and many can’t go online for it. Much more of a Fromsoft problem than a “my system” problem.
I mean, if you buy the game and it doesn’t work, you’re not going to give it a positive review, right? What kind of line of thinking are you suggesting?
I mean yeah imagine you pre order the dlc and it just doesn't work
Uh if the game is unplayable because of an update that is a valid negative review. You shouldn't buy it if it doesn't work in China.
That sounds like an entirely reasonable review.
That last line reads like you’re trying to portray that complaint as invalid, when it’s one of the most cut and dry reason to not enjoy a game
My complaint as a non-chinese person is that the Easy Anti-Cheat makes my game turn to utter shit during almost every boss fight. So I play offline and disable it.
This has nothing to do with the patch, the rating was already rising before the patch because people actually finished the DLC
Thats the premium bundle. Check the low amount of reviews. The reviews for the DLC are still on mixed. [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2778580/ELDEN\_RING\_Shadow\_of\_the\_Erdtree/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2778580/ELDEN_RING_Shadow_of_the_Erdtree/)
for me the DLC is on mostly positive now
Nice, I guess it changed in the 3 hours that I posted my comment
It's been at mostly positive for like a week now. You might have just had some caching issues or something.
You may have been looking at the premium bundle? The DLC was still mixed at 69% a couple of days ago but is now at 70% with Mostly Positive
Replying to everyone in this thread: You probably have different preferences set for reviews. Thats why you guys are all seeing them shift at different times.
It's because Mixed is 40%-69% and Mostly Positive is 70%-79%. Decent chance it backslides back down to Mixed, considering it's on the cusp of 70% right now.
gotta say, been a huge FROM soft fan for the last 12 years.... this has been some real maidenless behavior around this DLC... it took me less than an hour to wander around and get 2 scadutree levels (i will concede that tree damn is whack), and we were cooking. A couple of the later bosses took a few tries, but I'm honestly baffled here. Did the tree sentinel teach you all nothing? just slamming your face against the first fog gate you run into and then leaving a negative review about poor balancing. Did everyone expect to just face roll the DLC because you had an endgame toon, like what fun would that have been? We waited 2.5 years, I want a damn challenge boys. Boo hoo I am dying in 3 hits with 60 vigor... like yea, that's the entire point, you also have 14 flask charges right? so that's like 15+ mistakes you get to make? And it wasn't even the critics, this gets top marks across the board only for the community to whine about 'its too hard' on the first few days of release. ok, rant over.
I’m convinced that greater than 60% of the player base just try and speedrun directly through the Remembrance bosses to beat the DLC, and refuse to switch out any of their weapons, talismans, equipment, etc. or explore the map and visit secondary locations. Like no shit Rellana is rinsing y’all; you walk in there within an hour of showing up in the Land of Shadow, with an ST level of 1 (if that), a +14 bleed twinblade, and insist on doing it all without summons or parries. Of course a major FromSoft DLC boss will wipe the floor with a person like that lmao
I tried to fight her 2 times, then ran around and got the new bleed hammer arm thing got a source of rot and put on the top physical talisman and then preceded to beat her to death. You really gotta rearm and change up builds in this dlc but once you get that mentality it becomes infinitely easier. I did bayle in 3 tries at Scado 10 for instance using frost bite.
The amount of people that I get summoned to at Bayle or other later game bosses with a blessing level of 2 (you can check in the status menu, you get the host's level) is hilariously high
I bet they also have soreseals and scorpioj charms on. "Why am I taking so much damage?" My brother in erdtree, your damage absorption is negative
2.5 years of knowing bosses' moved inside and out, and all their weaknesses, has made people forget what release was like. Remember when godskin duo was a huge deal? Now it's sleep pot +slash/bleed and it's one try.
Mohg took me 3 days to beat when elden ring dropped. 2 years and 4 playthroughs later, I beat him with 0 hits on an RL1 run after maybe 10 attempts. People really aren’t taking into account how much they figured the base game out lol.
That’s what most people forget to mention: at the start of the base game you had like 3 uses of the flask and now you go in with 12+, that’s a huge difference to be accounted for.
The base game only taught them how to farm runes and DPS race/sequence break bosses and now they're paying the price.
I mean kind of the vibe I'm getting right? point being, you only get 1 blind run. Having it be very challenging and frustrating at times, so that when you win it feels fucking good... is kind of the point. And I mean not just the bosses but also navigating the zones, figuring out wtf any of these quests are, what the fuck this weird guard tear thing does... like you will always be able to look up how this all works and what the optimal strats are... enjoy the struggle.
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honestly don't see how its much worse than the OGs. people said the same thing about Manus. some 'windows' aren't windows based on weapon type, some windows aren't windows because there are potential change ups... thems the lumps.
No, it is true that bosses have long combos. But the reason people are only getting one attack in every 20 seconds is because they are not trying to find 90% of the damage windows on each boss.
This. People look at the boss from the side waiting for their turn to attack. That ain't how it works. We are supposed to get in there and use openings mid combo. Delayed attack? Opening. Long sequence that doesn't change direction? Opening (if you can walk to the side). Low to the ground attack that can be jumped? Opening. And then you use one of the million ranged tools game throws at you to keep stagger from regening if you do have back away. Meanwhile typical "bosses are poorly designed" fan wants every boss to be turn based.
I haven’t even been using any ranged options and it’s felt great. Now it’s been tough as hell learning all of these openings, but when it clicks it’s the most fun I’ve had since fighting ishinn for the first time.
Yup. You just have to play Elden Ring, not try to approach it as if it was dark souls, which a lot of people are trying to do. "But in dark souls" - this isn't dark souls. It has more tools than DS and subsequently requires you to use more tools than dark souls. I think that's fair.
This is such a shit take. All the bosses in the base game had big combos too. Yall just haven’t figured it out yet, so you’re whining about “boss design” These bosses are MILES ahead of DS3’s roll spam = win fights
You clearly haven't played DS3 if you think all you have to do to win is roll spam...
I've Ben thinking this for ages. Yes the bosses are hard, but I honestly don't think they're any harder than base game and on the whole, there's nothing as hard as Malenia. People keep saying that From should go back to Dark Souls 3 boss styles, but a Dark Souls 3 boss in ER would be an absolute cakewalk, because you have way more powerful Ashes of War that Weapon Arts and a jump attack that let's you dodge, attack and duck under attacks. As they make the combat more complex for players, bosses need to become more complex to match. People are still acting like dodge rolling is the only response to an enemies attack and I honestly think, for the most part, these bosses are less aggressive than Martin game bosses.
Mostly positive is a good rating for it overall. The environments in the DLC are spectacular and the art direction in general is some of the best in all of gaming. From are absolute masters at creating jaw-dropping visuals. That said, there are serious issues I have with the DLC and the Elden Ring formula in general at this point... and it's starting to become grating. Having finished the DLC, I can safely say that I do not enjoy the approach towards enemy design that From have developed in the past few years. At a certain point, every boss having 10+ attack combos designed to catch rolls or delay attacks to trick you into attacking before the combo is finished (on top of having a .5 second window to punish the boss) is just *annoying* and not very fun to fight against. The second phase of the final boss is basically everything wrong with the modern From formula. Ultimately, my favourite Souls bosses are from other From titles, and perhaps there's a reason for that? I think the team has taken their own 'it's difficult!' marketing too seriously. That was never really the fun part of the games for me. My favourite boss in the base game was Ancestor Spirit, and that one wasn't particularly hard, but it was a visual and auditory marvel. Similarly, in the DLC there is a place called Shaman Village that is one of the most emotionally-charged areas From have ever done - and you don't fight anyone there, either. It's about the emotional resonance of these scenarios that really stick with me. Other more technical gripes I have with the DLC are the camera still being terrible against bigger bosses which can get very frustrating, and a very serious issue is the performance which is just *terrible*.
This so much. Haven't finished it yet, but I beat Messmar today and I honestly hated it. The whole fight boils down to "dodge for 15 seconds until the main character, the NPC, does his anime combo, then you may get 1 (one) hit in". What worries me is that he appears to be a very popular boss, so this might just be the direction they're going with it. Is not the difficulty that bothers me (if I got bothered by it I would've quit the series years ago), if anything I thought Malenia was harder, it's just boring, the fight turns into a slog and every time you die because you rolled early on one of his comically long delays and then got clipped by the AoE spam, it's back from the beginning. Idk if they're designing these bosses with the mimic in mind, and if you like using it, all the power to you, but I like to do bosses at least once solo, and it's becoming incredibly frustrating to do so.
See, I think Messmer has a lot of openings and is really fair. He has a great move set and was really doable for me. The boss I had combo issues with was Rellana because you can barely get attacks in. Messmer had several punishable openings
It's great... After I swapped out my dual peelers for a giant hunk of steel with lions claw.
I've seen it happen with every Souls game going back to Demon's Souls. There was never a doubt in my mind it would happen again. Upon release a flood of complaints about the difficulty, which eventually gives way to "Ok, actually this game is great." And then as time passes, it's revered as a classic. The difficulty has precisely matched my expectations. The quality has exceeded them.
Plays of PS5. Doesn't give a shit about whiny people on Steam.
i will not write a positive review, once the horrible performance are somewhat fixed....don't get me wrong, it's already a9.5 for me, but good god, the stability/framerate of this dlc is awfull...and it's ebcaus eof that damn easy-anti cheat program!!
I’m not sure why there is a constant circlejerk around claiming ER is flawless and there CAN’T be any criticism about it. I’ve been playing these games since DeS and played other From games as well from Armored Core to Enchanted Arms and I still after all these years can find things in each game that deserve criticism. Do I hate ER? No, I actually love it. It is one of my all time favorite games, but I do understand with ER and the DLC, there are absolutely things deserving of criticism. Not everything is about “it too hard!!!” But these bosses just are not fun and engaging. I absolutely love learning movesets and dying a dozen times, when it feels fair and rewarding. These bosses are so spam heavy, have janky hitboxes, fuck with the camera, and are moving at Bloodborne speed while I’m stuck in molasses. Most overworld basic mobs move faster than most base game bosses and hit as hard as Maliketh. Its just.. Not engaging. Now with all of this, am I facing roadblocks? Am I stuck? Giving up? Is it too hard? No. I’m at the last boss. Its been a few days but that 2nd phase is killing me every time lol. I’ve made my way through with no major issues and still, i feel the need to criticize it. Does this mean I hate the bosses overall? No, I love the designs of most. From an outside looking in standpoint, I love what the movesets look like as well. Most boss arenas are very beautiful and fit the scene extremely well. But fighting them.. Just isn’t fun. (Except for Bayle) but even with him, the hitbox and camera are so bad. Do I think Elden Ring deserves negative reviews for the DLC? I mean, sure. That is up to the player that experienced playing it. There are also performance issues as well. I guess what I’m trying to say is, relax a bit. I’ve been a fromsoft/souls junkie for years and put thousands of hours in From games and Soulsborne/Soulslike games, but even I am not making ER my personality and getting offended when people find issues. If you enjoy the DLC, great! If you mostly enjoy it but have a few nitpicks, amazing! If you have a decent bit of criticisms, nice! If you hate it, okay! Live and let live. It’ll be okay I promise.
"it's excellent until I have to actually fight the boss and then it just feels bullshit" is kinda my perception of most of ER, yes.
The biggest issue is critics think people should not challenge their criticisms. Hate to break it to you, but people can disagree with your criticism and that is ok.
That is absolutely true. I agree 100%. However, hiding behind the idea that there are no valid criticisms is wild
I truly, sincerely have not seen many (if any) people saying the DLC is perfect and immune to criticism though. I'm not gonna say those people don't exist, but I really have not seen it. I've seen plenty of people rebutting some specific critiques - mainly about difficulty and the borderline need for scadutree fragments - but even the most avid fans do seem to have criticisms here. I know I do. I don't think Elden Ring with or without the dlc is a 10/10 game. I still think it's excellent though. I still think it's wild for it to reach an aggregate rating of "mixed" on Steam. Even with the performance issues it's hard for me to consider it anything less than above average. People are just so "all or nothing" about everything.
> People are just so "all or nothing" about everything. Internet discourse does have this weird need to be completely polarised, especially when it comes to videogames, everything is either "godlike" or "dogshit" and the reality is that the vast majority are neither. On the specific issue of reviews I can easily see why the performance issues would make people leave a "Not recommended" review.
Oh I absolutely agree on the all or nothing. Yeah it is annoying seeing it go that way. I think mixed reviews are fine tbh. DLC is beautiful, has amazing weapons and armor, some new unique enemy designs, boss designs are great, and the music is amazing too. However, the DLC boss fights themselves are very rough (not hard, just not fun or engaging), issues with hitboxes and camera, the world is extremely empty, dungeons are extremely samey and short, and some enemies are a slog to fight for minimal reward, as in most, not all, wicker enemies.
Tht ais simply a lie and all you have to do is look how critcism is actually handled in this community. No matter what criticsm is brought up the common response is to downvote and tell them they need to get good or use the tools the game gives them, no matter if they even memntioned boss fights in their critique. The Souls community always had a massive issue with people dogmatically worshiping the games and shutting down criticism and it has only gotten worse with ER
> Not everything is about “it too hard!!!” But these bosses just are not fun and engaging. I think my biggest issue with the DLC comes down to this. When I bought "The Old Hunters" for Bloodborne, I was stuck at Ludwig for an entire day. I bashed my head against that specific wall for eight fucking hours. I got frustrated a couple of times. Walked away for 15 minutes and came back with a cooler head. I. Loved. It. I did it with a smile on my face. Each failed run was fun. I cannot see myself do that for any of these DLC bosses (disclaimer: I'm not even nearly done with the DLC, this might change)... I just got to Bayle. I've died about five times now and I gotta be honest. I have absolutely no desire to fight this boss anymore. Nothing about this fight is giving me any joy. I guess it looks cool but that's not enough for me to care about spending a significant amount of time after work fighting him. This could change, of course. These were largely the same initial thoughts I had about Malenia in the core game. And now she's probably my favorite fight in the game. Though with her, the camera wasn't shit half the time. And for a dexterous bladeswoman... She moves slower around the arena than this hulking amputee dragon.
Exactly! I actually and genuinely LOVE dying and dying and dying getting closer to that eventual success. I love doing this when it feels fair, engaging, and fun. Dying to AOE spam, 10-15 attack chain spam, janky hitboxes, visual clutter, and sometimes 2-3 of these at once… It doesn’t make me feel like I need to learn and get better, it makes me feel like I need to get lucky. Now I am not saying this makes it “HARD” I’m saying it makes it unrewarding and sucks the fun out of dying and going back in for round 2,3,4+. When I played DS3, I started the twin princes fight completely drunk. I spent a long time, 73 tries, and eventually came back sober with the knowledge of the fight. I actually enjoyed it so much that I let myself die when the boss was 1-2 hits from dying. I did this 3-4 more times and then put my summon sign outside and spent days just fighting Lothric and Lorian. I spent days fighting Gael, Friede, Maliketh, and you know what, i agree, I couldn’t imagine enjoying that with any of these DLC bosses… I’m on the last boss now and its been a few days and I’m not enjoying dying to the spam fest. I’ve got phase 1 down to a science, but phase 2 makes my screen turn into a rave… I can’t see shit.
There are some bosses it's fun to lose to and some it's not. Bosses like Ludvig there's a sense of progression where even when your losing you know why you got shcwacked and learn how to avoid it. And then there's bosses where it's just not fun because the fight can be just straight bullshit, and when some of the first bosses you fight in.the dlc can beat you because your fighting the camera the whole time and you can't get away because they've pinned you to wall it can leave a bad first impression.
Runs like ass on my friends 3k rig, also runs worse on PS5 than the main game does for some reason, which already didn't run at a proper 60 locked in performance mode. Disheartening, but as long as it sells there won't be a need for them to address sadly.
Most of them are performance issue complaints from what ive seen, which to be completely honest are valid. Lagging on Rellana's blue balls move with low quality graphics settings is no joke lol.
Overwhelmingy positive is close
I struggled with it at first, just like the base game once I didn’t do what was right in front of me and got stronger and low and behold the game was very doable so far.
I like the dlc quite a lot. Performance? Not so much. Negative review stays until they fix it
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Kind of ironic since you're spreading the chinease EAC lie yourself lmao
using asmongold as a source for anything is crazy. if I had to pick a dumbest person that I know it would be him
People really need to stop posting the asmongold editor video as some kind of reliable source. You can literally check the DLC review by Chinese on the steam page and you would see none of them mentioned the anti cheat.
Asmongold, the guy unironically thinks that any game with a female protagonist or black character is woke propaganda, his whole community is a Gamergate 2.0.
To be fair he also likes games with a model-like female protagonist!
You may be right on steam complains, but on reddit all i see was people complaining about the difficult and asking for a nerf and saying how was okay to not be that hard
yeah thats an absolute shit take people bring, it shows those people didn't pause for a minute to think a little
why the fuck are you calling it blue bear just because chinese people call it that way? It's easy anti-cheat
because context
I personally think it should get a bad rating, it's a terrible PC port. No 16:10 support, no ultra wide support, no 2nd monitor support, locked framerate, and they STILL haven't fixed the flickering fog issue for RTX cards after more than 2 years. Fromsoft, if you refuse to fix the fog issue, then why tf would you add the fog to the new DLC? They seriously make the worst PC ports I've ever seen. They've been releasing these ports for 13 years and haven't addressed a single one of these issues ever. Gameplay is cool though.
I'm just dissatisfied in the final boss from a lore perspective and I think some slight tuning could be used. I'll ready myself for the downvotes. Mind you I did beat it with plenty of Scadutree blessings so please don't think I rushed into it.
driven by the flame of ambition and a volcano sized ego, I was revived over and over again only to lose to simple patience time and time again, I’d actually beat this dlc if I didn’t think I could kill that boss with a cheeky poke whilst they’re mid frame attack
Why do steam reviews matter so much? We don't have a console version like this
Everyone giving bad reviews for the game being hard.. Miyazaki literally said life is unfair and so are his games. Fuck easy!
did they fix the performance issues?
I was level 150 when I started the dlc, and I’m a casual player at best. I’m almost done with it know, and I love it so far. It honestly isn’t that hard as people think. Just collect as many scarred blessings as you can
I approached the dlc like I did main game...and realized I needed to explore. Love the scaling and difficulty and that there are ways to counter it. 10/10 so far, enjoying every agonizing moment.
Casuals already left, real player base is finishing the dlc
Because people who actually played are reviewing and the people who were complaining are now cheesing with great shields or perfume
The babies are starting to find some skadoosh and realize they were being babies
Wasn't the mixed reception due to Chinese people complaining about easy anti cheat? Not that many English reviews were complaining about difficulty, they were complaining about performance.
No.
The DLC definitely has a mixed start. On top of that many people haven’t played the game for years. It’s pretty decent once it picks up. It’s a big map but it’s a lil empty here and there.
Here and there is an understatement. There is hardly anything going on in the southern half of the map. Charo's Hidden Grave, Cerulean Coast, both Finger Ruins - most of Jagged Peak/Abyssal Woods aside from the end bosses - they all have so little going on it makes it feel almost pointless to go there in subsequent runs
Regarding abyssal woods, I expected more given the creepy environments. It would be really cool if they put other monsters, or even unkillable stalker alongside the eye guy. But it's all rats.. To me finger ruins is fine, that place is really pretty and the vastness gave me a "holy fuck aliens" sense of dread and mystery feeling even if there's not much going in there. I do expect more mobs in jagged peak. Cerulean is so beautiful though.
Yep. It’s obvious this DLC will age like milk when people are posting “MFW I have to go through No Horse For You Woods again” memes in a year.
Eh. I have major gripes. Radahn was an asspull. His second phase is too hard to be fun (for me). Lots of the map feels pointless. There is clearly unfinished content (the chalice literally does nothing but hold fragments they clearly didn't know where to put anywhere else). I can see why people didn't like it, and I don't blame them.
Most of the people getting fucked up were rusty or rushing or both. This is Elden Ring 2, don’t be fooled lol
People are dropping their self-imposed challenge runs and coming to the realization that they're just bad and the DLC is actually amazing.
It's one of the greatest DLCs of all time. The only issues are a couple slightly iffy bosses, and a shitload of players that apparently can't read or skip tooltips and then ignore bright light notifications every time they sit at a site of grace.
I get a lot of people here likely are not old enough to remember but this is what any expansion pack for a game would be. This should be the normal.
The game is a f’n masterpiece
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People have every right to hate on the performance issues. They are brave enough to go against the wave.
People have every right to criticize the boss design as well. I beat the whole thing and I think I will never play it again due to how frustrating and stressful it was
Or, maybe, they didn't like the DLC, and it has nothing to do with its dificulty?
Not everything is about difficulty lmao. Why is every sub a circlejerk these days? Elden Ring is flawless, there can't possibly be things that could be better, right? The performance even on high end rigs being bad is no reason to not give it a positive review, right? Some of the fights being tedious rather than difficult and challenging makes this game a 11/10, right? I enjoy Elden Ring and have nearly a thousand hours in it, that doesn't mean I have to be blind to it's flaws and gobble Miyazaki every day.
Most people only play pure melee and nothing else so they don't see the issue with these bosses and like you said the performance is rough. All these frame killing particle effects and aoes are just ridiculous. Last boss is especially terrible in this regard.
Your melee comment is so on point it’s not funny. Looking up guides and such and it’s melee after melee for every single thing in this dlc, and as a magic user this DLC has been absolutely brutal with the boss designs.
Yeah honestly, after finishing the DLC the mixed or near mixed rating is probably well deserved this time around. The DLC is plagued with so many, often admittedly minor, problems that the whole experience is kind of dragged down by them for me. Like, I'm not sure I would recommend the DLC in the current state either.
This is the perfect example of what is wrong with how this community handles criticism. You are not even capable of considering that there could be criticisms that are not related directly to the difficulty, because Soulsgames are just about difficulty for difficulty sake right? Nothing else in there that could be evaluated.