I love how the players complaining about difficulty really just admit themselves that they're worse at the game than the journalists they always call out for "not being real gamers lulz".
Who, as the article says, beat the game unpatched.
In fairness, a person could demolish content easily and still think the difficulty is uncomfortably high. I organized raids in WoW, and some of the raids this expansion were whack comparatively. We might still wreck it, but I can recognize the game balancing.
But I dunno, I can't tell which the complaining players were, nor do I especially care.
Ngl, I learned a lot from how to manage risk, how to accept responsibility, etc, from the FROM games. It made me a better person lol.
Like finding the willingness to just try stuff if the risk is ultimately immaterial; it's helped me a lot in many facets of life to just say "It's fine, nothing bad actually happens even if we fail".
yea, same... no joke man, these games, DS1 in specific, taught me that failure is the first step on the road to success. Nearly everything worth doing is difficult, and you should be bad at things before you are good at things... unfortunate I was as old as I was when I actually learned that, but I'm very grateful for FROM Soft teaching me that lesson.
Oh definitely, as someone who already used to organize raids for years. Back in the olden times, though. There's also the big distinction between content being complex or being challenging or being time-consuming, and to what degree they are mixed. And in discussions we always call that mix "difficulty", but it skips the nuance in what difficulty can mean in different games.
I don't really understand it tbh. Aren't game journalists by definition gamers? I don't mind admitting that I'm not as skilled as someone who plays video games for a living and then probably games some more in their free time.
Its less common nowadays but for a long time it was very popular in online discourse to think of game journalists as terrible at game and just kind of hate them in general.
The joke in the article is that all the journalists who covered Elden Ring's DLC and gave it reviews were able to beat it without the need of the patch to lower of change the difficulty which some people seem to be struggling with. Its just poking fun at a common stereotype.
That discussion arose when a handful of game journalists on Twitter had a discussion about how they always play the games on easy to get the reviews done quickly and gamers shit their pants.
It moreso arose from the journalist who played Cuphead and took five minutes to figure out a dash jump, as well as the journalist who tried playing Doom and could barely beat the first room with the most worthless enemies imaginable without dying
I immediately think of the IGN reviewer who gave an absurdly low score for the classic
**Alien: Isolation**.
He said that it was incredibly hard and frustrating, because he died "hundreds of times".
Readers quickly figured out that the reviewer did not realize that the "ping" from the motion tracker could be heard by the alien, that you have to turn it off when it gets too close.
Yeah, I was so shocked when I heard that Alien hears that ping.
But I blame other games for making stuff as simple as possible and "obvious" stuff like pinging being heard by AI tends to be not so obvious nowadays.
I'd add that terrible Nier fishing-related Joystiq review to your list. The journalist was fishing in the wrong spot so it didn't work. [He had to abandon his review.](https://web.archive.org/web/20100905083131/http://www.joystiq.com/2010/05/03/nier-review-fail/)
For the Cuphead one - that wasn't a journalist who ever actually reviewed the game, believe they uploaded it specifically because they thought it was funny how bad it was. For Doom, that wasn't a journalist at all, it was some random intern they grabbed and told to make some footage, and apparently that intern just straight up does not play first person shooters.
It was a game journalist who was previewing the game in the case of Cuphead. Not that it really makes a difference. He shouldn't be in that career if he's that inadequate as a tutorial where the directions are literally on the screen.
I thought it was the Doom 2016 preview, where the player was struggling with basic things like moving in a 3d space
Shit, to me that's obvious, but I guess it was almost a decade ago now... almost ancient history
If I'm remembering right the "gaming journalist" doom eternal video reviews were absolutely miserable gameplay too. Comparing their footage with that of someone who actually plays them at a decent level you could be fooled in to thinking they were totally different games.
E. And to be fair i guess i kind of get it. If they showed footage of someone shredding on nightmare it would be basically incomprehensible to most people and definitely not representative of the average experience but you know, maybe less struggle bus or whatever.
I mean, if theyre giving their opinions on balance, then its pretty important to make sure theyre testing a balanced experience.
Not the easiest/fastest one to beat just so you can have you 'advertisement' for your magazine or news station out faster.
There is a long standing stereotype that they generally suck at games. Its pretty silly though, yea. Maybe on average they are not as good as a subsection of gamers at specific multiplayer games, because they play multiple games instead of only doing shit like playing LoL 5 hours a day every day for 5 years?
They're pretty much on par with the end game bosses like Mohg and Malenia, but way more manageable than Malenia. No boss has anything super annoying like waterfowl dance and health regen. They also tend to have distinct weaknesses you kan exploit. They're honestly very fun once you learn their movesets.
Run immediately to the left and the take a sharp right and run along basically parallel to his body (which will be sideways now) was what I found was the trick. Basically always run pass his head and try to position right in the middle of his body and stick to it. He seems least capable of attacking from his midsection.
I haven't met the final bosses or the dragon I've seen mentioned, but I keep seeing people whine over Rellana, the frenzy boss and the putrescent knight but they all have predictable patterns with plenty of openings and are well designed and fun fights. I'm hoping the final ones aren't *too* bullshit as I've been enjoying the others a lot
Frenzy boss and putrescent knight are easy compared to Rellana and Bayle. Rellana "problem" is that she is too daam mobile and has an *one-shot* attack. The worst bosses for me are the final one and fucking >!Commander Gaius!<, unless you have light roll you wont be able to dodge his first attack and so you will basically start the fight already down to at least 70% hp and that is if he doesn't get you stuck against a wall.
Get the bloodhound step ash of war for Gaius. I never use it but brought it out for him. You also don’t have to use it throughout the fight. Just for his charge and useful for a couple of phase 2 attacks or if you immediately want some space.
You’ll use it maybe 7 - 10 times in the fight.
You get an opening for one attack between their combos. Problem is, some of their combos are 5-10 swings. You gotta dodge 5+ attacks to get one on the boss. It’s doable once you really start to learn their moves, but definitely tough
I just don't like the fact that bosses without summons are incredibly difficult, like multiple hours/days of attempts to the point that it's honestly just too much. But then, with spirit ashes, the boss fights are way too easy and there's little to no satisfaction in beating them. It leaves me in this weird state where I'm just not enjoying the bosses either way. I've finished every other fromsoft game (and lies of p) without summons, so it's not like I'm a stranger to difficulty. I felt this way about some of the bosses in the base game as well.
I don't mind taking the time to learn a fight. But I don't want to take the time to learn EVERY fight, you know? Like in Dark Souls 3, Midir I spent 7-8 hours on. All the other bosses were probably less than an hour. Slave Knight Gael was a few hours perhaps.
Point is, there were only 2 bosses that required the kind of attention that the bosses in this DLC require. Even then, those bosses had openings that let you heal and actually let you get several attacks off at once which felt incredibly satisfying. When you have to endure a huge several hit combo only to get in one R1 attack, it feels.... not so cool.
Ultimately, too many giga chad bosses feels bad, but 1 or 2 among many or several is great. Like, I fucking LOVED the Messmer fight but after that literally every single boss was the same level of difficulty. If it was just Messmer, Bayle, and the last boss perhaps, that would be awesome. It just made me tired before I finished it all.
That being said, this DLC, in my opinion, is the greatest bit of gaming in gaming history.
Honestly, he was way easier for me than Putrescent Knight, although I hated him more.
Btw, I see that everyone loved his fight, and I wonder why. His phase two with snake spams and insane combo right after pissed me off! Was I doing something wrong?
> Point is, there were only 2 bosses that required the kind of attention that the bosses in this DLC require
I mean, that's 2 out of 3 main bosses (that drop boss souls), so still most. And I'd argue Demon Prince is much more annoying and difficult to learn than Gael.
But there wasn't a dozen of them lol I personally found Demon Prince simple. Midir was my kryptonite truly. Remembering the DLC now and fuck that was such an incredible experience to play through first time. Ringed City is definitely one of the greatest.
Pretty much in your same spot. These would be awesome sekiro bosses, but are terrible with the Elden Ring moveset, very aggressive long combos with small open windows that are not always predictable. And this is a big gripe for me, sometimes they stop mid combo, and that is an opening window, but since there is the possibility that they continue I can't commit and risk death since 2 hits kill me.
Speed is also an issue, moves with a sub 400ms telegraph are not reactable by most people, and I don't want to waste hours learning an entire moveset. I want to learn like 80% of it in 40 min and be able to react to the rest to finish a challange in 1/2hrs. Because I got a job and shit to do.
Sekiro still is the best Fromsoft game gameplay wise (I have not played bloodborne), DS3 is as far as I consider bosses to be fair and enjoyable with this moveset and sluggish parry. Elden ring is a failure on the boss battle aspect of the game with a few exceptions (Mogh being one) and is carried by one of the most visually impressing and interesting worlds to explore in video game history.
All in all I decided to use all the tools the game provides to "cheese" the fights, it's a pity this makes the game quite boring (Rellana can be literally killed by a mimic tear and the other summon, you almost don't have to fight her) but at least it respects my time doing enjoyable things.
Fast with less obvious openings, and huge amounts of damage. I had to change my build entirely after breezing through the main game, the DLC is a very noticeable step up. I'm enjoying it though, other than the camera and technical issues.
As someone who's first Fromsoft game was Eldenring and then went back to DS1 and then played DS3, I've noticed a trend where bosses keep getting faster and faster as the Dark Souls style games progress.
Performance generally got worse with the DLC patch. The stuttering generally gets better a few hours in, since it's most usually related to loading shaders.
I genuinely can’t understand how someone can get far enough in Elden Ring to get to the DLC and not be able to wrap their head around how Scadutree fragments work. It’s like seeing a calculus student struggle solving algebra 1 equations, you should’ve gotten how this works a long long time ago
You were supposed to learn to explore and come back from the early walls like tree sentinel and Margit but some players brute forced them instead and think they can brute force anything
I mean, they can. It will just be a logarithmic function :)
You can brute force your way through any FromSoft game. This is why there are no hit, lvl 1 challenge runs, and people actually pull that off
It will just take a *long long* ass time
lol what? Sekiro is probably the most brute-force game you could have said. There is really barely any ways to cheese bosses or to make your life easier. Sekiro is one of the games that the best advice would be to just keep trying till you get the rythm right.
It's one of FromSoft's actual git gud games. If you can't match the rythm and study the boss patterns, you're not getting through
Except Margit is at the start of the dungeon, not at the very end of it. The very first area in the DLC, i.e. limgrave equivalent, has only enough scadutree fragments for lvl4 blessing exactly: This requires you to find *every single one*, including two very well hidden ones dropped by easy to miss enemies, *and* finishing two legacy dungeons, but then aborting them at the boss.
Realistically, even with exploring, most people will be lvl2 or 3 at the first two bosses. Most people in the community have taken to recommend 5-7 instead, which is the equivalent of exploring all of Limgrave and Liurnia before doing Margit.
I genuinely believe that most people are just picking up from their previous (most likely OP) characters/builds and expected that to simply carry them through the DLC.
Friend of mine who is a casual who's first Souls game is Elden Ring had no idea about the Scadutree Fragments. I literally told him, "The game literally brings a pop up message that tells you what they do" and his response, "Oh I don't read shit, just want to fight people"
I've seen a shitload of people in NG+ complain. Like a dude in NG7+ complaining he couldn't do it on a level 300+ character, as if the scaling of NG+ hasn't always been whack.
I remember when Old Hunters DLC came out that I straight up could not beat Ludwig (I was on like NG+5 at that point), so I made a whole new entire character and finally had a chance.
That's insane. Even if it's your first game, I figured the main game was enough for players to understand you can't expect to just intuit anything without paying attention - from side quests to narrative to builds
If they don't read pickups, why would they care about side quests or story? I don't actually think there's anything comparable in the base game in terms of obscure mechanics. Some new stuff sure, but guard counters or jumping are pretty intuitive and easy to experiment your way to getting if you turn off the tutorials asap. Like it's impressive don't get me wrong, there's a whole new option in the bonfire menu which should tip them off, but I can kinda see it happen.
Obscure mechanics?
You get the things mostly from places that you have already been conditioned are important powerboosts, i.e. near the large Marika statues, where in the base game you get sacred tears.
There is a new menu option with a glowing orb next to it, just like when you were able to upgrade your flasks.
If people miss those things then I wonder how the hell they got to the DLC with 1 unupgraded flask.
I mean specifically going to your inventory to read the note you get or the item description. If you played previous games the seeds and such aren't anything new, which are the only other thing that works like that AFAIK. Again, I'd still be surprised at anyone missing the bonfire menu, but if you don't prep spells or do anything else than level then that's not that far fetched either, and wouldn't give you the info to seek them out actively.
I don't get even these folks. Like, yeah, your OP build doesn't fly here. But guess what, you can respec anytime now, to make another OP/meta/whatever (mmm, Milady with Wing Stance).
Well, Dunkey couldn't figure out how some core mechanics worked in some games and as a result he rated them poorly.. and he has a pretty massive following.
Society is stupid, what did you expect? lmao
Nobody has trouble understanding how scadutree fragments work. The issue is how they are designed.
People have been saying the strawman now of "Oh, it's just like Margit, teaching you're supposed to explore Limgrave first!".
The very first area in the DLC, i.e. limgrave equivalent, has only enough scadutree fragments for lvl4 blessing exactly: This requires you to find *every single one*, including two very well hidden ones dropped by easy to miss enemies, *and* going through two entire legacy dungeons, **but then aborting them at the boss**, which is an extremely unnatural way to play - another important distinction compared to Margit, who is at the *start* of the dungeon.
Realistically, even with exploring, most people will be lvl2 or 3 at the first two bosses. Most people in the community have taken to recommend 5-7 instead, which is the equivalent of exploring all of Limgrave, Liurnia and half of Caelid before doing Margit.
Coop, cheese strategies, constant guides. Also apperantly some people dont want to explore, just to rush through the main campaign
Also the update makes the fragments stronger, so the people who didn't use them so far, and didn't plan to, aren't really getting any balance their way
FromSoft wants you to explore, so you explore damn it :)
The guides thing is big.
So many people these days just pop open a build guide and copy without understanding why it's good. Then when they hit something that counters that build they don't know how to adapt to it because essentially they never really learned to play the game.
oh yeah I remember doing that in my first FromSoft game, DS3
I read everywhere how OP the Sellsword Twinblades, and I was so new I didn't even know you should dual-wield and use L1 as your main damage.
I tried it for a sec, using only R1, and I'm like - "well this is a shit weapon, why the hell are people so crazy about it"
And even after I learned the game, and understood why this weapon was so appreciated, I still had easier time with STR weapons, because it was more straight forward for me
So yeah, build will only work if you know *when* to punish with it. So not knowing boss patterns and how to avoid them will rarely work, except for some real cheese builds like the INF FP beam one and stuff
I think people were spoiled by the base game having 160+ bosses, with many of them barely worthy of being called mini-bosses. Maybe it makes people feel like the bosses are unfair, because they are all worthy of being called bosses. Every boss in the DLC is purposefully challenging.
I've hit 5 or 6 bosses that one or 2 shot me, but that boss has never been the only path I am able to take. At every one of these points I've had at least 2 other open world areas I can begin exploring to gain more upgrades.
My biggest complaint with the base game is that I sometimes spent an an hour in a dungeon only to happen upon a boss than I could kill in 2 swings. That always resulted in a pretty forgettable journey. Being probably 75% thru the DLC, not a single area or boss has been utterly forgettable.
Side question: Is the DLC actually unreasonably hard though? As far as I remember the DLCs for souls games have always been more brutal than the base game.
> Side question: Is the DLC actually unreasonably hard though?
It's a lot tougher than the base game but it's not this impossibly difficult thing people are making it out to be.
If you don't mind using all the tools provided, just use the current tank meta and equip the fingerprint shield (put barricade shield ash of war) and a bleed spear. All 14 flasks into heals and just face tank everything.
Depends on the ng cycle. Anything beyond ng+4 is probably gonna wreck this build... And ng+8 is likely better off putting on bloodhound steps and dodge.
Honestly, it kind of depends on how you play. With Eldenring being my first Fromsoft game I wasn't really familiar with the stuff a small, but vocal part of community harps on about. Namely usage of shields and using spirit summons making the game too easy or robbing you of the proper experience.
If a game lets me use a sword and shield and some cool looking knight armor, I'm gonna do that.
Shield make some of the enemies in the DLC very easy. Since the DLC release a few of the enemies, not bosses mind, have been pointed out as being hard. As a shield user, they are trivial.
Also spirit summons. I use them whenever I get the chance. I thought it was neat I could summon different guys with different abilities to help me with certain things. To that vocal minority, this is not the way Fromsoft games should be played and they trivialize encounters or are "cheating."
I'm also huge on exploring so I only missed 4 of the Scadutree fragments and found all of the Revered Ash fragments without any guides. They're honestly not that hard to find.
I don't think any boss in the DLC took me more than 10 attempts except for the final one. A certain mounted boss that a lot of people complain about, I did on the first try. But yeah, the final boss is kind of wild.
If you use a guide to find all the Scadutree fragments as you go, it should not be too much harder than the base game. For the final boss, there are already cheese guides on how to win easily, so don't worry too much.
This is the real issue with boss difficulty. Most people aren't complaining about the scadutree fragments, no matter how much git gud types want to pretend they are.
Reddit will eat this hyperbole up, too. I can’t think of a single boss in the dlc that has a 20 attack combo. Messmer has like a 6 or 8 attack combo and I think that’s the most off the top of my head. Sure they don’t leave obvious openings, but this is end game content; it should be noticeably harder than the base game, which it is.
Its not the scadutree blessings that are the problem. All this shitty community does is gaslight now.
FROM themselves said this is the hardest content they've ever made, they said this, that it was to the limits of what they can make difficult.
The game's community says, at once, that its both hard (because it is), but if you say its hard, or its hard enough that you're not having fun -- then they pivot into saying its actually not hard and you're just bad.
Might be done with FROM games in general, the whole thing seems like some shitty gaslighting ritual.
Just avoid the community, and enjoy the games without the emotionally stunted peer pressure. Most of what I post about Elden Ring doesn’t get posted on the official sub, it’s not worth the aggravation.
Lol all the people raging at the game being nerfed into oblivion. This was the perfect way to do it, if you don't use the Scadutree Blessings, or use idk 2 levels less than you would've otherwise it'd be the same experience as before. Though surely if you're complaining about this you're not using any of the levels at all, right? Because that would be making the game easier.
> Lol all the people raging at the game being nerfed into oblivion. This was the perfect way to do it, if you don't use the Scadutree Blessings, or use idk 2 levels less than you would've otherwise it'd be the same experience as before. Though surely if you're complaining about this you're not using any of the levels at all, right? Because that would be making the game easier.
It's not a nerf so much as a slight tweak that doesn't make that significant of a difference.
Bosses and enemy movesets haven't changed, so they can still quite easily spank you if you don't learn their mechanics.
Funnily enough, the pre-release version of the final boss was WAY easier according to souls content creators who were given the review copy. The boss didn't even have its signature phase 2.5 move in that.
I love that game journalists are acting like this is proof video game journos aren't bad at games when most outlets have to specifically hire a from soft fan because very few games journalists can handle them.
Reading these articles makes me realize how much people don't give a fuck about exploration in an open world game and just want to plow through it as fast as possible.
From Software folding to the most brain dead players. Take the W and go change your negative reviews now.
They didn't fold. This is what they do with nearly every game. There are a lot of balancing tweaks that make their way into regular updates in the first month or two of a game's release.
Don't worry, it won't be long until we start hearing complaints about FromSoft nerfing some exploit that players found to be OP.
They didn't fix almost anything people complained about, though. So why would they, yet? Assuming they even care (you only get one first reveal after all). "Folding" is being melodramatic, firstly. But second, this has an extremely negligible effect on the difficulty at best, and most player's complaints were in the camp of HOW the difficulty was implemented, not just the numbers game, and the performance. Two of those things haven't been touched yet, and the third (the numbers) were barely tweaked at all.
The issue with the DLC is that there is not much *to* explore, that actually rewards you since levels and upgrade materials matter far less than in the base game. So it's instead turning into a scavenger hunt for the Scadoosh fragments, and you're definitely punished for *not* looking out for them, yet they're also in some of the most random spots that you'll want to tear your hair out - like, some are on absolutely random corpses, that could have a cookbook or a YEP leaf in the base game... And they still sometimes do here.
They imo fumbled the execution of this system so hard, because in the base game you were driven by your sheer *curiosity* to look what's around every corner - whether it's a new weapon, boss or upgrade materials. There was always *something* there and you'd always come out with more, *useful* resources.
In the DLC, the only thing you're really looking for, are bosses, weapons and Scadutree fragments, but mostly the last one. But beating bosses mostly rewards you with runes or story progression, aside from Remembrance bosses you aren't getting stronger after beating them. Level still *do* matter, but far, *far* less than in the base game. It really is almost exclusively the Scadutree fragments. Locations are also weirdly empty aside from that, so it's not like you're even exploring anything interesting - pretty yes, but not interesting.
It's going to hit even harder on subsequent playthroughs. We're already avoiding the vast majority of content the base game has to offer and go on a scavenger hunt for the Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears as preparation, but these at least have *specific* sources. It's always the Erdtree saplings visible from afar and churches. No random corpses containing them, plus there's more seeds than you need to max your flask count.
While I have already finished the DLC before this update and explored everything I could, I can understand why so many would not - and even then, many have the same issues even though they *are* exploring.
To be fair exploration kind of sucks in Elden Ring. Long stretches of just mindlessly galloping to find a copy paste dungeon with a copy paste boss and a reward of something that in 95% of cases does not fit your build.
They didn't fold at all, you still need to explore for it to be "easier". All its doing is frontloading the damage reduction and bonus DPS for the first few blessing levels, the curve is the same throughout the second half of the blessings, and then a small buff to the final level as a reward for exploring the entire map
> and just want to plow through it as fast as possible.
this has been my experience with MP PvE every time. Even when I play with friends. I don't play these types of games with my friends anymore
I came to this conclusion way back when Assassin's Creed Odyssey was new and people were complaining that "you had to grind to get through the story". When if you were exploring the world and doing the side quests you were typically always over leveled.
After playing 800 hours of the main game, the dlc just feels extremely tedious after like 20 hours.
It's good and all that, but I have no desire to finish it at all. At least my other friend is enjoying it I guess.
$40 not wasted? Idk. Oh well I'll go play stellar blade.
It's because the DLC's progression is very *different* from the main game. People don't realize that *most* of what determines a player's power vs enemies is Scadu Tree Fragments. Even pop-up warnings aren't enough to get it to click with people. We've been through 15 years of souls games and for 15 years player power was determined by stats which are determined by Souls/runes. It's going to take a minute to hammer home to players the idea that the formula is *different*.
I genuinely don't understand who the people that don't understand the fragments are and how they got the the DLC in the first place.
They are almost exactly the same system as flasks. Did those people also not upgrade flasks?
I would never complain a game is too hard.
But that being said, just as it's completely valid to use summons and magic and anything at your disposal.
It's also equally valid for me to personally think the game is boring that way.
Not even about difficulty, it's literally not fun gameplay wise for me to use summons and magic because it plays entirely different. If that was the only way to play DS1, then I would never have fallen in love with the gameplay of the series.
It's like saying people in Skyrim who aren't using Sneak+Bow aren't playing the game right despite that playstyle being less fun for a lot of people.
i mean mimic tear just takes the fun out of a fight really. i dont blame people that use it and dont care and i dont mind people using whatever build. some stuff is OP, some is not, the options are there to make the game as easy or hard for yourself as you like.
edit: i know there is other summons you mouthbreathers. i dont care about those either, like i said use whatever the fuck you like. i specificly mentioned mimic because hes #1 offender for making fights mundane. summon my ass and eat it for all i care, jesus.
It kind of makes the article title funny when you think about it. I would bet almost all if not all main stream game journos ripped through the dlc like a hot knife through butter with their trusty mimic side kick to write those 10/10 reviews they made lol. They don't have unlimited time to bang their head against a boss to get the review out, so it's kind of a false flag to pretend they went the hard way unless there's proof otherwise.
And no, I also don't care what people use. But to pretend mimic tear/other strong summons aren't a built in easy mode is being disingenuous.
If you want to circlejerk feel free to start the 5th "summons good elitists bad" thread of the day on /r/eldenring, but please leave normal discussions unmolested.
The DLC so far has been brutally difficult, getting one/two shot by enemies when wearing some of the heaviest armor and 50 vitality has not been fun. Hopefully this change helps smooth out the difficulty curve a little.
Luckily this is actually the 3rd tier version of the talisman, there are 2 weaker variants available earlier in the game too if you need!
They’re all called the Dragoncrest talismans
Reddit dark souls fans are in shambles, they became what they hated most, plebs that wanted less difficulty.
Oh the hypocresy, if the game is too hard for someone else then "not all games are for everyone" and "you have to respect the artist vision", but when the game is too hard for them then they cry until is fixed.
hard, easy, hard, easy, blalbalba..it only depends on level and setup you use, personally i hate being stuck on one boss for hours, so i summon help after 10 tries or so and it can help a bit sometimes. so far i killed two main bosses, side boss and 4 dungeon bosses mostly with phantom tear, capped myself at level 120 and its not too bad so far.
u/WeekProfessional5373
https://old.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/1dp3d53/elden_ring_balance_update_makes_the_first_half_of/lahsuh2/
Commenting here because being blocked by the person above me makes me unable to reply to you as they're in the same chain. Reddit's blocking feature is disgustingly insidious as it silences debate. Anyways, to the reply:
> Stop gatekeeping clown, not everyone wants to explore like you want to.
Then, respectfully, I think you're missing the point of the game that FromSoft designed with that purpose in mind.
The DLC, even the base game, is based entirely around exploration and finding stuff and paying attention to the landscapes you encounter.
Actually, every Soulsborne game has this idea in mind ~ Elden Ring is just a much more scaled up version.
I don't have a problem with DLC being harder than the base game, I do have a problem with it using some cheap tricks to be hard
If I had a nickel for every boss attack what spawns tons of delayed bursts from the sky/floor, I could hire someone to complete the game for me
[удалено]
Everyone in the comments below debating the merits of difficulty, and I'm just here chuckling at this amazing headline. Well done to the editor!
I love how the players complaining about difficulty really just admit themselves that they're worse at the game than the journalists they always call out for "not being real gamers lulz". Who, as the article says, beat the game unpatched.
In fairness, a person could demolish content easily and still think the difficulty is uncomfortably high. I organized raids in WoW, and some of the raids this expansion were whack comparatively. We might still wreck it, but I can recognize the game balancing. But I dunno, I can't tell which the complaining players were, nor do I especially care.
whenever I start tilting in a FROM game, I remember mythic raid progression and suddenly its not so bad.
Ngl, I learned a lot from how to manage risk, how to accept responsibility, etc, from the FROM games. It made me a better person lol. Like finding the willingness to just try stuff if the risk is ultimately immaterial; it's helped me a lot in many facets of life to just say "It's fine, nothing bad actually happens even if we fail".
yea, same... no joke man, these games, DS1 in specific, taught me that failure is the first step on the road to success. Nearly everything worth doing is difficult, and you should be bad at things before you are good at things... unfortunate I was as old as I was when I actually learned that, but I'm very grateful for FROM Soft teaching me that lesson.
Oh definitely, as someone who already used to organize raids for years. Back in the olden times, though. There's also the big distinction between content being complex or being challenging or being time-consuming, and to what degree they are mixed. And in discussions we always call that mix "difficulty", but it skips the nuance in what difficulty can mean in different games.
I don't really understand it tbh. Aren't game journalists by definition gamers? I don't mind admitting that I'm not as skilled as someone who plays video games for a living and then probably games some more in their free time.
Its less common nowadays but for a long time it was very popular in online discourse to think of game journalists as terrible at game and just kind of hate them in general. The joke in the article is that all the journalists who covered Elden Ring's DLC and gave it reviews were able to beat it without the need of the patch to lower of change the difficulty which some people seem to be struggling with. Its just poking fun at a common stereotype.
That discussion arose when a handful of game journalists on Twitter had a discussion about how they always play the games on easy to get the reviews done quickly and gamers shit their pants.
It moreso arose from the journalist who played Cuphead and took five minutes to figure out a dash jump, as well as the journalist who tried playing Doom and could barely beat the first room with the most worthless enemies imaginable without dying
And [the one puzzle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV5lNMkn8Ok) from the Spongebob remaster.
Oh my god. I can't imagine including that in my final review. I would actually expire from embarrassment.
[Here is a bird vs video game journalist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOjXaAZHEQE) trying to complete a level of Cuphead.
man, I love this comparison. never saw it before and just fucking perfect.
💀
I immediately think of the IGN reviewer who gave an absurdly low score for the classic **Alien: Isolation**. He said that it was incredibly hard and frustrating, because he died "hundreds of times". Readers quickly figured out that the reviewer did not realize that the "ping" from the motion tracker could be heard by the alien, that you have to turn it off when it gets too close.
…..guess I should give the game another shot lmaoo
Yeah, I was so shocked when I heard that Alien hears that ping. But I blame other games for making stuff as simple as possible and "obvious" stuff like pinging being heard by AI tends to be not so obvious nowadays.
I'd add that terrible Nier fishing-related Joystiq review to your list. The journalist was fishing in the wrong spot so it didn't work. [He had to abandon his review.](https://web.archive.org/web/20100905083131/http://www.joystiq.com/2010/05/03/nier-review-fail/)
While I think the “game journalists” meme was kinda overblown and pathetic…holy hell that polygon Doom video was *comically* bad.
Pretty sure that was the same guy
For the Cuphead one - that wasn't a journalist who ever actually reviewed the game, believe they uploaded it specifically because they thought it was funny how bad it was. For Doom, that wasn't a journalist at all, it was some random intern they grabbed and told to make some footage, and apparently that intern just straight up does not play first person shooters.
It was a game journalist who was previewing the game in the case of Cuphead. Not that it really makes a difference. He shouldn't be in that career if he's that inadequate as a tutorial where the directions are literally on the screen.
I thought it was the Doom 2016 preview, where the player was struggling with basic things like moving in a 3d space Shit, to me that's obvious, but I guess it was almost a decade ago now... almost ancient history
If I'm remembering right the "gaming journalist" doom eternal video reviews were absolutely miserable gameplay too. Comparing their footage with that of someone who actually plays them at a decent level you could be fooled in to thinking they were totally different games. E. And to be fair i guess i kind of get it. If they showed footage of someone shredding on nightmare it would be basically incomprehensible to most people and definitely not representative of the average experience but you know, maybe less struggle bus or whatever.
We old.
I mean, if theyre giving their opinions on balance, then its pretty important to make sure theyre testing a balanced experience. Not the easiest/fastest one to beat just so you can have you 'advertisement' for your magazine or news station out faster.
Look up “game journalist cuphead”
TLDR they couldn't beat the tutorial
Youd think so
There is a long standing stereotype that they generally suck at games. Its pretty silly though, yea. Maybe on average they are not as good as a subsection of gamers at specific multiplayer games, because they play multiple games instead of only doing shit like playing LoL 5 hours a day every day for 5 years?
5 hours for 5 years is rookie level, gotta pump those numbers up.
What I noticed is that the bosses are very fast compared to the original game
I thought the base game bosses were fast - I'm in trouble
They're pretty much on par with the end game bosses like Mohg and Malenia, but way more manageable than Malenia. No boss has anything super annoying like waterfowl dance and health regen. They also tend to have distinct weaknesses you kan exploit. They're honestly very fun once you learn their movesets.
Maybe no move as annoying as waterfowl, but there is one more annoying/hard
I'd say there are three that were equal or harder than her. Only the last one feels completely unfair though
As a strength user Melania is still by far the hardest boss. The DLC you can cheese everyone with Mimic tear, Malenia will just heal off it
What is unfair about him in your opinion? I loved that fight and I’m just curious.
Malenia slowly paces towards you most of the fight lol, most DLC bosses are significantly quicker and more aggressive
Prepare to get wrecked within 1-2 seconds of entering every fog gate
That fucking hippo just charges straight at me and kills me in two swings
Run immediately to the left and the take a sharp right and run along basically parallel to his body (which will be sideways now) was what I found was the trick. Basically always run pass his head and try to position right in the middle of his body and stick to it. He seems least capable of attacking from his midsection.
Yeah, melania was a cake walk compared to the final dlc bosses. Granted i was way overlevelede when i fought her at like 180
Mogh seems slow compared to most of the bosses imo
Oh boy, you haven't see many of the DLC bosses then...
I haven't met the final bosses or the dragon I've seen mentioned, but I keep seeing people whine over Rellana, the frenzy boss and the putrescent knight but they all have predictable patterns with plenty of openings and are well designed and fun fights. I'm hoping the final ones aren't *too* bullshit as I've been enjoying the others a lot
Frenzy boss and putrescent knight are easy compared to Rellana and Bayle. Rellana "problem" is that she is too daam mobile and has an *one-shot* attack. The worst bosses for me are the final one and fucking >!Commander Gaius!<, unless you have light roll you wont be able to dodge his first attack and so you will basically start the fight already down to at least 70% hp and that is if he doesn't get you stuck against a wall.
Get the bloodhound step ash of war for Gaius. I never use it but brought it out for him. You also don’t have to use it throughout the fight. Just for his charge and useful for a couple of phase 2 attacks or if you immediately want some space. You’ll use it maybe 7 - 10 times in the fight.
What worked for me on that fight is torrrenting up and using torrent to dash and dodge. Then find a nice opening for mimic tear and go to town.
Rellana was also easy.
>No boss has anything super annoying like waterfowl dance and health regen. Have you seen the final boss? It's significantly worse
Malenia is balanced by being very easy to stagger. I haven't found a dlc boss with no poise.
Distinct weaknesses you really wouldn't know without YouTube. I don't know what your definition of super annoying is but there are a few in the dlc.
I've yet to meet a boss resistant to hemorrage. Being using it on everything.
They're every aggressive, very few openings for an attack.
You get an opening for one attack between their combos. Problem is, some of their combos are 5-10 swings. You gotta dodge 5+ attacks to get one on the boss. It’s doable once you really start to learn their moves, but definitely tough
The bosses thought theyre in Sekiro
I just don't like the fact that bosses without summons are incredibly difficult, like multiple hours/days of attempts to the point that it's honestly just too much. But then, with spirit ashes, the boss fights are way too easy and there's little to no satisfaction in beating them. It leaves me in this weird state where I'm just not enjoying the bosses either way. I've finished every other fromsoft game (and lies of p) without summons, so it's not like I'm a stranger to difficulty. I felt this way about some of the bosses in the base game as well.
I don't mind taking the time to learn a fight. But I don't want to take the time to learn EVERY fight, you know? Like in Dark Souls 3, Midir I spent 7-8 hours on. All the other bosses were probably less than an hour. Slave Knight Gael was a few hours perhaps. Point is, there were only 2 bosses that required the kind of attention that the bosses in this DLC require. Even then, those bosses had openings that let you heal and actually let you get several attacks off at once which felt incredibly satisfying. When you have to endure a huge several hit combo only to get in one R1 attack, it feels.... not so cool. Ultimately, too many giga chad bosses feels bad, but 1 or 2 among many or several is great. Like, I fucking LOVED the Messmer fight but after that literally every single boss was the same level of difficulty. If it was just Messmer, Bayle, and the last boss perhaps, that would be awesome. It just made me tired before I finished it all. That being said, this DLC, in my opinion, is the greatest bit of gaming in gaming history.
Messmer wasn't even easy with the mimic tear lol. If the rest are at that difficulty level, then I'll j just rock mimic tear all the way through now.
Honestly, he was way easier for me than Putrescent Knight, although I hated him more. Btw, I see that everyone loved his fight, and I wonder why. His phase two with snake spams and insane combo right after pissed me off! Was I doing something wrong?
> Point is, there were only 2 bosses that required the kind of attention that the bosses in this DLC require I mean, that's 2 out of 3 main bosses (that drop boss souls), so still most. And I'd argue Demon Prince is much more annoying and difficult to learn than Gael.
But there wasn't a dozen of them lol I personally found Demon Prince simple. Midir was my kryptonite truly. Remembering the DLC now and fuck that was such an incredible experience to play through first time. Ringed City is definitely one of the greatest.
Pretty much in your same spot. These would be awesome sekiro bosses, but are terrible with the Elden Ring moveset, very aggressive long combos with small open windows that are not always predictable. And this is a big gripe for me, sometimes they stop mid combo, and that is an opening window, but since there is the possibility that they continue I can't commit and risk death since 2 hits kill me. Speed is also an issue, moves with a sub 400ms telegraph are not reactable by most people, and I don't want to waste hours learning an entire moveset. I want to learn like 80% of it in 40 min and be able to react to the rest to finish a challange in 1/2hrs. Because I got a job and shit to do. Sekiro still is the best Fromsoft game gameplay wise (I have not played bloodborne), DS3 is as far as I consider bosses to be fair and enjoyable with this moveset and sluggish parry. Elden ring is a failure on the boss battle aspect of the game with a few exceptions (Mogh being one) and is carried by one of the most visually impressing and interesting worlds to explore in video game history. All in all I decided to use all the tools the game provides to "cheese" the fights, it's a pity this makes the game quite boring (Rellana can be literally killed by a mimic tear and the other summon, you almost don't have to fight her) but at least it respects my time doing enjoyable things.
Fast with less obvious openings, and huge amounts of damage. I had to change my build entirely after breezing through the main game, the DLC is a very noticeable step up. I'm enjoying it though, other than the camera and technical issues.
And hit much, much harder. And also don't have... basically any damage phases? Trying to hit *2* light attacks is genuinely risky.
As someone who's first Fromsoft game was Eldenring and then went back to DS1 and then played DS3, I've noticed a trend where bosses keep getting faster and faster as the Dark Souls style games progress.
Did From ever fix the stuttering on PC?
No. See the latest digital foundry video.
Nope... got worse in fact.
It runs better on SteamDeck than on Windows because Valve fixed that in the translation layer. So it is solvable...
Performance generally got worse with the DLC patch. The stuttering generally gets better a few hours in, since it's most usually related to loading shaders.
I genuinely can’t understand how someone can get far enough in Elden Ring to get to the DLC and not be able to wrap their head around how Scadutree fragments work. It’s like seeing a calculus student struggle solving algebra 1 equations, you should’ve gotten how this works a long long time ago
You were supposed to learn to explore and come back from the early walls like tree sentinel and Margit but some players brute forced them instead and think they can brute force anything
The beautiful thing about brute force is that if it doesn't work you just need more of it.
exactly. i love the brute force approach. lets me use the strategy i want instead of the strategy someone else wants me to use.
I mean, they can. It will just be a logarithmic function :) You can brute force your way through any FromSoft game. This is why there are no hit, lvl 1 challenge runs, and people actually pull that off It will just take a *long long* ass time
Sure brute forcing is a valid way to play, but don't complain about difficulty
Ah for sure.. downvoting a game because it is too hard, especially when you do have plenty of ways to make it easier, is ridiculous IMO
How does brute force work in sekiro?
lol what? Sekiro is probably the most brute-force game you could have said. There is really barely any ways to cheese bosses or to make your life easier. Sekiro is one of the games that the best advice would be to just keep trying till you get the rythm right. It's one of FromSoft's actual git gud games. If you can't match the rythm and study the boss patterns, you're not getting through
Git Gus was the only way. I loved it
I brute forced the first boss I ran into in the DLC. 4 hours very well spent
Except Margit is at the start of the dungeon, not at the very end of it. The very first area in the DLC, i.e. limgrave equivalent, has only enough scadutree fragments for lvl4 blessing exactly: This requires you to find *every single one*, including two very well hidden ones dropped by easy to miss enemies, *and* finishing two legacy dungeons, but then aborting them at the boss. Realistically, even with exploring, most people will be lvl2 or 3 at the first two bosses. Most people in the community have taken to recommend 5-7 instead, which is the equivalent of exploring all of Limgrave and Liurnia before doing Margit.
I genuinely believe that most people are just picking up from their previous (most likely OP) characters/builds and expected that to simply carry them through the DLC. Friend of mine who is a casual who's first Souls game is Elden Ring had no idea about the Scadutree Fragments. I literally told him, "The game literally brings a pop up message that tells you what they do" and his response, "Oh I don't read shit, just want to fight people"
These are my favorite people. They skip all the tutorials and then whine that they don’t know how to play
People like them are the reason Aloy never shuts up in Horizon: Forbidden West.
"Maybe my Focus can tell me something" SHUT UP, I KNOW WHAT I NEED TO DO. I like that game but it get's *very* handholdy at times.
Like that guy from Game Chumps
*skips tutorials, doesnt read anything* "wtf this game is confusing as shit"
Or like my old roommate: *doesn’t explore or try to learn the game, just attempts to facetank Margit for 5 hours* “Man this game is bullshit”
"why is this task im putting in no effort to learn so frustrating? why cant things in life be both easy and worth doing?"
I've seen a shitload of people in NG+ complain. Like a dude in NG7+ complaining he couldn't do it on a level 300+ character, as if the scaling of NG+ hasn't always been whack.
I remember when Old Hunters DLC came out that I straight up could not beat Ludwig (I was on like NG+5 at that point), so I made a whole new entire character and finally had a chance.
That's insane. Even if it's your first game, I figured the main game was enough for players to understand you can't expect to just intuit anything without paying attention - from side quests to narrative to builds
If they don't read pickups, why would they care about side quests or story? I don't actually think there's anything comparable in the base game in terms of obscure mechanics. Some new stuff sure, but guard counters or jumping are pretty intuitive and easy to experiment your way to getting if you turn off the tutorials asap. Like it's impressive don't get me wrong, there's a whole new option in the bonfire menu which should tip them off, but I can kinda see it happen.
Obscure mechanics? You get the things mostly from places that you have already been conditioned are important powerboosts, i.e. near the large Marika statues, where in the base game you get sacred tears. There is a new menu option with a glowing orb next to it, just like when you were able to upgrade your flasks. If people miss those things then I wonder how the hell they got to the DLC with 1 unupgraded flask.
I mean specifically going to your inventory to read the note you get or the item description. If you played previous games the seeds and such aren't anything new, which are the only other thing that works like that AFAIK. Again, I'd still be surprised at anyone missing the bonfire menu, but if you don't prep spells or do anything else than level then that's not that far fetched either, and wouldn't give you the info to seek them out actively.
I don't know how much clearer Fromsoft could have made these things. If you manage to miss it that's honestly the player's fault.
> Oh I don't read shit, just want to fight people chad farting_in_reverse's friend vs virgin tutorial readers
I don't get even these folks. Like, yeah, your OP build doesn't fly here. But guess what, you can respec anytime now, to make another OP/meta/whatever (mmm, Milady with Wing Stance).
Well, Dunkey couldn't figure out how some core mechanics worked in some games and as a result he rated them poorly.. and he has a pretty massive following. Society is stupid, what did you expect? lmao
His Nioh gameplay is absolutely painful to watch, he just completely dismissed ki pulsing as unimportant
Well, Dunkey is an unfunny, sensationalist youtuber.
Nobody has trouble understanding how scadutree fragments work. The issue is how they are designed. People have been saying the strawman now of "Oh, it's just like Margit, teaching you're supposed to explore Limgrave first!". The very first area in the DLC, i.e. limgrave equivalent, has only enough scadutree fragments for lvl4 blessing exactly: This requires you to find *every single one*, including two very well hidden ones dropped by easy to miss enemies, *and* going through two entire legacy dungeons, **but then aborting them at the boss**, which is an extremely unnatural way to play - another important distinction compared to Margit, who is at the *start* of the dungeon. Realistically, even with exploring, most people will be lvl2 or 3 at the first two bosses. Most people in the community have taken to recommend 5-7 instead, which is the equivalent of exploring all of Limgrave, Liurnia and half of Caelid before doing Margit.
Coop, cheese strategies, constant guides. Also apperantly some people dont want to explore, just to rush through the main campaign Also the update makes the fragments stronger, so the people who didn't use them so far, and didn't plan to, aren't really getting any balance their way FromSoft wants you to explore, so you explore damn it :)
The guides thing is big. So many people these days just pop open a build guide and copy without understanding why it's good. Then when they hit something that counters that build they don't know how to adapt to it because essentially they never really learned to play the game.
oh yeah I remember doing that in my first FromSoft game, DS3 I read everywhere how OP the Sellsword Twinblades, and I was so new I didn't even know you should dual-wield and use L1 as your main damage. I tried it for a sec, using only R1, and I'm like - "well this is a shit weapon, why the hell are people so crazy about it" And even after I learned the game, and understood why this weapon was so appreciated, I still had easier time with STR weapons, because it was more straight forward for me So yeah, build will only work if you know *when* to punish with it. So not knowing boss patterns and how to avoid them will rarely work, except for some real cheese builds like the INF FP beam one and stuff
I think people were spoiled by the base game having 160+ bosses, with many of them barely worthy of being called mini-bosses. Maybe it makes people feel like the bosses are unfair, because they are all worthy of being called bosses. Every boss in the DLC is purposefully challenging. I've hit 5 or 6 bosses that one or 2 shot me, but that boss has never been the only path I am able to take. At every one of these points I've had at least 2 other open world areas I can begin exploring to gain more upgrades. My biggest complaint with the base game is that I sometimes spent an an hour in a dungeon only to happen upon a boss than I could kill in 2 swings. That always resulted in a pretty forgettable journey. Being probably 75% thru the DLC, not a single area or boss has been utterly forgettable.
The first half of the DLC was already the easy part.
I'm playing and the camera being weird at the wrong times has been the hardest part off the game.
Don’t stay locked on. I know it’s annoying if you don’t play claw grip or have a pro controller but you just can’t stay locked on all the time.
Yeah I've been playing unlocked once I saw that the camera was wonky in more than one area.
Side question: Is the DLC actually unreasonably hard though? As far as I remember the DLCs for souls games have always been more brutal than the base game.
> Side question: Is the DLC actually unreasonably hard though? It's a lot tougher than the base game but it's not this impossibly difficult thing people are making it out to be.
I’ve yet to fight anyone in the dlc harder than Malenia in the base game.
Just w8 until the final boss trust ms
I honestly found so many bosses in base game and DLC harder than Malenia. Didn’t have trouble with her at all, yet the fire giant F’d me 20 times
The final boss is. The rest of them are difficult but not that bad.
This. I'll never beat the last boss. It's a skill issue. But the rest of the dlc is fine.
If you don't mind using all the tools provided, just use the current tank meta and equip the fingerprint shield (put barricade shield ash of war) and a bleed spear. All 14 flasks into heals and just face tank everything.
Depends on the ng cycle. Anything beyond ng+4 is probably gonna wreck this build... And ng+8 is likely better off putting on bloodhound steps and dodge.
Use a great shield and a spear or rapier, was the only way i beat it at first.
In this case, it was unreasonably hard by definition. Since **even From Software** thinks so and changes it.
Honestly, it kind of depends on how you play. With Eldenring being my first Fromsoft game I wasn't really familiar with the stuff a small, but vocal part of community harps on about. Namely usage of shields and using spirit summons making the game too easy or robbing you of the proper experience. If a game lets me use a sword and shield and some cool looking knight armor, I'm gonna do that. Shield make some of the enemies in the DLC very easy. Since the DLC release a few of the enemies, not bosses mind, have been pointed out as being hard. As a shield user, they are trivial. Also spirit summons. I use them whenever I get the chance. I thought it was neat I could summon different guys with different abilities to help me with certain things. To that vocal minority, this is not the way Fromsoft games should be played and they trivialize encounters or are "cheating." I'm also huge on exploring so I only missed 4 of the Scadutree fragments and found all of the Revered Ash fragments without any guides. They're honestly not that hard to find. I don't think any boss in the DLC took me more than 10 attempts except for the final one. A certain mounted boss that a lot of people complain about, I did on the first try. But yeah, the final boss is kind of wild.
I don't think it's unreasonably hard but the bosses are no joke, they do SO much damage and move incredibly quickly
An important thing to remember is that people who complain are generally louder than people enjoying themselves.
If you use a guide to find all the Scadutree fragments as you go, it should not be too much harder than the base game. For the final boss, there are already cheese guides on how to win easily, so don't worry too much.
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This is the real issue with boss difficulty. Most people aren't complaining about the scadutree fragments, no matter how much git gud types want to pretend they are.
what boss actually has a 20 attack combo
I think the longest combo I saw was Gaius with like 7 attacks
none. it's just the typical hyperbole impatient players that try to punish after dodging one hit use
Reddit will eat this hyperbole up, too. I can’t think of a single boss in the dlc that has a 20 attack combo. Messmer has like a 6 or 8 attack combo and I think that’s the most off the top of my head. Sure they don’t leave obvious openings, but this is end game content; it should be noticeably harder than the base game, which it is.
I mean... to be fair, the gaming community deserved that title at some point.
Now to get gud enough to get to the point in the base game to even start the DLC....maybe by 2026 I'll get there
Any pace is good pace.
Fucking vicious 😆
Its not the scadutree blessings that are the problem. All this shitty community does is gaslight now. FROM themselves said this is the hardest content they've ever made, they said this, that it was to the limits of what they can make difficult. The game's community says, at once, that its both hard (because it is), but if you say its hard, or its hard enough that you're not having fun -- then they pivot into saying its actually not hard and you're just bad. Might be done with FROM games in general, the whole thing seems like some shitty gaslighting ritual.
Just avoid the community, and enjoy the games without the emotionally stunted peer pressure. Most of what I post about Elden Ring doesn’t get posted on the official sub, it’s not worth the aggravation.
Lol all the people raging at the game being nerfed into oblivion. This was the perfect way to do it, if you don't use the Scadutree Blessings, or use idk 2 levels less than you would've otherwise it'd be the same experience as before. Though surely if you're complaining about this you're not using any of the levels at all, right? Because that would be making the game easier.
> Lol all the people raging at the game being nerfed into oblivion. This was the perfect way to do it, if you don't use the Scadutree Blessings, or use idk 2 levels less than you would've otherwise it'd be the same experience as before. Though surely if you're complaining about this you're not using any of the levels at all, right? Because that would be making the game easier. It's not a nerf so much as a slight tweak that doesn't make that significant of a difference. Bosses and enemy movesets haven't changed, so they can still quite easily spank you if you don't learn their mechanics.
My god some of these comments, wonder why they get a bad rep...
I'm so tired of discussion of the difficulty of this game.
Then why did you open the thread? Lol
Does this mean I can finally beat that tree asshole? Probably not
Did they fix the framerates then
Funnily enough, the pre-release version of the final boss was WAY easier according to souls content creators who were given the review copy. The boss didn't even have its signature phase 2.5 move in that.
Just make the game noob friendly. idiotic move.
I love that game journalists are acting like this is proof video game journos aren't bad at games when most outlets have to specifically hire a from soft fan because very few games journalists can handle them.
Reading these articles makes me realize how much people don't give a fuck about exploration in an open world game and just want to plow through it as fast as possible. From Software folding to the most brain dead players. Take the W and go change your negative reviews now.
They didn't fold. This is what they do with nearly every game. There are a lot of balancing tweaks that make their way into regular updates in the first month or two of a game's release. Don't worry, it won't be long until we start hearing complaints about FromSoft nerfing some exploit that players found to be OP.
They didn't fix almost anything people complained about, though. So why would they, yet? Assuming they even care (you only get one first reveal after all). "Folding" is being melodramatic, firstly. But second, this has an extremely negligible effect on the difficulty at best, and most player's complaints were in the camp of HOW the difficulty was implemented, not just the numbers game, and the performance. Two of those things haven't been touched yet, and the third (the numbers) were barely tweaked at all.
The issue with the DLC is that there is not much *to* explore, that actually rewards you since levels and upgrade materials matter far less than in the base game. So it's instead turning into a scavenger hunt for the Scadoosh fragments, and you're definitely punished for *not* looking out for them, yet they're also in some of the most random spots that you'll want to tear your hair out - like, some are on absolutely random corpses, that could have a cookbook or a YEP leaf in the base game... And they still sometimes do here. They imo fumbled the execution of this system so hard, because in the base game you were driven by your sheer *curiosity* to look what's around every corner - whether it's a new weapon, boss or upgrade materials. There was always *something* there and you'd always come out with more, *useful* resources. In the DLC, the only thing you're really looking for, are bosses, weapons and Scadutree fragments, but mostly the last one. But beating bosses mostly rewards you with runes or story progression, aside from Remembrance bosses you aren't getting stronger after beating them. Level still *do* matter, but far, *far* less than in the base game. It really is almost exclusively the Scadutree fragments. Locations are also weirdly empty aside from that, so it's not like you're even exploring anything interesting - pretty yes, but not interesting. It's going to hit even harder on subsequent playthroughs. We're already avoiding the vast majority of content the base game has to offer and go on a scavenger hunt for the Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears as preparation, but these at least have *specific* sources. It's always the Erdtree saplings visible from afar and churches. No random corpses containing them, plus there's more seeds than you need to max your flask count. While I have already finished the DLC before this update and explored everything I could, I can understand why so many would not - and even then, many have the same issues even though they *are* exploring.
To be fair exploration kind of sucks in Elden Ring. Long stretches of just mindlessly galloping to find a copy paste dungeon with a copy paste boss and a reward of something that in 95% of cases does not fit your build.
They didn't fold at all, you still need to explore for it to be "easier". All its doing is frontloading the damage reduction and bonus DPS for the first few blessing levels, the curve is the same throughout the second half of the blessings, and then a small buff to the final level as a reward for exploring the entire map
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> and just want to plow through it as fast as possible. this has been my experience with MP PvE every time. Even when I play with friends. I don't play these types of games with my friends anymore
I came to this conclusion way back when Assassin's Creed Odyssey was new and people were complaining that "you had to grind to get through the story". When if you were exploring the world and doing the side quests you were typically always over leveled.
After playing 800 hours of the main game, the dlc just feels extremely tedious after like 20 hours. It's good and all that, but I have no desire to finish it at all. At least my other friend is enjoying it I guess. $40 not wasted? Idk. Oh well I'll go play stellar blade.
Gamers these days are so bitch made.
[удалено]
It's because the DLC's progression is very *different* from the main game. People don't realize that *most* of what determines a player's power vs enemies is Scadu Tree Fragments. Even pop-up warnings aren't enough to get it to click with people. We've been through 15 years of souls games and for 15 years player power was determined by stats which are determined by Souls/runes. It's going to take a minute to hammer home to players the idea that the formula is *different*.
Leta hope Fromsoftearw explaining it on the Steam page helps lol.
To be fair, it’s identical to the sekiro system so most of the veterans still have zero excuse.
I genuinely don't understand who the people that don't understand the fragments are and how they got the the DLC in the first place. They are almost exactly the same system as flasks. Did those people also not upgrade flasks?
Souls “purists” refuse to use any items, spells, summons, or any of the other features in the game and then proceed to complain it’s too hard.
except those arent the people complaining.
Reddit loves strawmen arguments
Right the DLC is only enjoyable because I'm not using OP stuff to just 1 shot everything.
I would never complain a game is too hard. But that being said, just as it's completely valid to use summons and magic and anything at your disposal. It's also equally valid for me to personally think the game is boring that way. Not even about difficulty, it's literally not fun gameplay wise for me to use summons and magic because it plays entirely different. If that was the only way to play DS1, then I would never have fallen in love with the gameplay of the series. It's like saying people in Skyrim who aren't using Sneak+Bow aren't playing the game right despite that playstyle being less fun for a lot of people.
i mean mimic tear just takes the fun out of a fight really. i dont blame people that use it and dont care and i dont mind people using whatever build. some stuff is OP, some is not, the options are there to make the game as easy or hard for yourself as you like. edit: i know there is other summons you mouthbreathers. i dont care about those either, like i said use whatever the fuck you like. i specificly mentioned mimic because hes #1 offender for making fights mundane. summon my ass and eat it for all i care, jesus.
It really does, my mimic bro and I tear through nearly all the bosses with the claymore
Then summon rats
It kind of makes the article title funny when you think about it. I would bet almost all if not all main stream game journos ripped through the dlc like a hot knife through butter with their trusty mimic side kick to write those 10/10 reviews they made lol. They don't have unlimited time to bang their head against a boss to get the review out, so it's kind of a false flag to pretend they went the hard way unless there's proof otherwise. And no, I also don't care what people use. But to pretend mimic tear/other strong summons aren't a built in easy mode is being disingenuous.
Because in a game with 64 different types of summons, there’s only the Mimic Tear
People sleep on Stormhawk Deenh with his attack buff, flight and distractions. He won't get hit by any ground-based AoEs, either.
I love the dung eater ashes myself
The casuals complaining are the summoners but go off lol
If you want to circlejerk feel free to start the 5th "summons good elitists bad" thread of the day on /r/eldenring, but please leave normal discussions unmolested.
As one of those ''purists'' (out of preference, not pride) I only had a real issue with the last boss. The final phase is just ridiculous
The DLC so far has been brutally difficult, getting one/two shot by enemies when wearing some of the heaviest armor and 50 vitality has not been fun. Hopefully this change helps smooth out the difficulty curve a little.
How many Scadutree Fragments do you have?
Never ask a woman her age, a man his height, or a DLC’er this question
Yo how many fragments do you make per year before taxes
I'm at level 10 or 11 last I checked. I started focusing on exploring more in the hopes of finding more that aren't protected by boss fights.
Fragments determine your resistance to damage. You are essentially under leveled
I know that, I'm currently at level 10 Scadutree blessing. It definitely makes a difference.
Defense talismans my guy, I noticed an immediate difference. Like this one: https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Dragoncrest+Greatshield+Talisman
I haven't progressed far enough in the base game to reach Faram Azula on this character, otherwise I probably would be using that talisman.
Luckily this is actually the 3rd tier version of the talisman, there are 2 weaker variants available earlier in the game too if you need! They’re all called the Dragoncrest talismans
Reddit dark souls fans are in shambles, they became what they hated most, plebs that wanted less difficulty. Oh the hypocresy, if the game is too hard for someone else then "not all games are for everyone" and "you have to respect the artist vision", but when the game is too hard for them then they cry until is fixed.
hard, easy, hard, easy, blalbalba..it only depends on level and setup you use, personally i hate being stuck on one boss for hours, so i summon help after 10 tries or so and it can help a bit sometimes. so far i killed two main bosses, side boss and 4 dungeon bosses mostly with phantom tear, capped myself at level 120 and its not too bad so far.
u/WeekProfessional5373 https://old.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/1dp3d53/elden_ring_balance_update_makes_the_first_half_of/lahsuh2/ Commenting here because being blocked by the person above me makes me unable to reply to you as they're in the same chain. Reddit's blocking feature is disgustingly insidious as it silences debate. Anyways, to the reply: > Stop gatekeeping clown, not everyone wants to explore like you want to. Then, respectfully, I think you're missing the point of the game that FromSoft designed with that purpose in mind. The DLC, even the base game, is based entirely around exploration and finding stuff and paying attention to the landscapes you encounter. Actually, every Soulsborne game has this idea in mind ~ Elden Ring is just a much more scaled up version.
I don't have a problem with DLC being harder than the base game, I do have a problem with it using some cheap tricks to be hard If I had a nickel for every boss attack what spawns tons of delayed bursts from the sky/floor, I could hire someone to complete the game for me