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My Thoughts After Shadow of the Erdtree (No Spoilers)
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- Опубликовано: 18 авг 2024
- This week we're covering my initial impressions after a single playthrough. While I enjoyed my time, it did nothing to address my many, many, many issues with Elden Ring. Overall, it's a worthwhile addition to a game that I have fundamental issues with.
If the dlc was smaller and filled with more stuff it would probably be better. The empty big areas gave me a sense of traveling and build up an atmosphere but there's no reason to explore them again, you just ride to the boss. The only empty area that was actually great was abyssal woods because, it had the most intense atmosphere and was kinda scary. It also was like an open world legacy dungeon, same with upper rauh ruins, I think they just didn't execute that idea very well. I loved that exploring in the main game was fun on several playthroughs because you would still find stuff you didn't discover yet, in the dlc I found everything so quickly. At the beginning I thought this might be their best dlc but the first half was SO much better and the excitement faded when I realized how empty and unfinished 50% of the map is. You couldn't even explore the giant tower that's in front of the scadu tree, there's also a chalice in front of itthat has no use??? I was certain you would use it to burn it. Their compact and linear dlcs are just way more fun, old hunters is still their best content imo. If they make something filled with content you can still explore with different paths (imagine you could explore the whole of the ringed city) but small enough you don't get bored they'd be on top again, quality over quantity..
Also the spells were bad besides 3 incarnations and one spell, some lf them completely useless. I felt like the enemies and bosses were designed to be beaten through melee builds only because they couldn't be staggered or stopped from spells and also would just rush towards you so you couldn't even utilize them, I had 50 faith and I only used buffs for melee stuff besides the thorns and pest threads one some bosses.
@@thex6992 thorns and pest threads ugh gross
My biggest disappointment, as someone who gets a lot of artistic inspiration from these games, was in the narrative.
Narratively, Miquella's story in SOTET was, for the most part, disappointing and entirely predictable and I wished it was something else. There's no satisfying ending, no feeling of something being wrapped up... Nothing.
I legitimately ran around the entire arena after defeating the final boss with the sense of "Is that it!?". Compared to something like Ringed City or Old Hunters it doesn't feel like I *finished a story*. It just feels like I prevented another Saturday cartoon villain and the fact that there's still 666 unfinished plot threads or things that weren't even slightly touched upon is what's most disappointing to me personally.
Best story ever
Plenty of people poked fun at the mixed reception on Steam, but clearly there are reasons for that, beyond just "it is too hard".
That argument has become such a distraction for the failings of FromSoftware. There are legitimate problems with this DLC, but now the rebuttal is just that people are bad at the game and they're not getting the scadutree fragments. Meanwhile, most negative reviews are actually about things that other developers would not get a pass for.
@@nswmeeuwes89 Like what?
@@TheTraveler980 Bad performance, boring/empty open world, repeat enemies/bosses, and unfun bosses
@@nswmeeuwes89 You can also add the capped 60fps on PC,garbage mouse and keyboard support and no PS controller support from a developer that has 2 exclusives there :( these are not small things.
Skill issue
We need more videos like this calling out fromsofts flaws otherwise they'll never improve.
I hope so .
These vids blow the flaws out of proportion… clearly these ‘flaws’ are not that big to most people. Only ‘souls vets’ care, but then again, they want an r1 simulator like ds3, anything more complex is ‘bullshit’
@@Stanzbey69"Scoff. Soul vet elitists want to ruin this complex game that requires more than spamming one button."
Bud, let me tell you about a little weapon called Rivers of Blood and all the people who were carried through the game by spamming L2.
@@13JackDiamond end game weapon lol
@@MK-vi2cm True, but starting with a katana and unsheath skill is a high possibility. I watched my friend use only that weapon art a majority of the game. The series went from spamming R1 to spamming L2. I also accidentally found the Moonveil early thanks to a chest teleporting to the right area, I think and spamming that skill sure did help me.
I hope Fromsoft's next game isn't open world
This is the problem
Me too . BUT ; i think the majority of people would be disappointed as we're in the minority. ~ " It can only be for the better for Fromsoft to have annual release split division of a one year of classical Dark Souls style world and then a 3 to 4 year release of an upcoming elden ring follow up in order to satisfy both sides of the community. 🙏
@@EdyeGuevara no, if they like this open world format they are objectively wrong. It's always more work for From Soft only for them to never be able to fill it. A curated, linear experience provides enough adventure and the secret areas satisfy that itch of exploration. The best part of dark souls is the combat, boss experience, art/sound design. Not traveling
@@23Butanedione And i do gotta agree with that point of yours. 👍I think the more linear level centered character progression fits better the style of the game which was intended to ; but what happens when games like Elden Ring let to such high sale success, by been the most recognized out of the franchise , it only leads to speculate to the designer that people want more of it & eventually abandoning the old dark souls format , when they released SOET , did they stop adding the open world? No, they didn't.
@@23Butanedione Being Objectively wrong, it is no longer a concern for them because they feel with what they created with Elden Ring ' it has had such a high commercially success. I hope you get my point dude.
The DLC made me appreciate the base game even more and storm veil still remains the best legacy dungeon with volcano manor at a close second
StormVeil the GOAT!
I don't know shadow keep was absolutely amazing and midras manor had a very resident evil feel to it but ya overall the dlc was kind of meh.
@@WokeandProudPlaces likw upper rauh ruins ans abyssal forest ARE the legacy dungeon, I think they tried to make an open world version. Abyssal forest was the only one that felt good because it was so empty, the atmosphere was 10/10 and the buildup towards the boss was intense and very very fun. The map looks much bigger than it is, most of the stuff is in the middle and the mountains, finger ruins etc jusz give you a sense of traveling. I liked the way they designdd the world in the basegame moee because you could find stuff everywhere and sometimes even huge areas underground, that's why abyssal forest was so good I'd never expect a random dungeon leading to it
Leyndell is easily number 1 and shadowkeep closely follows. Ur trying so hard to be special.
@@devinport. I think complaining about the legacy dungeons in the dlc is ridiculous, the problem people have comes from the open world
Really hope Fromsoftware makes smaller, more focused games in the future. The open world sucks and isn't worth the lack of polish. So many of the gameplay problems wouldn't exist if they made the world 50% smaller and fleshed out the combat more. I honestly feel that ER and SotE would be so much better if they were smaller, branching areas and legacy dungeons.
Elden Ring was the only Fromsoft game I tried and completed, and I agree. Elden Rings open world is cool for a first time playthrough but thats it. It's tedious the next runs, and the games take on guiding you to key places is so subtle that it doesn't register at time(I know Im not the only one who didnt really pay attention the the grace lines on my first run). It also makes side quests very tedious. I plan on playing Bloodborne and the Souls trilogy, but I can already tell I'll enjoy them more since they lack the one thing I truly disliked about Elden Ring
@@dorrianbrooks9408 I was in the same shoes as you as a brand new player two years ago. Played the Souls trilogy, Demon Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro after completing Elden Ring. I can confirm that I had more fond memories of the older games due to how focused and tight the games were designed which allowed for more depth for item and enemy placement. Also replay-ability was through the roof compared to ER because of how much shorter the games were, so making PvP builds could really take less than a day
@@SecundaMFXEspecially the souls trilogy and bloodborne have that high replayability, completel each game over 10 times and it's still fun. I didn't like thaz demons souls was too short though, as soon as i finished my desired build and got the spelld I wanted etc the game was practically over, also it really bugs me that we never got to dee the 6th archstone
Keep in mind this is fromsofts FIRST open world game and it’s already considered one of the best open worlds ever. With experience and feedback they’ll definitely knock it out of the park with the next one if they choose to do a next one.
Just look at the dlc, the minor dungeons which many criticized ended up being much more unique, this tells me they payed attention to feedback.
@@Mohgenstein Granted. I hope they learned a lot from this and don't repeat their mistakes. They must make games of a size they can handle so they can properly tune them and flesh them out. That or just break up their games into multiple DLC's or expansions.
I have two major and one minor gripe with the addon: The biggest problem is obviously the empty world: It's beautiful, but more often than not there is hardly anything to interact with. The second one is the bad balance, many items are either completely broken or really bad. And the minor problem is the very short main quest. In the beginning I saw the big new world and everything felt so
extensive, but in the end there are only 4 quest bosses, the rest is optional and many of these are hardly worth the effort. I'd give the DLC a 7,5/10, after balance patches maybe an 8.
an 8? your head is ruined lmao what you described sounded like a 4 mate. I'd personally rate it 4/10
@@RyanWilson-qy7kbIf SOTE Is a 4/10 the rest Is literally a 1/10 at best😂
As a hardcore Souls fan who puts hundreds of hours into them, can do complete no hit runs, and speeds runs
I for for have always been critical of Fromsoft and have never been blinded by their blatant lack of challenge to change.
In other words, I knew from the get go this wasn’t going to be a real 10/10 dlc and the majority of those claims are from..well dick riding to be blunt. The dlc is more like a 7 or 8/10. DEF not a 10/10 ? By no means bad but by no means the best dlc ever made
Absolutely agree. This DLC was still fun but i can't help but feel it didn't capture the magic of the base game (i.e. any massive dungeons/set pieces like leyndell or finding a whole secret area like siofra river). The worst "dungeon" was definitely midra's manor bc why tf was it so short
I don't think it was ever going to or was intended to. The magic comes from the first play through, and after that its never the same
@@joevaghn457 True and I think a big part of why I didn't enjoy the DLC as much was because I replayed the entire game before it released and it definitely wasn't as enjoyable or magical as my first playthrough which I think definitely soured my DLC playthrough
@@joevaghn457When The old Humters came out I played bloodborne 3 times already, and then the dlc still blew me away. I think they just needed more time for the dlc to work on the atmosphere and empty areas more, many people didn't get that some of the areas on the map like abyssal forest and upler rauh ruins ARE the legacy dungeon, they tried to make an open world one, although a very bad one besides abyssal forest, that one was perfect because it turned elden eing into a horror game and the emptiness and buildup towards the boss were crazy atmospheric
@@bruhirl1023 that is such an insanely bad reason to dislike the dlc
I thought stone coffin was gonna be a sifora river esque area. Was very disappointed when it ended up being a extremely linear dungeon thing.
Overall I disagree with your take. I won’t be typing out a lengthy rebuttal or anything right now. However, I am happy to hear not everyone blindly enjoyed it! I appreciate the upload big time!
Hey, that's the great thing about games. People get different things out of them that make them feel different ways. I'd be really surprised if the majority of people agreed with me because my issues are so specific to the PVP and multiplayer aspects. For most players, I'd assume the PVE (maybe some co-op) is the start and finish of the game and for that it's a pretty solid experience if you can get over not having the horse in the overworld when co-oping.
I apprwciate your maturity about it. Too many people go for the throat if you disagree about fromsoft😅
Wait, you liked the final boss? Man, that's a hard one to wrap my head atound. I genuinely think it's one of, if not the, worst boss from has ever made. They were way overtuned imo and the difficulty felt very artificial. I felt relieved when it was over after finally beating them.
Also, which boss did you dislike because of the area?
The final boss is a lot but I thought it was a pretty appropriate finale for what Elden Ring is as a game. Big and fast and explosions etc etc etc. It's not necessarily a fair or well-tuned boss, but I'm okay with that when it gives me something to do. It's still too early for me to decide how I feel about it long-term but I did like it based on how intense it was as an obstacle.
And the boss I didn't like because of the area was Midra. Super cool boss design but the abyss really let me down in terms of engagement and their dungeon was pretty bland for me.
I would say each of the catacombs had a big step up in design because of both how big they are vs. base Elden Ring catacombs, and the unique terrain and small gimmicks within them. I would say the player count limit still needs to be adjusted to 5 people at base (maybe include 2 instant invaders when invading 3 people?) and some level of reward is needed for invasions. Other than that, Shadow of the Erdtree did put in a decent foundation as a DLC, but the DS3 covenant system is sorely missed, and the new weapons really screw with the game balance and game system in a negative way (swift slash being what it is, Greatsword of Damnation catching people through I-frames due to poor net-code). Let's not forget the re-introduced bugs that make invasions even worse.
You have the only valid opinion
We need another Bloodborne
Fr
we need port with minimum 60fps kek
Port the og to pc first, cant fuckin believe this shit is a decade old and i still cant play it. And obviously im not buying a whole ass console just for 1 game
@@pastorofmuppets9346without exclusivity the game wouldn’t existed in the first place. Buy a PlayStation, it’s just the way it is. It’s like crying because you can’t play Mario on pc, if you want to play Mario, you buy a Nintendo.
@Amearie not having a pc port of a legendary game like that 10 years after release is inexcusable. Its in part bc of the likes of you who just accept the bs of companies that we still dont have it. Nintendo is even worse yes, luckily i personally never gave a shit about their kiddy games. Sides, itd be an ez profit too so idk wtf sonys problem is but it pisses me off every time i think about it
I can’t lie I really didn’t enjoy the dlc, it felt so empty and rushed, some of the later areas literally have 1 quest dedicated to them and that’s it you have no reason to ever return to 80% of the areas they padded this dlc out with
@@timmyturner6448 did you get all the weapons and talisman?
You didn't enjoy going to 2 massive zones on the map that contain nothing but a bell to ring?? Skill issue
@@mstirlzFinger ruins aren't massive at all😂 you can literally cross them in less than 5 minutes....
@@bondrewd5935 together they make up like 15 percent of the map.
@@julianadams3710 And for you This Is "massive"?
What’s this? A friendly pest npc? This is new content: I wonder what his sto-
1x Hefty pot cookbook recipe
I killed the first one I found because I was on Torrent and didn't get the talk option. I was certainly too hasty but I really hated not getting the cookbook (however arbitrary). I'm of the mindset that if an NPC has an item that is at all important, they should drop it on death.
Thankfully I can just trash my whole character to get another slot and replay the entire game for a single crafting item. Or, of course, I could go through NG+ for the many, many new rewards and experiences offered by a second playthrough.
I miss Dark Souls 2...
Honestly, I couldn’t care less about the cookbooks, it drives me crazy they made it one recipe per cookbook. I’m tired of picking them up.
On the topic of npcs though, I haven’t finished yet but I have no idea what they mean by miquellas spell being broken, I guess I don’t know what that is or how I triggered it? and I have no idea why thollier hates my guts but it’s really funny to keep telling him I hear words in my sleep.
@@TheAzul_Indigo The spell is broken upon reaching the Shadow Keep (not sure if there's another trigger). It signals the freeing from all the NPCs under Miquella's spell and moves all their quests forward, but it isn't something the player does directly. Just trigger by progressing.
@@emotionaljonxvx It seems to be either distance from the starting area, or proximity to Scadu Altus- it triggered for me north of Bonney Village... Before I actually spoke to any of the NPCs.
I wonder if the step away from multiplayer had anything to do with the shutting down of the Demon's Soul's original servers in 2018, From Soft seems to have been stretched pretty thin on both the base game and the dlc and I cant help but think that they felt that multiplayer, a mechanic that might become completely inaccessible in the future, prioritized any of the mechanics that would have been functional in a decade or two. I think both the dlc and the base game of Elden Ring could've benefitted greatly from another 6 months at least in development time.
I think if they wanted to focus on multiplayer, they absolutely could. What I think is happening is simple; FromSoftware do not play their own games.
Not as in they don't play them at all, but in the sense that they only play them to make sure they do whatever they're supposed to and then they move on to the next project. It's the same sort of thing as musicians who don't listen to their own albums on repeat like their fans might. They hear all the pieces over and over while they're making it, so by the time it's done they've moved on.
I'm convinced FromSoft don't PVP in any capacity. If they did, I think they'd take a much closer look at how much effort they put into the system as a whole.
@@emotionaljonxvx I agree with this, even while invading I’ll sometimes think to myself “if just one member had to do a couple invasions a day it would be a completely different system”
I really really liked the DLC but i hated a lot of things in it: The final boss makes sense but i hoped we get a really distorted boss. I explored every direction where the path leaded me just to find nothing, not even a rare crafting material, most of the times it was just nothing but a cliff side with a gorgeous view. Some boss fights requires you to respec your build but you dont have infinite Tears. And i havent talked about the camera... its so annoying when you fight with ecample the divine beast and you cant see sh@t.
I have 100% dlc, got every item all coockboocks etc, also compleated 2 times.
Edit: i wished that we could have got some unique interactions like: killing malenia would unlock a secret dialoge. or something atleast
More than anything, I wanted to be surprised and I just wasn't. It's not the worst thing in the world but I was disappointed that nothing really caught me off-guard.
@@emotionaljonxvx yeah the elden ring dlc just feels like elden ring but with more content. The upside to it is that if you loved elden ring then you will equally love the dlc but then again if you hated elden ring then the dlc won't change your mind at all. It did meet most of my expectations except for replayable bosses and Armour color customization so I am very much happy with this dlc, and since my first souls game was elden ring my expectations was probably lower than a souls vet.
@@UnfunnyMan5908 I loved Elden Ring but I can't love the dlc
@@dice5709 yeah I probably should've clarified that most likely you would like it. Its just what I observed this dlc has the same flaws and pros as the base game, this is just my opinion and there also might be some stuff i don't know about yet since I haven't completed the dlc.
What bosses need you to respec and why?
I did also notice there seemed to be little to do between spots of interest. Base Elden Ring at least usually had crafting material spawns in between that could be scooped up. And I was somewhat disappointed in how few goodies there were in the overworld to find, ala how you could find a new spell in the base game by going to check out those ruins you spotted in the bush to the side of the road. Smithing stones were the most common find, and because I can just buy those in the roundtable hold, they felt a bit odd to keep encountering in such large quantities. As they aren't really much of a reward because of how easy access buying them is.
Dungeons I found to be fun and pretty challenging. Though there were a lot of dark areas and in the middle of summer it's very hard to see with the sun messing with my screen. I died in total around 175 times on my way to the final boss, with a few bosses giving me a real run for my money.
In terms of enemies, I as a sorcerer found that they were downright impossible to even so much as make flinch with my best, most powerful spells unleashed. Once one was provoked they would rush me down, ignore anything that would normally flinch an enemy to halt a rush down, and the only hope of survival was managing to bomb them before they got too much damage off on me. I don't think to the very end of the DLC I once managed to make an enemy even flinch, let alone poise break them. On the note of spells, I wish there were more, considering incantations got so many more and many bosses have spell attacks that could have easily been turned into player usable spells.
On the PvP side, there is one tweak they did. Gank squads got nerfed. They can no longer earn rune arcs from their antics. Killing a bloody finger no longer nets a rune arc. And hey, you did get one of your wishes listed met: you can find bell bearings hidden in strung up pots around the Shadow of the Erdtree map to be able to buy crafting materials for pvp consumable making.
Invading as a sorcerer, it definitely feels like many of the new melee weapons are overtuned in PvP due to the length and number of hits delivered in combos. And the new spells that on paper could help deal with that lack hyperarmour/too short range/are too slow, or don't currently have other niceties to make for effective slap backs. At times, I truly wish I could just learn some form of quick casting gravitational "Begone you fools!" spell that blasts melee range foes back to buy myself breathing room from the crazy combos.
Combined with your ability to poise buster your way through most enemies, it does feel like magic needs to put in the work and effort while melee can just bonk-stick things all day every day as long as they get within striking distance to pull crazy multihit combos and massive poise damage/sudden I-frames out of nowhere. Or pull BS jump attacks that for some reason cause a point-blank charged large spell to miss rather than punching a hole in the gut of the floored fool who jumped headfirst into it. It's always been very annoying how jump attacks can cause spells to badly miss for no real reason, rather than reacting on time with a spell being rewarded as a counter to slap the jump attack down back to earth. Instead of being forced to dodge, parry or otherwise avoid the attack.
I need to play through the DLC again with a caster just to get that end of the spectrum. I think I might have a much harder time getting past some of the enemies.
And as far as getting some wishlist items, the infinite mushrooms and string really feel more like a taunt. Why stop at just a few items? Is there any reason to not be able to buy anything?
Not that it really matters in the end. With the lack of any multiplayer improvements, it seems clear FromSoftware wants the game to be over. I imagine they have little interest in generating any content that would keep people playing for years because it has nothing to do with their business model, which is fair enough.
the mushrooms are essential to crafting all the new hefty pots spread out in the overworld, and there are a lot of crafting recipies for new throwable items with interesting effects. I found this pretty engaging idk.
@@_Debu I was very happy to find there was a recipe for a craftable FP restorative. Star shards ain't the only way now. Plus, the slow FP restoring amulet is nice for co-op.
@@emotionaljonxvx On the magic front: after giving it some thought, I figured out something of a problem. The DLC weapons and combat options seems to emphasize fast, quick, rush down attack builds. Sorcery got badly shafted in the DLC in terms of number of new spells, the usefulness of said spells, talismans, equipment, armour, etc etc. And what sorcery got was not quick, rush down barrage spells or something to cleverly sort attackers out with, like a spell to slap on a shield that reflects the next physical damage blow back or something. But slow, lumbering and unwieldy behemoths with lackluster damage, tracking, or the likes. Invasion wise, it feels like being a slug going against three Duracell bunnies that get an insane amount more action points than slow, slow, SLOW, sluggish magic. Magic feels like it's (mostly) almost paranoidly balanced to not be too much (beyond that one thorn spell that needs nerfs very badly), yet melee feels like it has no such considerations in play.
The base game magics already struggled with being slow Vs incantations. Never mind melee weapons. Now with rush down melee being everywhere, most folk being aware of how to easily dodge spells, and the memory slot system being clunky and restrictive as ever (always short a tool or two in invasions) - it feels even more oppressive. Almost like magic is just there to make melee players feel good about beating the wizard with tools that have purpose designed baffling holes in them that leave room for too much OP melee shenanigans. And what I mean by that is the spells are lacking in just the right ways to allow for a ton of melee nonsense, while being restricted in number to always leave an exploitable gap in the toolkit.
@@videocrowsnest5251 dude. There is a incantation in the DLC. I just got it last night. Its literally a big ball you shoot out and it blasts everyone back. Shoot it at someone or shoot it at your feet. Boom. Thats why you need to explore more. You'll find new stuff like that your talking about. The incantation youll want is called wrath from afar. Shooting a bubble thats soul purpose is to blast people back to give you some time to breath.
The Open World ruined ER in so many different ways and the DLC is just more ER.
Still a good game but it could have been way better without a Open World and Torrent.
I think one word summarizes how I felt about this DLC: disappointment. Two years waiting in absolute anticipation for something that felt extremely hollow and disconnected from the main game.
Just too much needlessly empty areas that exists solely to try and emulate the scale and awe of Elden Ring. In Elden Ring, even the emptiest areas like Consecrated Snowfield had more content then a few of these DLC areas. They also didn’t try to emulate the scale of legacy dungeons, only one big legacy dungeon. The rest feel like they’d be medium dungeons in base game Elden Ring.
skibidi tree
Shadow tree but yeah I do it too
Skadoodoo tree
So true
Scooby doo fragments
AEO Spam and long Combos is just super annoying true! also the bosses has high poise you just can't interrupt them you have to either trade with hyper armor weapons or use mimic tear.
my first run was miserable. even tho i explore the areas sometime i missed lot of obscure entrances towards the celurian coast or the dragon pit that leads to two places. then ofc the shadow keep tomb ride to lower scadu altus. scadutrees is def well hidden. and exploring these open world places can be rly exhausting.
my complain with final boss is the laser beam being spam into the screen is just too much! i recently solo messmer with UGS and it was a easier just like DS3. but my first time beating messmer i need mimic tear to do it since i have fast weapon and no hyper armor or poise to do trades. then i found outthat DLC uses lot of things from a mod called Convergence since the modder or dev of convergence has been saying that his mod was being used by from software on their DLC. and this was from one of jeenine's stream with live chat showing a viewer telling others and jeenine that his mod are being used on the DLC.
another issue is the npc questlines being obscure or complicated! my first playthrough i literally fucked up the questline cuz i dunno what to do. or know if is there consequences on not doing them. some npc that has bell bearing will move to unknown location after the great rune is shattered.
big bosses has issue with the camera. dancing lion is hard to hit sometime. he just kept moving around too much. and ofc pvp is a shit show now with this swift slash thing or the new blind spot the blind spot WA from DS3 now has Iframe.
Exploration has never been something I've been particularly good at and I'm at peace with how unobservant I can be. They really did go out of their way to make sure you'd know you were missing something while also trying very hard to make sure you wouldn't remember where you didn't check. Touche, Miyazaki.
It's interesting to think that FromSoft might have used a mod in any capacity for the DLC. I can't imagine them being that receptive toward community ideas but I've always viewed them as deeply insular.
The NPC questlines I thought were interesting but definitely required a lot of backtracking and double-checking. I was beyond pissed when I had successfully pursued one questline and then failed it because I didn't repeat the same action 4 times. Just felt like a gut-punch to realized that doing something two or three times without a change in result isn't enough.
The big boss camera issue has always bothered me, particularly because of how hard it is to get close enough to a massive target to be within striking distance. The gargoyles from the base game are really representative of my frustration. They're huge, fast, and thin and I can never catch them.
And so far PVP has been quite silly. In the video, that encounter was the first time I had seen the bleed thorn spell and was blown away by how obnoxious it is in that sort of fight. A lot of the weapon combos from the new gear also seems incredibly annoying / overpowered, like the true combo R1-R1 of the Fire Knight Greatsword. I'm sure patches will smooth things out but it's a lot of new things to look out for.
The thing is you probably aren't playing well. Relying on mimic is a prime example of that. You can beat messmer with a slow weapon but not a fast one? That doesn't make any sense unless you are relying on hyper armor trades which is undisputably the wrong way to play
@@23Butanedione why you people kept having this wrong way to play or correct way to play. Like who tf cares? You clearly were not the veteran like I am. Where i came from killing a boss with any means necessary and every arsenal you have is still a win. Mimic tear is an ingame feature. UGS is still a weapon class. These bosses are combo chaining non stop. I frankly don't have time to watch bosses doing endless combos i rather use UGS just trades attacks and power through. Than having to learn unfun boss fight.
@@LyllianaTV "the veteran" using mimic lol. You had a bad time playing and now you're saying it's the right way to play.
@@LyllianaTV your logic: "slow weapons are good for fight but boss is too fast for fast weapons"
I really hope they will see value in the multyplayer aspect of these games again it could have been so much fun the combat and art style are top tiere it only gets ruined by bad scaling and bad game design sadly enough
I think they don't play the multiplayer themselves so it can't be anything other than an afterthought. If someone at FromSoftware was an avid PVPer, I can't imagine them not having a lot of internal discourse about how these things get handled.
@@emotionaljonxvx yea that would make alot of sense from a pve prespective place a grave next to boss door is amazing but for a invaders its the worst😅
@@emotionaljonxvx japan gaming studios think competition is a bad thing. 0 social elements, 0 multiplayer elements, 0 open world elements... the game is single theme park outdated ye
I think performance is an a reason why they don't have invasions like the other games. The open world would probably cause some crazy problems with that many connections interacting in the world. I don't even know how their engine's net code works, or how their engine works in general, but they probably can't reliably program such multiplayer encounters using their development tools.
@@joevaghn457 you are correct, nobody understands this. Everybody thinks they just bungled multilayer on purpose, they were restricted by the old Gen consoles. Blame the open world
I've been getting absolutely hated because i don't think it's an instant 10 lol. I like it don't get me wrong but it's just so empty in most areas, like nothing at all. Thanks for the smithing stone and flowers, man. Not enough of the new weapon types which blows because some are pretty damn fun to use. Like in comparison to the base game it's a solid 8-8.5. The story is really what made it lackluster to me. Granted story in a Souls game isn't focused on like in traditional games but what they went with was just so meh when they had so many other cool things to choose from. Guess they gotta save something for Elden Ring 2. Good DLC just not the nearly flawless one we were hearing early reviews calling it, and the highest rated DLC ever.
Ultimately, the enemies with seemingly infinite stance and long strings of combos that they would spam endlessly didn't strike me as a good design choice. Playing nearly the same build as you displayed I did not find that "big sword bonk" reliably broke their poise except on a few specific types. (and those had hyper armor) However, that could be because I was playing on NG+.
What killed my enjoyment was the these same traits of excessive stance and extremely long combo strings in bosses. The fights ultimately felt like I had to "Wait my turn" to play. Exactly like fighting a gank squad of mulitple wizards. On top of that, all of the bosses are COMPLETELY trivialized with the correct build. And I do mean completely and the same one works for all of them. I'm not entirely sure that it is possible to lose to one if you have set up this build. There were maybe 1 or 2 attacks which I still had to dodge. Took the challenge completely out of what should have been extremely difficult bosses which could have forced me to "git gud". There are two fights which I really really like, but the bosses are not required to complete the DLC and are both hidden well out of the way.
I had fun with the DLC but thats the PvE. So far as the PvP goes, nothing has changed. It is still super satisfying to kill off the gank squad or endlessly kill the summoner host's password friends, but I didn't need the DLC for that.
I'm kinda left wanting more, this dlc was great but imo call me crazy, it wasn't big enough, it took me about 2 days to beat it and now I'm back and unlock the entire map at lvl 150 and I just want more, this doesn't feel like 3 dlcs in 1 it just feels like a first dlc
@@justdylan2957 I think that ER DLC should have replaced empty spaces and filled content with something new and interesting, not added even more filler and empty air.
What stuck in my head is how I didn't feel like I had done anything more impactful than any other FromSoft DLC despite having played for much longer. It's pretty much exactly how I felt playing through Elden Ring. Much longer game, same amount of things I cared about.
That said, while I didn't want it to be longer, I certainly wish I had something more to do. Really wanted some PVP and other multiplayer improvements but sadly none of those seem to have made the cut.
2 days bro?
2 days ? Bro you have no life
The time it took for it to come out made it seem like it would be bigger that’s why
The enemy spacing is a plus 💯 in my book it makes the world more immersive.. I like the respite every once in a while and don’t want the game turned into an all gas no brakes ADHD fest.
Yeah I love how the 2 largest and coolest areas on the map (finger ruins) contain a bell to ring. Peak gaming
I liked a lot of the bosses once i actually got good scad and locked in, but i felt kinda empty after the initial high of winning tbh. The runes to spend dont really matter, its really just up to the new toys they give you. And i had very minimal int/faith investment, so it was really just up to the weapons. And idk, wasnt really blown away. I like that the midra sword has a grab kinda, they look cool, but i never found anything more alluring than like, great katana or the dryleaf arts. Also did anyone feel like the bosses had too much stance? Thats like one of my favorite additions in elden ring, and it literally took me stacking the stance tear and cragblade on a giant sword to start getting them consistently. I mean idk the numbers on the great katana but thats gotta be at least greatsword/cgs levels, right? I get more stance makes them harder and they wouldnt want the same tired strats we use on base game bosses to work as well, but its like a cornerstone elden ring mechanic imo, i dont wanna have to use like the top 10% of stance breaking weapons just to experience it
@MarzaButTube everything had too much stance those cirque dancers especially
Damn, I was just hoping for covenants, Invasion Boss Fights, unrestricted invasion areas. In the end, we got nothing. At least the PvE was good, some of the boss fights are breathtaking.
Remember when we saw out of bounds buildings and areas in souls titles and thought damn, what if we could go there.
What we didn‘t want, was said areas being empty with enemies we‘ve already fought scattered across.
There is no difference to an out-of-bounds mod with basegame enemies copy pasted.
Dlc felt like unfinished and rushed..really odd for souls game it doesn't feel like fromsoftware game at all it's like made by mod community
It’s a better DLC than anything they ever released
In the first hour or two, in that plain with the graves, I felt like Shadow of The Erdtree was exactly what was missing from the original. I'd say I loved it up until the point where most of the NPC questlines cut off, and then Miquella's charm came undone and I realized just how much everything I just did was like everything else in the game.
hoping for major pvp changes before they stop updating the game
I liked the dlc every boss was new and different had there own twists and turns the world was big and explorable we got more lore to the base game and the one thing that i didn't like was the fact they didn't give bayle a remembrance.
Elden eing is just more about grind, collecting recipes and looking for super hidden items in its world. Still they like to maintaim the game mechanics as clunky as possible to add more difficulty in the game, never fixed the camera going bananas when fughting fast giant enemies especially when cornered.
I was very disappointed by the rampant overuse of base game enemies to populate the world. Previous FromSoft DLCs featured all new bosses and enemies with almost nothing reused, and that was a huge part of their appeal to me. Some might say it was necessary due to the size of Elden Ring's world, but I would argue that any DLC priced within the range of a new AAA game should be expected to deliver a completely fresh experience, not leftovers.
I had a good time playing for the most part, but this entire DLC is plagued with untapped potential and what seems to be either cut or short sighted content
It's a shame really :'(
One thing i disliked about the dlc was how interwoven it was. I went in wanting to explore every inch of the dlc and I did accomplish that, but it was an exhausting task. It always felt like there was 5 different paths for me to take, every one of which lead to 5 more paths. The constant back tracking and needing to remember every branching path was just annoying. In the base game it felt more linear, which felt more manageable, despite how of course the base game is much larger with more stuff to find. Its weird how that worked out, the base game was bigger but at the same time much easier to thoroughly explore. One area in particular I hated was the specimen storehouse. My need to explore made me want to check every inch of that area, and god was it a pain to do.
Also really hated the final boss. I beat every boss solo in 15 tries or less, and absolutely loved the first phase of the final boss, it felt great. That love turned to hate at the second phase though, and after 75 tries I just gave up and used mimic tear, and beat it in 3 more tries. It really felt to me like the culmination of terrible boss design for fromsoft. Just extremely unintuitive to learn, attacks that feel nearly impossible to dodge, and attacks that literally fill my screen with light like a flashbang making it impossible to see the next one coming.
The dungeon design in this DLC is extremely annoying when it comes to branching paths. I found myself doubled/tripling back constantly to try and make sure I didn't miss anything but of course I still missed plenty. It's not the sort of thing that I think can't work but it just takes so long to do that it wears me down.
And the explosions in boss fights are pretty funny because yeah, they do just blind you and obscure the next attack. Not exactly impossible to work through but a bit of a gimmick to say the least.
I agree with everything holy shit. My stuborness made me finish the final Boss completly solo which sucked. Learning and winning this was no fun at all. And after that I tried it again on NG+ and the Boss actually is unfair and super janky. Those lightcones literally hit at random spots in addition to the lightcones that come in pattern when it does its attacks. Why is it that Bosses have specatular movesets while we the Tarnished still move like a rock? Also the utmost worst thing was the many darker areas of the dlc where even using your pocket lamp was not enough. Gosh that was so hard on the eyes. I also think that only Messmer was fun learning and fighting but he was still hella annoying because apparently everyone needs to have huge wind up attacks. I can learn them but its no fun, especially when you combo multiple of those.
Oh and why were there so many Gaols? They looked and played extremly uninteresting. Oh and why catacombs again? No one likes catacombs ffs. Where are my cool underground cities?
the game is not about discovery, but a theme park
I felt like the graces hit harder during this DLC as the run back due to how big this dlc is.
Some graces were pretty far from a main objective and I appreciated the risk when that happened. Then again, some graces are within like 100 feet of each other. The placement on the whole was fine but I never really felt the sense of relief I got from bonfires in Dark Souls 1 or 2.
i feel like some things are missing
lore related
Yes definitely. It also feels a bit too removed from the base game lore
The dlc has many high points but as a whole is mixed and a little disappointing
I haven't played through all of the dlc yet since i'm trying to not miss anything but there is however one thing i have heard that should bring you joy as well.
We can now buy infinite strings with a bell bearing. And they also added in the absolutely most perfectly balanced aow into the game that i've ever seen (real). Oh, and also the Pata which makes weapons like the Katar and clinging bone obsolete...yeah, no wonder they nerfed those fist weapons...
I do think it's really funny that they added bell bearings for a few consumables (string, mushrooms, etc) but not for everything. And really, without any multiplayer improvements the new weapons, armor, ashes, and spells all only count for so much.
I was personally pretty sad that we didn't get another arena map. Not exactly surprised but it would have at least been something.
Imagine if fromsoft were smart and gave us a bell that sells infinite larval tears for us to try different builds with the new weapons they added... all you can do is imagine.
@@emotionaljonxvx Who knows, maybe they will add some stuff in the future.
And hopefully fix some of the truly insane bs...swift slash being the way it is right now almost seems like a joke and makes me think that Fromsoft has two completely seperate divisions for pve and pvp that never communicate with eachother. The fireknight sword having a R1-R1 true combo also almost has to be a bug considering the fact that it shares it's R1 chain with the godslayer's...
@@angel17891 They could also just let us farm it from either the *BALLS* in Nokron if they felt the need to let us suffer somehow...
Would have been similar to farming infusion stones and covenant items in ds3 then
@@rigel9228 That R1-R1 true combo broke me when I realized what was happening. My brother was using it while dueling me and neither of us had any idea. He hit me once and then I couldn't roll out. I thought I had maybe delayed the input or something.
But again, he hit me and hit again. My heart sank. I told him to do it one more time and confirmed the terrible truth.
He's using it to punish gankers at the moment but I'm ready for a patch any day now.
I enjoyed the DLC overall. The remembrance bosses were the highlight of the experience. I enjoyed the lore revelations. I liked what they did with the word design as far as it being slightly more compacted even though, yes I think there was still a whole lot of nothing in that pretty, open world. I am a completionist so it got really annoying to scour the entire open area and find nothing in all the corners. “Praise the research” as they say 😂. Disappointed but not surprised at the lack of investment in pvp. I was enjoying more Elden Ring, but the problem is that the two and a half year itch was sated for maybe four days of gameplay. “Now what?” Was definitely what I was thinking after the end. Elden Ring doesn’t have the best replay value. At least I know that next time I play through the dlc I won’t have to waste so much time looking for hidden loot in all the corners of the map that was never there!
i've been helping people with the final boss, usually with one other person, and manage to beat the boss maybe 1 out of every 20 tries. The boss can switch aggro mid-combo extremely fast and unpredictably, significantly reducing the advantage of summons... and to rub it in the first attack can kill you through the fog.
I was interested to see what you'd have to say. It felt like a long week, especially after FromSoft getting their first "Mixed" on Steam. As you say, just more of the same bigness and emptiness. It's a little more compact some areas (I like Belurat), but Shadow Keep felt like a stage meant for an MMO. Gigantic open hallways, unrealistically wide ramparts, etc., seemed more fitting for WoW than the studio that gave us Dark Souls.
I'd love to see your reactions to the lore and reveal of the final boss. Overall I'd say SOTE put a 7/10 game into 8/10 category. And now the horizon is empty, please Miyazaki give us something compact and meaningful again.
POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING
I'll make a video about the final boss probably at some point but for now I'd say I liked it from a challenge perspective. It's probably too much in a lot of ways but I think fighting a god should just be stupid and make you feel a little powerless by comparison. The fact that it's a reused boss is also the most Elden Ring design choice I could imagine. They did it in a cool way but I still find it funny.
And I am not looking forward to the maybe 5+ years until a replacement title, especially because I'm just gonna spend the whole time thinking "Will it do the very basic things I want?" and inevitably be disappointed.
I 100% disagree on the dungeons, shadow keep was amazing and byfar the best one in the game imo. All of the other dungeons are mid at best.
Great video :D keep it up king
The Shadow Keep was my favorite as well but I think the fact that I did it in multiple trips, section by section, sort of disjointed the whole thing for me. I love it aesthetically but I didn't quite get the cohesive flow I've come to expect from a FromSoft dungeon.
I think it really comes down to the nature of not being stuck and how it can impact what a dungeon asks of the player.
I think that the Shadow Keep was a bit disappointing personally, though I am glad that you loved it!
I was hoping for something a little more interconnected, and I feel like for as large as the Keep is we really have 3 seperate sections, the Church district, the main entrance, and the storehouse. From an invasion perspective, the storehouse is really complex and will take time to learn how to navigate, but from first glance I'm not sure that it has multiple routes to move through the level. When we look at Stormveil, which personally I think is still the best in the game, we can see how many routes one can use to get from point A to B. I feel like many of the dungeons were somewhat linear with branching paths that lead back to the main path, rather than having multiple paths that lead to our goal. Love the idea and theme of the storehouse though! Cheers 🍻
Shadowkeep was meh. Did not like the aesthetics. Belurat was pretty good. I only wish we had more of that and went a bit higher in the sky were we could maybe see a bit of space.
No covenants, no increase on the player limit for multiplayer, no meaningful reward for PVP are my main complaints for multiplayer. The world was just stretched for the sake of being openworld, too many empty spaces, and some new areas has no new unique enemies or bosses. The item placements doesn't make sense too, like 10x bolts? 10x bolts! 10x bolts for Marika's sake!
Looks like I’m sticking to Demon’s Souls pvp
What a shame
The dlc was fun and had really pretty views, atmosphere, some cool boss designs, but it’s been about a month since it came out and I gotta say it’s pretty underwhelming.
The coolest part of the dlc is the school house area but beyond that everywhere else felt kinda empty. Like there’s something to do in every area but like 1 thing. Also some of the bosses seemed kinda mid like the golden hippo, the skeleton dude, the sunflower , general gay ass, the fact that a lot of the bosses didn’t get cutscenes was pretty lame too.
I forgot but dragons peak was a pretty sick area, I like how you fight dragons of all forms leading up to Bayle who was probably my favorite boss.
Radahn was a cool boss, some of his attacks seemed impossible to dodge I honestly couldn’t beat him so I summoned someone to help me so I couldn’t really feel satisfied beating him, Ik it’s problem tho so ig it’s just a skill issue. That ending was so underwhelming tho, I thought radahn being the last boss was actually cool since this is just the first game of elden ring and they might have different plans to bring godwyn or marika as the final boss but that last little cutscene explaining everything was sooo underwhelming. We didn’t even get a cutscene of our character it was just a flashback lmaoo we could’ve at least got a cutscene with the portal thing or literally just out tarnish sitting at a grace with some dialogue in the background but naw
I really think we waited 2 years for elden ring 2 its the base game in smaller more condensed scale that we got to bring our chatecters from er 1 it does feel way more souls like to me as far as areas connecting in different spots im very happy with the dlc but yea i do agree with ur take on elden ring vs souls games i dont think we will get that souls multiplayer feel back
For someone who had underwhelming impression of the DLC the narrative sure seems negative on the whole. I liked it a lot, I like playing alone and I like exploring and I’m sorry it wasn’t up to your expectations. ✌🏼
I appreciate the spoiler free rundown from a PvP perspective, I’m taking my time playing blind and have not left the starting zone lol. Great vid, based takes. Im resigned to ER being more or less unchanged PvP wise… it’s disappointing but I have no doubt something will fill the souls multiplayer void in the coming few years, even if it isn’t FromSoft doing it. Really the only saving grace of the ER PvP is the crazy build variety that was opened up with the DLC, that’ll keep me going for 6 months or so at least. After that I’m dreading what the state of the game will be, and will likely move on more quickly than I would have otherwise liked. ER was an experiment of sorts, mostly successful but definitely not fully cooked. I still have hope for From to learn and adapt though. The only thing I’m holding out for now is to see if From will introduce any significant improvements through the final phase patches.
As a veteran souls PvPer, I can say that I agree with you on just about everything. I genuinely don't care much for the PvE. Never have. I appreciate it for what it is, but I have always looked at it as nothing more than an inconvenience keeping me from a certain item or what not for PvP.
The item economy is absolutely busted and promotes the use of cheats. People aren't (Unless they're mental) going to farm MULTIPLE playthroughs for materials to craft NEEDED consumables for invasions.
They're just going to spawn in ×99 ea and rightfully so. To remedy this, I feel their should be a vendor that sells every consumable, but they can only be used in PvP and bought with a separate currency earned through multi-player.
I also wish they would bring back covenants and make them have weight and impact to gameplay.
As for the bosses. They're all the same. Infinite poise, massive AOEs, and enough hp to make your head spin. You can go in with whatever build you want, but you'll leave as a bleed build 9/10 times because that's what feels fair to you in the absolute bs that is PvE.
It basically forces you to figure out a cheese build and essentially become the Souls equivalent of Skyrim's stealth archer.
The fun, for me, is absolutely wrecking sh*tters and their ganks.
Let FromSoft see this!
I really wanted to see footage of the invaded winning.
I really enjoyed exploring every nook and cranny and finding a smithing stone (3) for my trouble :). If they want you to find the scattertree fragments then at least reward exploration.
Some weapons are just straight upgrades to base game weapons, like messmer soldier's spear being a better lance, or pata being a better katar, I think this is bad game design cause it just makes whole weapons irrelevant since there's no reason to not use the better one, there was already stuff like this in base game like nagakiba so I guess this is just an elden ring problem.
The bosses are all good and fun (besides that commander riding the satan hippo), but they are HUGE difficulty spikes compared to their areas which for the most part feel like encounters weren't well thought out and they just placed enemies wherever ending up quite easy.
My favorite part was surprisingly the story and side quests, I really enjoyed all of that.
I honestly think this dlc would have been better if the open world was smaller, other that that I enjoyed the dlc. While still too open, areas were more interconnected, and I really liked that aspect, it reminds me of ds1 in a way, the bosses were a big spike in difficulty, but not impossible, and all the new weapons and armour is awesome 😊
This is probably my least liked dlc of all the games. Bosses are annoying, world is empty, and the miquella lore is dumb. Artorias brought back Demons souls esque level design and answered some important questions. Crowns added actually enjoyable bosses and level design within self contained stories. Old hunters is 10/10 across the board (besides multiplayer). DS3 is more DS3 but better and continues the story of the first game. After playing STALKER for the first time, I've come to greatly appreciate the tiny open world spaces the series has. Despite the maps of the first game only being half the size of limgrave, i always found something fun to do. As for the bosses, i think they'd be far better in a different series. Fighting these bosses in something like Nioh or Sekiro would be really fun because your character can keep up with everything thrown at you. Where as in ER you just roll spam for 30 seconds, get a couple hits in then repeat. And no 6 player multiplayer or invasion zones kills the pvp for me as duels get boring quickly. Bloodborne 2 with DS3 online mechanics pls fromsoft
this video is real asfk
This dlc is amazing indeed but not the 10/10 that most people think it is. Surely it has a lot of content but considering that the dlc is 40 bucks of course it would have that much content.
I'd say it's 10/10 from the position of being a video game expansion. Granted, pretty much every other game is terrible. But as far as FromSoft DLCs go, it's been good / not great. The price didn't bother me, though I definitely felt the budget could have been better spent focusing less on open world traversal and more on dungeons & multiplayer.
@@emotionaljonxvx The price didn't bother me either(even thou I'm from Argentina) Fromsoft made a lot of amazing dlcs at the price of 17 bucks so I trusted them that it would be huge.
Yeah you are right, most games rn are horrible with a lot of shit. So probably that changed people's perception
i respectfully disagree. for me it is way better than the base game and not a dissapointed like the DS3 dlc.
easily my favorite souls contents.
i loved the design of the shadow lands visually and in term of level design.
the story wasnt groundbraking but still enjoyable. best npcs in a long time. they all had goals and motivation and barely none die for stupid reasons.
the difficulty was exactly what i hoped for. could even have been harder to my tastes.
the new weapon classes are so fun. i cant play anything else than light greatsword now.
we finally got good looking armors.
i could go on and on but even woth all the flaws, it was easily a 9/10 for me
Scam tree
Man, gamers and the modern games industry really deserve each other.
I really enjoyed the DLC. I was excited for a weapon class and when I got it the expansion had me hooked. I enjoy Elden Ring and I cheat as well. I PvP in ER a lot and I'm bad so I cheat in all the items and make a master save. One of these I used to run the DLC. I didn't cheat in DLC items, and kept my bags with only DLC weapons. It just felt like Day 1 of Elden Rings release, and the final boss is honestly who I wanted to be the final boss of ER. It's basically a whole extra game just tacked onto the base game. It's almost intimidating to recommend to new players. I wanted at least covenants, but Elden Ring was their flag on the mountain as a studio. It only makes sense that they would neuter the PvP. I guarantee you there's a stat in their office about new player retention compared to PvP quality of life. They knew it was going to be big so they went to the Bloodborne method but worse. Who knows what they'll do, but if they make another game in 4 years it should be amazing. After all, we got DS3 following Bloodborne, which despite its straightsword meta was an amazing game for PvP. I've enjoyed the PvP around level 90 and will probably stick around there or go higher than meta, but lower levels are great so at least ER taught me something about invading personally
Blood bout r is still the goat for me
Blade of fuquella
"Budgeting costs?" I spent $40! What do you mean "helping them out"?
I didn't finish the dlc yet.
The map is so intertwined that sometimes it makes no sense.
I was early game and managed to get into south east just to find bosses over bosses and i found out the map had to be find through the centre of the map and go down into sewer just to get into a new labyrinth with a lot of empty spaces
One of these (imo) useless parts is SPOILERRRRR
The madness swamp, why? I cant use my horse, I kill the main boss and i STILL CAN'T use my horse and need to do a stealth (bad) game to explore it back?
Come on From, change the environment after you kill the boss.
Weapons? Why am I finding mostly dex weapons?
I dont mean to find only str weapons but man what the hell, it seems like I found a str weapon early game and mostly done.
Bosses so far are good, I'm doing everything solo but I cheesed an open world dragon though, some things are just a patience encounters, 46k hp for a random dragon in open world is ridiculous.
So far I'm having fun, it gets overwhelming about the amount of random paths that get me to another area that might also be completely empty doesn't make me really happy though
The map layout wasn't amazing and the abyss zone is straight up terrible. I don't really get what they were going for with it beyond trying to be creepy but for it to be as empty as it is definitely felt like a lack of effort.
I really liked the madness swamp, the whole place filled me with existential dread. My favorite missions in games are also stealth missions. I ran through with shattershard arrows and assassins approach!
@@TheAzul_Indigo I wish I had that enthusiasm for stealth! I hated it so much but I'm very impatient when it comes to adjusting my action gameplay.
I really like stealth in a game like Thief where it's basically the whole point but I didn't care for it in the abyss. Maybe because there are so few mechanics connected with it other than crouching in plants but hey, it's all subjective.
@@emotionaljonxvx I actually use gambit to run through most of the pve on my invader builds but I went into the DLC with my faith character and shadow bait was surprisingly effective at getting past the enemies at ensis and shadow keep. I just wish it also worked for pulling mobs in invasions. 😔
Also fun fact, I learned if you cast assassins approach while riding torrent it muffles both the player and the mounts footsteps completely.
Having the same enemy as the lands between for me is a good thing it makes you feel that the Shadowlands are part of the same story and i think we need a dose of familiarity.
I was summoning and being summoned a lot pretty much up until the Hippo where it became impossible to summon people because people were being summoned so fast, and then kinda hit a wall, I don’t think I beat the hippo till Sunday night and I had to use both the NPCs and a mimic and black flame tornado and I still just barely edged out a win, the storehouse was cool, but Messmer was an absolute wall. I think I was at scad tree level 10 at that time. Then I decided to just look up the locations of scad fragments in locations id already found. That was up until about yesterday, then with the patch I went back to him, used fingerprint shield and a spear and just poked him to death. I don’t know if it was just going from 10 to 14 blessing lvl or the patch or both but the damage and resistance values feel a lot more appropriate now. My playstyle is probably the peak of 'you didn’t beat the game' because I like to summon a lot and use heavy armor while two handing the Zweihänder while buffing with damage negation to just trade a lot and not have to learn patterns or pay a lot of attention which was a lot harder before that. I kinda feel a little guilty for not really engaging the bosses but also a win is a win right?
The majority of fans use the exact same method. Shield, summons and poke. No cheese in it. Just boring af
Great video with a few solid points. I will say that i am confused you complain about an issue with condensing the map, that it felt too big *( 2:29 ), and almost in the same breath say that the dungeons felt small and unmemorable *( 4:45 ). I would like you to define your conditions for condensing the world as the dungeon ARE somewhat forgettable BECAUSE they are condensed version of the base game. Balerut to me felt like a combination of the capital (pre-ash) and stormviel, that in itself is a bit of an oversimplification but it also fits the idea of a condensed world.
Very good video, im loving the different opinions on the DLC and hope everyone is getting some type of enjoyment from this DLC!
*Edit: time stamp for clarity
Even contradict one of your earlier points here 13:05 . I'm not trying to be rude but some clarity on what you think is dense enough maybe?
So I didn't mean that the dungeons were small, only that they were forgettable because they didn't leave a lasting impression on me due to how unimposing they were. When I'm talking about density, I just mean the overworld. I don't want mounted travel at all in the game because I don't like the large stretches of mostly empty space between dungeons.
I think SotE did a good job of making the overworld more dense than the base game but it still has tons of empty space. The dungeons aren't really relevant to that aspect of the design, though they have their own issues.
@@emotionaljonxvx thank you for the clarification, I was a little confused. The over world is pretty spread out, I think it suffers mostly because some areas feel empty. On that point I do agree. And like you said, that is a symptom of Elden Ring as a game. It is big and the horse isn't even a request but a requirement for the over world. To this extent I get what you mean completely. All the resources are just farmable ingredients. And I'm not farming all that lol 😂
Nothing will top the bloodborne dlc
SOTE easily did
I hard disagree on many of your points, but god damn are you right that they dropped the ball on multiplayer in both base game *and* the DLC. The whole summoning mechanic was cute and fun in a world as tightly knit as Dark Souls, but with Elden Ring it fucking sucks roundrocks. At the end of it all, though, I hope this DLC marks the close of the FromSoftware souls-likes for a while because there really isn't much more you can innovate at this point. Maybe a reimagining of King's Field or Shadow Tower. I don't know, just anything that isn't another "Dark Souls, but different."
The DLC took 2 years to release, but feels like they put in 6 months of work. To be honest, there's too much empty space and lack of lore to really justify how long we waited and to be honest with you, I feel like the price point was a little high for what we got as well
I was expecting more personally.
Granted the lore drops. We got were great. There were some great aspects of it. But they definitely feel like was a rushed project and that a lot of things maybe got scrapped and rewritten. And pushed out in a rushed manner which left the d. L c feeling rather empty
That map was an abomination.
You're overreacting
Dont know if anyone else feels the same, but the narrative is unnecessarily obscure (in the base game but especially the dlc). Feel like I play just to play and dont understand why im playing though. Maybe its because I skip reading descriptions and stuff but i always understood DS storytelling much better and the consequences of my character's actions.
For me Elden Ring was more or less an improvement on Breath of the Wild's formula with Dark Souls elements to it. The world can feel empty but I feel like the two recent open world Zelda games feel significantly more empty by comparison. If I were to compare Elden Ring to previous souls games I do think it's the weakest of them aside from maybe Demon's Souls which I don't really like, Heck I'd make a good argument Dark Souls 2 is a better game that I prefer going back to more.
This DLC on the other hand is actually something I think it needed as each side area outside of the central plains areas were treated more like Dark Souls levels than just open areas, props to the Abyss and Rauh Ruins. That said most of them aren't as intricate or as interesting as the better curated levels from the previous souls games.
I did like the Scadutree and revered spirit ashes system for my first playthrough, but since you can basically visit 90% of the map without taking on any bosses it'll probably lose it's appeal on subsequent playthroughs. In a sense this Sekiro like leveling system isn't as effective as it was in that game because bosses don't gate much progression through the map which made it more effective in Sekiro since you could only upgrade so much before dealing with it's bosses. And in most cases with Sekiro you had to beat mini bosses in order to obtain those upgrades as well. So in that game you literally had to "git gud" in order to progress through it. This system is more or less just an inconvenience when starting the DLC and you can get to about level 10 with it in 30 minutes to an hour if you know where the items are.
Bosses are definitely a mixed bag for me. I thought a lot of the optional ones like the Scadutree Avatar and Metyr were pretty neat but not that challenging. The final boss is over the top, but much like Malenia his move set can be learned and he'll become more manageable on subsequent playthroughs. Heck Isshin the Sword Saint which I would consider the hardest boss From Software have made to date is a boss I can beat in a couple tries nowadays because I've fought him so much and know his move set by heart. While the final boss of this looks pretty BS he's at least fair if you're willing to be patient and learn his move set.
Other bosses I felt like just getting them over with by cheesing them or I got really frustrated with them. Commander Gaius in particular really frustrated me, but at least the cache of Scadutree fragments behind him were worth getting, honestly if there was anything that truly felt Sekiro's approach to progression in this DLC it was that boss because he was gatekeeping those.
All in all I've been enjoying my time with this DLC, but much like the other DLCs this is just an extension of the base game and not a completely new game. It's just more Elden Ring which I like but I honestly would have liked Sekiro to get some DLC like this or a spiritual successor with a similar emphasis on a parry system like that in the future.
as much as i don't like the bosses in this game in general, the dlc is still very good.
I enjoyed the DLC and I don't really mean to imply otherwise. I'm really coming at it from a point of it being a one and done experience for me that didn't add anything I was hoping for. FromSoft did a great job recapturing the Elden Ring experience but didn't step outside that box at all or really improve the formula.
It's not that it's bad, it just wasn't all I'd hoped for.
@@emotionaljonxvx i agree 100%
@@emotionaljonxvxWhat were you hoping for?
@@camdenwyeth316 Multiplayer improvements (6 player limit, 4v2 and 3v3 PVP), some level of covenant system, being able to respec infinitely, having every single material purchasable in infinite quantities, a boss fight where a player can be the boss or at least assist the boss, stuff like that.
I think 30 hrs at your skill level is legit it's going to upset pvp meta in a good way I think. As always great video
I think that's the most disappointing thing for me. No matter how much the PVP meta changes, I've never participated because I'm just not a duelist. And with invasions as one-note as they are, it's hard to appreciate any of it.
I needed my 4v2 and 3v3 and without it, I'm at a loss.
@emotionaljonxvx we were just talking about that while running 3v3s in colleseum. Buddy invasions via covenant or similar mechanics would make things more interesting but I'm just getting the actual taste of the amount of viable or actually broken shit they just heaved into pvp. It is a lot. Rolling sparks is nothing the madness torch edible golden vow combining multiple talisman into one weapons that have zero start up or punish animations. It's frenetic and much faster paced with more nukes than ever. It's gonna get weird 😕
@emotionaljonxvx in the next few weeks as people get drops or complete the dlc and the new weapons and weapon types spread. Invasions Will be crazier than ever bows are fully cracked staffs that cast incants swords that cast sorcery they really just cut ttd in half so we're talking 15sec engagements
Im gunna be honest. The only mainline bosses I actually enjoyed were messmer, Rellana, and Midra, the rest were just pure annoyance. The 2 divine lions made me wanna end it all and dont even get me started on consort of screen clutter
Radahn >>>> any boss ever
10:53 My friends and I have finally beat the DLC, and I usually use summons for bosses because it’s easier and more fun for me. My friends have that “it’s not a win unless you beat it yourself” mentality, and they complained a lot more about bosses than I did. I always use summons and spirit ashes because it feels cooler to me to have assistance and it’s thematic for some quests. It’s fun for me, and it’s sort of sad for me to see my buddies mald over some bosses just because they refuse to use summons. I didn’t even use mimic tear (until the final boss), I just used the Yoda sword guy for the DLC and the Omenkiller is what I used for the base game. I hated when I’d beat a boss and the first thing my friends said instead of “Great job” or just acknowledging my victory was “Did you use a summon?” as if my victory is belittled due to this fact. Of course I know that these things make the game easier, I’m not foolish, but come ON man cut me some slack 😂. I’m not a god gamer and I’m playing this DLC to have fun.
Some of my issues with the DLC are boss aggressiveness and the constant backtracking for NPC quests. Thankfully, I picked up on the backtracking concept early on, and after every major boss encounter I would return to every NPC to exhaust their dialogue in case something new came up. I wish there was more indication that this should be done as people could easily miss things by not thinking to return to NPCs and just progressing and hoping to maybe see them as they go forward, which would’ve been much nicer. Another thing, and I’m glad that it wasn’t just me, was that Rot pest enemy that actually wasn’t an enemy that I sliced up driving by with Torrent, which ruined Moore’s quest. No indication of it being a friendly and I don’t believe any talk with more of the Forager Brood indicates they are ROT PESTS. Very frustrating, but I’ll get it right in my NG+ run. Final thing was the aggressiveness of bosses. Holy moly do I get a chance to breath. I trade my attack window to heal, and if I don’t start healing almost instantly, then I get punished. I’m wary that a boss will continue swinging at me, so I always wait a second before trying to heal, but that was just a mistake for this DLC with some encounters. It was just hard for me because I’d burn through 4 flasks when I just needed 1 after getting hit and hit and hit.
I don’t have a rating for this DLC as I haven’t technically experienced everything (missed 3 remembrance bosses through progression, 2 locked out by NPC quests and I just didn’t feel like finding the last one at that point), I was tired of exploration without much reward and my friend managed it beat the DLC TWICE before I could beat it once, so I just wanted to get done. I also just don’t like rating games that I play, I like it if I like it and I don’t if I don’t, can’t decide on a score or anything. I liked the bosses more than some of the DS3 DLC because they were cooler and I liked some less. I liked the SoTE dungeons (catacombs) better than the base game ER ones for their uniqueness rather than me actually liking them (some are very hard to traverse and don’t get me started in those jumping stick imps), but I appreciated their distinct differences from the base game ones. I enjoyed SoTE a lot and I enjoy your content a lot so that awesome sauce and I hope you have a good day!
I can't agree that Shadow of the Erdtree is "more of the same" when the stacked design of many of the overworld zones blurs the line between between overworld zone and legacy dungeon. Yes, the legacy dungeons themselves are underwhelming, but I think the DLC more than makes up for that with its overworld. The delight and surprise I felt exploring this overworld surpasses even the base game for me. There's a reason people say the DLC is five Limgraves stacked on top of each other.
with empty spaces, quantity over quality isn’t a good thing
@@nojii I don't agree with the criticism that the overworld is empty (except for a few zones - there's nothing to find in the abyssal woods for example). Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes, new talismans, new bell bearings that cut down on farming. The abundance of smithing stones is also really nice if you decide to upgrade and try out multiple DLC weapons, though if you just stick to your base game weapon I can see how they wouldn't be as exciting to find.
Also, personally, I consider the world its own reward; cresting a ridge and finding a beautiful vista is a reward to me. From Software really cooked with the art direction of the DLC. I'm also a Breath of the Wild enjoyer for the same reason.
And that's to say nothing of the navigational challenge the world presents - particularly with the way the world is stacked vertically in the DLC. I love that feeling of "how the heck to O get over there???" and then like 20 hours later you find a path to that zone from a completely different direction, and it all clicks on your head. It's like the experience of taking the elevator down from Undead Parish for the first time in DS1, and suddenly finding yourself in Firelink Shrine.
I never heard anyone say sotet is «five limgraves stacked on top of eachother»
And 30% of the world are the finger ruins, which contain F all. Poor design
The dungeon designs suffered from variety, I believe. That I found disappointing, too (dungeons = catacombs). Otherwise, great DLC and base game.
Haven't finished it all yet going through on ng+ 3 and its not been that difficult ive killed 2 bosses in like 3 hits and the boss with the fire snd magic sword didn't even manage to fully change phase. But so far dlc is kinda mid
Fromsoft should have stopped at Dark Souls 3 with the souls formula since at that point most were already feeling burn out after four games of the same style of gameplay back to back for over seven years. If the next Miyazaki directed game released is another variant of Souls, especially if it's like Elden Ring again then my belief that Fromsoftware has become creatively bankrupt will have solidified itself.
They're not creatively bankrupt in the slightest. What's this hyperbolic nonsense.
And if there are fans of the formula, then they'll servicing the fans as well as they can. It's natural.
@@joevaghn457 Fromsoftware has been using the same themes for every Souls game they've made, the world is in disrepair and needs to be fixed because the King, or Lord, or Church, or God has committed some grievous sin and there's no real solution because everything is a cycle, it gets old after awhile. Some of the newer ideas in Elden Ring barely feel like much of step up in both lore and gameplay, I attribute some of it to burnout on my part but regardless it's undeniable that Fromsoft relies a lot on reusing things from previous games which has always been an issue in the series but I think it's made worse in Elden Ring since in that game it all just feels like bloat added on to extend the length of the game without offering anything that feels new. Contrary to what I said in my first comment I do think From and more specifically Miyazaki can create new experiences because of games like Sekiro but for some reason they decided on going back to Souls but now it's open world.
It's more Elden Ring. More Anime. Disappointing, maybe, I got what I expected.
I think it’s become painfully obvious that Fromsoft just wants to make a character action game now with how over the top the new weapons are …. But they can’t cause those don’t sell as well
Most of the gripes you have are gripes of open world games in general not elden ring. I agree with one thing personally, after a while i felt it's just more of elden ring which was good and boring at the same time . In The 2 year gap most people have grinded so much it has lost it's touch. But saying that the weapon's, areas like dragon peak , cerulean coast , forest around midras manse are amazing to look at ans clearly have been curated properly.
This video is very interesting. I been watching a lot of negative reviews to see what compiles to an agreement.
Negatives:
Definitely reuse enemies designs, the goddam dragons and tree spirits like just Y😢
There are some nick picks but really reusing too much is the only big criticism I have
Positive:
I don’t feel like the dungeons are a that big of a bad deal. I know is not that as big on the Capital Leyndell but I still think they are good. Belurat is decent imo, but Shadow Keep MY GOD it link to so many areas which was an amazing idea BY FAR the best dungeon in the dlc
Map layout I controversially like it. Vertically want time to explore which I know you said is not your cup of tea but getting to the place you want straight away is not as rewarding to me. I love open world games and get it to earn it is my style of the game I like.
The bosses overall are all over the place as I expected. I have very fun bosses that are like top 10 best fight I ever had (which I think is very obvious who) to a very BS overtune nightmare (like the final boss in second phase).I don’t know how FromSoftware makes bosses good and bad in the same game in terms of boss philosophy design. I swear if you do a boss analysis video for all BIG bosses in this dlc you see the difference.
Overall is a 10/10 dlc for me even with those negatives I still have far more enjoyment than any most game offer to me. I will continue play in NG+ and I still expected to play this on and on.🎉🎉🎉🎉
Sorry for this long comment 😂😂😂
"people are review bombing the DLC"
no the dlc just isnt that great.
i hate having to ride torrent for a few hours before fighting bosses. but thats what everyone says to do and i can agree that it makes it very easy
I disliked the scamtree fragments. I disliked the bosses. Only one boss didnt rush me as soon as I entered the gate.
"i hate having to ride torrent for a few hours before fighting bosses." oh lord the hyperbole. It doesn't literally take that long. It only every took more around a minute or 5 minutes at most.
@@joevaghn457 i didint look it up immediately after the dlc came out like some people 🙄 on top of that i create new accounts all the time. how long does it take you to get all your golden seeds and sacred tears? if you want a talisman you have to ride torrent to the dungeon. same with weapons and armor and everything else you want for your build. just let me choose my level like bloodborne or ds2 and 3. i spend way less time running around in those games
@@SunlightAldo Yeah but this just seems to be an issue with elden rings open world aspect for you then. And why is the dlc not that great if you have to ride torrent for a while before the dlc? I'd argue that the dlc areas condensed size makes for a whole lot less riding around in between bosses. Plus a part of the open world experience is exploring and admiring the environments even if there isnt much to find in those areas, well at least for me it is.
@@crustymario1216 elden ring offers a hollow open world experience. it pales in comparison to games like tears of the kingdom. it doesn't give me freedom and i end up wondering how to get to areas and getting frustrated that i cant open my map because of an enemy aggroed on me. they also obscure most of the map and make getting some of the maps really convoluted and difficult compared to the base game. it discourages me to want to explore when i cant see where im going on the map. i see a map location close but i cant run to it because of cliffs or mountains and it turns out i end up getting the map way later. i cant excuse elden ring when i end up confused riding my horse for a while untill i realize i took a wrong turn ages ago because i couldn't see my map. the other games didint have that issue. games built around exploring an open world dont have that issue. they give you freedom to see an area and go there. even horizon forbidden west does that better than elden ring.
The entire game is designed from the ground up with the idea of bullgoat armor giants crusher power stancing from lvl 1 because your friend can drop you items and runes so if you arent summoning the loathsome dung eater and using this intended build to play you're just shit at the game and should propably gather some scadutree fragments and summon the dung man... There is 0 problems with performance freezes crashes and getting kicked out of co-op for inappropriate activity detected every single time. There's no problem with the spells that literally insta bloodloss the bosses and players alike with minimal effort from Infinite range.
I agree with much of what you said. Nice vid 👏
I had to cheese radahn with lightning perfumes.
I completely missed the lightning perfume first time through the area. Probably would have been a nice option if I'd found it sooner.
@@emotionaljonxvx less than 15 seconds full fight time.
Good on ya for that last host
I try not to get too low with most hosts but whenever people are going out of their way to taunt, I tend to taunt back.
Beat just about everything, collected all weapons, ashes of war, spells. I loved Elden Ring so this being more of the same was great. Reused enemies and architecture made it feel like an extension of the world. It would be weird if everything was different since we're not in a different timeline or anything. The map didn't feel empty to me, I have no idea how people are exploring that it would feel empty but I'm sure it's just different play styles.
My issue was some of the important maps that are supposed to help you explore were hidden behind some convoluted underground tunnels and stuff you find in a different part of the world entirely. You'll likely find the last boss before you find all the maps unless you look it up.
Another frustrating thing was the fire golem things, one of the most boring enemies in the entire game, huge AoE's, gargantuan health bars, like 4 boring attacks and there's like 8 or 9 of the damn things. Sorcery is also trash in the DLC. Enemies can hit you with a single tiny fireball and do 60% of your HP and you gotta spam like 15 omega super blasts of insta vaporization moon destruction holy giga flares to get the grunts to half health with 99 in all the magic stats. Meanwhile 2 ashes of war with my hammer will obliterate even the strongest of them and I can 1 shot the grunts with a light attack.
This is a really weak effort with the dlc, it's a half-finished mess. 4/10 at best, and that's being very generous. Game looks beautiful but it's probably ai generated at this point, felt so lifeless. Enemies are awful, hardly anywhere and when they are they don't really make any sense being there. They just threw items everywhere, like the monsters, without almost any real thought, super lazy attempt feels rushed and unfinished.
It’s actually true that they use AI or some type of program to populate the world with bushes trees and such. This is reslly evident with the spirit graves in the gravesite plain. There are countless headstones that are just clipped into the mountains and the ground.
Agree
I love the dlc sure it does challenge you but ain’t that the point of souls games it’s doing it’s job l’d say
I've honestly gotten bored. Havent beaten the DLC but about 40 hours in. I HATE Darksouls 2 but it did have amazing DLC content. Elden ring SOTET just feels like so empty to me. I'm trying to explore what I can and having a rough time trying to get to new areas that are optional. I can go fight the big boss now but I dont want to because I know once I do, I wont turn the game on again for a while. Elden ring NEEDS covenants so bad. I think invasions currently are just to get your kicks at someone elses expense and theres no reason to do the arena right now. Side note, its also boring how the every souls game pvp scene never reaches above level 150.
What I found strange is the new upgrade system. In the DLC runes are almost completely useless so there is little reason to beat enemies in the dungeons and the optimal play is often to just run past all the enemies to get to the items.
They just break like normal runes and give you tons of runes