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A Full Criticism of Shadow of the Erdtree - Elden Ring
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- Опубликовано: 15 авг 2024
- Shadow of the Erdtree is probably the best DLC I've ever played in my life. In terms of the sheer amount of content, pretty much nothing comes close. That being said, now that the honeymoon period is over, its clear there are a number of pretty glaring flaws in the overall package. Again, still one of the best DLCs ever created, but here we're going to talk about things that kept it from being absolutely perfect.
/ scottjund
0:00 Intro
0:21 Scadutree Fragments
2:28 Emptiness in World Design
4:08 Furnace Golems
5:22 Ancient Ruins of Rauh
6:16 Final Boss / Ending
Don’t forget about what Scadu Fragments have done to co-op. You are scaled to the hosts fragment level. Since there’s only three mandatory bosses, lots of hosts are way too low for certain areas. Also, loot. Getting basic smithing stones in the LAST area is criminal.
The smithing stones ARE for upgrading all the weapons you find - if you haven’t beaten the Elden Beast yet and/or don’t want to farm it can be expensive buying it all
@@Hello-lf1xs only reason the developers added alot more smithing stones is because people were complaining that it was too hard to get smithing stones in the base game. So to the regular people who actually found the bell bearings and knew how to get your weapon to max are now complaining cause they decided to pander to the people that resorted to complaining instead of asking for help or looking up a guide. In a dlc that's suppose to be Harder than base game... having to complete an optional boss to boot.. getting smithing stones in areas harder than the elden beast itself, so im not seeing eye to eye on that logic. Wanna explain yourself in a tone that's not condescending and makes you look stupid?
@@collinsmith7143 they weren't being condescending at all. and basic smithing stones make challenges like the one iron pineapple did recently possible.
@@collinsmith7143that's right. They made the dlc hardcore but then the loot was meant to appease the most casual of players who couldn't figure out smithing stone bell bearings. It's contradictory design.
If you blitz through the main game to get to the dlc asap, withou getting the bell beatings, then that's on you.
Honestly, I don't think it would be a huge issue if the only Scadutree fragments were at Miquella's crosses. Then you wouldn't need to collect as many and their locations would be telegraphed. (A small arbitrary amount of pot enemies dropping them was a horrible decision)
yeah, and it turns out not every pot guy even drops the damn things. Like, seriously?
My solution was just not using them until I hit a wall. Sunflower and Putrescence fucked me up so hard and I couldn't do them even with a shield so I upgraded for them after just getting very frustrated. Golden Hippo just pissed me off second phase but I did it with Freya and Hornsent.
I could do Divine Beast, Rellana, Midra, Metyr, Romina and all of the side bosses without fragment upgrades or summons, but I upgraded the first two levels with Hornsent for Messmer and a co-op for Gaius (tried practicing in co-op but couldn't get him by myself even with Torrent, stuck on second phase) and for Radahn I started at level 5 and eventually upgraded to level 10 and then 15 and forced myself to learn parry timing with Ansbach. And then I did Bayle at level 10 I believe with Igon of course.
I'm glad that I did most of the map without spirits or upgrades and pushed myself as far as I could. I was also at 40 vigor the whole time and never respecced. If I used a shield I only used defensive magic, and if I wanted to go magic heavy I didn't use a shield so it felt like I was pretty balanced with the difficulty I was seeking. Much like the base game you can make the DLC as hard as you want.
If you kill one that drops Scadutree fragments and die before picking it up you won’t be able to get it ever too.
That would be boring. Having some be in the main path while others are hidden off the beaten path or are rewards for killing certain strong enemies (like the hippos) was the best choice imo. It rewards you for going out of your way. I agree though that giving some to random pot guys was weird.
@@galientl4723 I thought about this, but just assumed the drop would either stay there forever, or respawn with the enemy if you don't pick it up. Did this actually happen to you?
The problem with the empty areas is that exploration is heavily encouraged in elden ring. All the other areas have easily missable secrets and items in every corner. In areas like the shaman village and scaduview there are a few important items, but the vast majority of the area is empty. So you are still incentivised to explore since there are things to get, but its mostly just wandering empty areas which is quite boring. For areas like that I just pulled out a item map online because I didn't want to wander for 20 min checking every corner just to get mediocre 2 items
At some point I stopped going off the main path for any given area entirely since "there wouldn't be anything for me to find anyways." Not a good look for your open world game, especially when the base game always had something to find, even if it was just a random consumable or material.
I agree, IF they make an area, that is just empty, with only the main attraction, they should make it very clear, that there is nothing at all to find there. If it is almost completely empty players wander around for half an hour finding 5 crafting materials which is just annoying
Looking at the nice landscape and being part of it - boring? And because of this, developers shouldn't do locations like this?
İdk man i dont care about what i find, im just there for the scenery. Items are the bonus have no effect on my enjoyment
@@lordptk4115 How they can indicate that are have no/few items?And why whould they bother with collector's obsession/Fear of missing out? No one force you to search or collect items
My biggest issue with SOTE was the when you first finish collecting the map, realizing how big the world is, only to realize two extremely large areas on the map practically have nothing (the two finger areass). Such a disappointment
I spent so much longer than needed in those areas, getting absolutely destroyed by those pink fuckers that can bind you and summon an enemy to you, only to realize that no, I was not missing some hidden site of grace or an NPC or an item or hidden path or anything, those areas are just giant zones of pain that only exist so you can do the Mother of Fingers quest-line.
It reminded me of Mountaintop of the Giants in the base game. On the map you see this giant landmass that's still left to explore, but then you go through it and you realize only a tiny fraction of it is actually area where gameplay can take place and of that area an even smaller amount had anything in it.
@@syphonunfiltered Mountaintops have a way more secrets and rewards than the Finger Ruins.
@@canisinumbra yes but I was referring to the entire map not specifically the fingered ruins
@@syphonunfiltered Yes, and Southern Shore is empty too. And everything besides the first two areas.
>oh wow cool area
>walks around
>the size of Weepin'
>3 enemies
>Ghost Glovewort +7
>rides around for 20 more minutes
>encounter another fire dude
>"""Fight""" him for 3 minutes
>drops crafting material and tear that increases poise and holy damage when Golden Crux'ing your urethra at 3:56 am
>wandering for 10 minutes again
>fights boss
>Divine Super Horned Lumen Consort Mungus Jr, The Sorrow
>boss does 45 second projectile combo
>dies
>try again for 30 minutes
>walks around a bit
>found: Super dragon man hunting smegma
>"Liberates the power of the hunting of dragons blah blah blah"
>use it on boss
>the boss literally might as well be afk
>dies in 30 seconds
>mfw
I see you are not a lorebro, we are eating good in this DLC, the amount of zanzibart tier lore is insufferable.
Skibidi fragments are SHIT
i just wish they gave us a menu option to disable the in-game "are you sure you wanna drink to resummon the horse" prompt, or at least defaulted the cursor to the "yes" option. kinda the same with summon interactions
also, getting gamepad emote shortcut functionality on pc would be cool. holding x/a and doing motion inputs was actually REALLY fun once you got it down
I don't agree on the gesture thing but only because we should just have a gesture menu back. The shortcut to them was it being on one button. Also turned it off day one so I'd never accidentally gesture
I for one don't enjoy accidentally emoting in the middle of a fight.
Or even set it to a limit where they only make the prompt with the last 3 or so flasks
@@ZauTa serious question, what would you be trying to input or achieve and get an emote instead?
@@Acusumano25if you try playing bloodborne then you’ll understand what that guy means
2:08
Enemy: (throws rock at scott)
Scott: and i took that personally~
My main issue with the scadutree fragments is that if you explore some places too early to look for them you just ruin some side quests entirely
There should be a big old semitransparent gold barrier or something you need to cross to break Miquella's great rune, and it should come with an "are you sure" prompt.
then you wont have to replay the dlc
No you don't. Most quests don't even fully begin until you break Miquella's rune. Breaking it too early only means you'll miss some dialogue and potentially Thiollier's concoction (an item which is only needed for the alternate ending of the Dragon Priestess quest). Aside from that, there is literally nothing that is lost by breaking the rune early. Ansbach, Freyja, Leda, Hornsent, and Ymir's quests can all still be completed. I know because I did it.
That's not a Scadutree fragment issue. It has nothing to do with them existing. It has everything to do with the decision to make an otherwise regular area with no major structures or clues trigger the most impactful NPC moment in the DLC with no warning.
@@henryzweihander8282 Fragments encourage exploration and the rune breaking punishes it by making you lose out on lore and NPC dialogue. This in turn means you probably have to play the DLC again to see what you missed, which means collecting fragments again. It's not directly related but fragments make the problem worse at both ends.
Shadow of the colossus works cause of the allure of mystery and the atmosphere of being silent only hearing much of the time just the wind or a few animals. The isolation of it makes you feel alone. Elden Ring does none of that and the world is not that special. You constantly hear the background music and the fact is lot of the areas are flat with rocks and cliffs. Feeling AI generated lot of the map. It feels soulless outside of the architecture which obviously has a lot of work and effort put in. But it doesn't envoke that feeling of colossus, not even close.
Scott, what's wrong with your final boss? In my game Patches was embraced by the God Miyazaki.
That would go hard
@@Thixico It's a real mod
It does go hard @@Thixico
Made me tear up when he said "A fine Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree to you"
3:55 The problem is there is no expectation setting that areas are just empty, I expect there to be a point to every area in soulsbourne and if I don't find it, that is me missing something rather than nothing being there. I spent a lot of time running around the red flower area before giving up, checking the wiki, and realizing there was basically nothing there
The ending felt.. super underwhelming. Such a brutal fight and my reward is a two second cutscene of "Boohoo. Be my consort." Like it was a really big that's it? Moment for me
Same the Dlc ending fell hard on its face wish we got a different person than Reusing Radahn again
Radahn reminds of bosses from a lot of the mods
Flashy with artificial difficulty
Maybe the devs saw those ridiculous mods and thought «we need to outdo them»
I feel what you're saying. I remember playing Champion's Ash and doing Nameless King and all I could think of while fighting was how much the fight was ruined by adding artificial bullshit to make it more "difficult" when the fight was already perfect in the base game.
Rellana feels like a bad Convergence boss, which is saying something
Artificial difficulty would be the illusion of difficulty, making something seem hard when in reality the fight just takes longer on purpose. Radahn is a nightmare to face, he's truly difficult, but he's unfair difficult.
@@leonardo9259Rellana is an actual fleshed out boss. Radanh for now feels like doesn't match ER boss design; No position based strats, no attack depending of distance, little to no incentive to jump. Just pure RNG
One of my disappointments is how empty the southern half of the map is. Charro's Hidden grave has a gaol and maybe a few items. I was happy to find spectral rings of light on my first playthough as int/faith but all other runs I began to wonder why I even come here outside of a fragment and maybe the ash of war. The place look beautiful but it felt like it was missing something extra.
Quantity over quality is undoubtedly the largest pitfall of this magnificent game. Midra is right there with Ludwig. I do find it weird that there were so many rng “take damage with basically no startup frames unless you light roll or bloodhound step frame perfectly” attacks across the bosses.
There isnt a single Attack that force you tò light roll except maybe radhann's cross slash combo
@@Feddy009 Well there is Metyrs circling laser attack, though I guess technically not even light roll will save you from that one
@@thegrunch6448 in fact i think that metyr Is the only bullshit boss in the DLC, i didnt have such trouble with other bosses, not even gaius (She wasnt hard, Just annoying). As of now i am doing a second run of the DLC and i confirm my previous thoughts
@@thegrunch6448 bro what? you can easily run away from it lol, you dont even have to roll it. metyr was like one of the easiest bosses
@@mum-your Not if you're melee, it's not even close. Unless you're thinking of a different attack
Sennasax = 8 tries
Bayle = two tries
Make it make sense
I had the opposite experience. I was on my for sennasax because I like fighting dragons that way
@@JollyCandy-ki3er i guess man it feels like it takes ten years when I do it like that
Sennessax took me fewer tries than Bayle (whom I died to a lot, because I faced him early and thus constantly got one-shot by him), but only because I found a cheese strat. I just kept doing hit-and-runs on Torrent, it basically never used attacks that could actually hit me that way because I was already way behind it by the time it finished an attack. Took forever though.
@@elifia why even play the game at that point
@@theamazingdagger5584 Because I enjoy playing the game. You're very judgy.
The issue with the empty space in something like Elden Ring relative to other games that tactfully make use of it is that you're getting sent mixed signals. Because other critical items (such as the Scadutree Fragments) are often tucked away in incredibly niche corners or shrines or holes in the ground, you are incentivized to scrutinize every nook and cranny of the landscape. There's no common understanding telling you that you shouldn't, say, explore every square inch of the Finger Ruins of Rhia like you might get in a game with more linear progression and more visual setpieces that exist for their own sake. It's trying to have its cake and eat it, too.
I think that's why an abundance of Fragments would be better. At least they could fill those spaces up.
@@DrnMontemayor frankly they should've replaced some of the consumable runes you find with the s.fragments instead.
very eloquently put
"incredibly niche corners" lol off use of niche but agree with you otherwise. For the sake of illustration, you said "incredibly corner corners"
@@DrnMontemayordisagree. I wasn't a fan of gathering useless seeds in the base game after maxing out. The DLC got it right, where the first half get you most of the way to max and the last few don't do much, so aren't critical to find, but still give those who find them something.
There should have been like 20-30 more skibidi fragments than you need. Kinda like golden seeds but more varied. Keep the 50 scattered around the world but sprinkle some more around and then just make every boss and miniboss drop one or 2 like the hippo minibosses.
You see this would have made way too much sense
Idk, you already run the risk of cutting the last two main bosses too short with enough Skibidi fragments, I can see people not wanting to explore of defeat bosses just to not get the extra skibidi
That'll change nothing for NG+. The only way is to remove fragment buff in NG+ and collect them anew.
one complaint regarding spells is that it felt like a lot of enemy spells that could have been made into player variants just... werent
like, why didnt we get the splitting/bouncing nail barrage spell or the nail mortar one? why no spiral sorceries?(since so many of their descriptions call them sorceries but the few we get are incantations)? could have been interesting to get a more interactive phalanx-type spell from rellana instead of the silly double moon(or on top of it)
I was so expecting to get some sort of Carian Sword barrage that just flies instead of staying at your head but nope.
There's one black knight who randomly has a crucible spell that shoots a frog tongue at you to.grab and pull you closer. Why that wasn't a incant we get is one of the many things in the doc I'm just like uh ok y'all made the whole animation and whatever for one enemy. Same could be said for the flying scorpion enemies. They are all crammed in one little area to the north and there's like 5 of them for no real reason.
T posing flying skeleton spell/ash of war is one I wanted badly to be in the dlc
We need Frenzied Fucking Lazer Beam in the game _right now._
@@joshwhite557there’s also that one crucible knight who has a unique crucible centaur attack, also unobtainable
It shows how low videogame standards have dropped where people are actually saying this shit is "the best DLC they've ever played". Saying that is an insult to all the previous souls games DLCs before this one.
The previous DLC weren't perfect either
Scott‘s clearly afraid of his mainstream aufience, he‘s still shilling, being overwhelmingly positive in a critique,
and people are still complaining that he‘s too critical.
@@JoseViktor4099 Way higher quality than this pile of copy pasted assets, it‘s overshadowing the few good parts of the dlc and for good reason, it‘s a waste of time.
@@zawarudo8991 Hold on, you weren't the one that despised Elden Ring? I remember you. Lmao, how that overshadows the good things? You think that I may found two Death Knights twice or the controversial final Boss will deny how fun people had with Shadow Keep, Rellana, Messmer, Midra and Bayle?
That you didn't played is another thing, my friend. Because being honest, I doubt that the same person that seems to explode Im happiness someone sh!t on Elden Ring would even buy its DLC.
I mean people keep saying the old hunters is great but i thought the only good area in that game is the research hall. Everything else looks bland and forgettable. Laurence and living failures were actual f tier bosses, ludwig was carried by the ost and orphan has camera issues and an annoying runback. Maria was the only S tier fight.
I honestly feel like From either has forgotten how to make fair, polished bosses, or just feel pressured to make them less so to appease people who want ever-increasing difficulty and value difficulty over quality. And people will just point to a video of someone no hitting a boss like that must mean it's well designed while completely discounting how unintuitive or stupid some attacks or mechanics can be. Radahn really is one of the best examples of that though as this video points out, Waterfowl was too.
It was a really unpleasant note to end the DLC on that kinda soured the whole thing for me a bit. It was like the exact opposite feeling Gael gave me in DS3.
I don't think they have in the slightest. The entire roster of remembrance bosses in elden ring + dlc are a masterclass in boss design, and better polished than any game i've ever played
Consort Radahn topped Gael for me in basically every regard except lore. The fight was extremely intuitive, fun to learn and fair. My only complaint is that he wasn't harder than Malenia in my experience.
You might not value difficulty but it's largely part of the quality of these games for me. If Elden Ring would have stayed as easy as Dark Souls 3 was I would have been immensely disappointed.
Yeah this dlc made me miss older fromsoft bosses tbh. The simplicity of them is so much more enjoyable than a 10 second long anime attack that looks really cool but becomes a chore to fight after the first time you see it. Messmer is a great example of this. His first phase is amazing but his second phase is nonstop snake spam with one opening for a punish every 10 seconds. I never used mimic in the base game (except for duo gargoyles because that fight sucked) but I used it for I think 4 bosses in the dlc because I just wanted the fight to be over.
@@link9547 I DO value difficulty and I do not agree about Consort Radahn being "extremely intuitive, fun to learn and fair" in his second phase. I also think these bosses could have used some more polish. Midra has far too little poise and awful tracking, Bayle's AI is buggy and he will sometimes turn 90 degrees away from you to stare at a wall, even Ongbal couldn't figure out how to roll through Metyr's laser fuckfest, etc.
@@MainTopmastStaysail Didn't experience those bugs so I can't speak to it but hopefully they are patched soon, and I only saw that Metyr move once because her hp seemed too low sadly but I just got to the dlc in my rl1 run so i guess i'll iron out my opinions. Though I don't see my stance changing on Radahn. It's definitely my new favorite fight in the series, I feel like the complaints come from people who are allergic to pattern recognition and positioning because of DS3 combat habits with the bosses that are trivialised by roll spam and literally stand idle to let you heal or hit them
@@link9547 That’s satire, right?
I do want to say too that the ending is super anticlimatic. You get a memory from miquella about something we already know (that he wanted radahn) and thats it.
Was definitely nothing like getting the actual fucking dark soul and implying you make bloodbourne with it, thats for sure.
that shit could not be more true. Got this femboy sitting in a dark basement next to a chair he had been tied up in moaning about some accord or some shit like give me a cool thing to end it off with, instead of just something I already know. The blood of the dark soul didnt have the best cutscene in terms of coolness but the lore goes crazy
I defeated an old man at a post apocalyptic michaels to get black paint for his kid to finish her art project.
It was frankly the most biggest moment in the dark souls series, and I will cherish it as such.
Elden Ring's dlc just ends with further context we already know and it just confrims what we think.
9:34 hey that's my video
Another reason why some areas feel empty is the lack of new enemy types, cerulean coast charo hidden grave are the biggest offender , they are full of recycled enemies from the base game, sometimes it feels like I am just playing more of the base game
Sometimes bad but sometimes good for the continuity. Otherwise it would be weird for ALL new enemies which would break lore.
@@Lone-Starr-Schwartzthat has never happened, all DLCs before had completely new enemies for each area besides a FEW offenders (Lothric Knights at Dreg Heap, dogs and crows and bloodlickers at Hunters Nightmare)
@@Sohelanthropus And even then, I'm a lot happier seeing an occasional lothric knight in a collapsing world than I am seeing a deathrite bird.
Tibia Mariner though, that's my goat.
@@Goofzillershonestly was absolutely elated seeing that guy in charos hidden grave till i saw they demoted him and took away his boss health bar and then the fucker also decided to spawn a revenant to keep me on my toes or something😭 even a revenant couldn’t make me hate those guys though
I will say at least C.coast added the land mine variant of the worms and the only (to my knowledge at least) non-boss Demihuman swordsman on the map as well as has the dancer boss, but hidden graves was indeed underwhelming in all aspects.
Dont forget that there was ZERO covenants. The hype I had for the DLC went down dramatically after I found out covenants were not added.
This, Fromsoft just killed their chances at ER being active for multiple years, the hype will die off next year, and soon enough no one will remember ER, not entirely
Look at DS1, 2, 3 and BB, to an extent; the community remembers them fondly because their multiplayer community was active throughout the years - due to Covenants that incentivize such thing
Scott - and to an extent anyone who needs to hear this - in repetitive circling areas, you'll have an easier time if you leave markers where you've already been. Glowstones are perfect for this, but you can just leave any old item on the ground as well.
trye, i dropped rainbow stones in the ruah ruin's more labyrinthian sections.
Finally my 699 arrows have a purpose
This may sound good but you have to see the future in order to tell that you’re going to get lost in the first place. At least with me 😹
Now bloodborne chalice dungeons had messengers light up lamps to indicate that you have passed through this area, all by themselves requiring no input from the player other than just showing up.
Now on your second play through, you might’ve memorized some designs of the areas, therefore rendering rainbow stones practically useless
@@destinyup1710 The first time I ask "have I been here?" or state "oops, already been in this room", I start droppin markers
I think the empty space issue in Shadow of the Erdtree is rooted in the fact that some areas are dense and others are just empty and vacant. It isn’t consistent; so when the area is empty, it feels lacking. In Shadow of the Colossus, the empty areas serve the purpose of allowing you to to reflect and think as you pursue each collosus, to make you question your actions. In Elden Ring, aside from the Shaman Village, the emptiness just feels like content deficiency.
I didn't feel like any of the areas were dense unless it was a dungeon.
@@spooky8662 If I was being harsh, I’d also agree. However, sometimes even when areas were sparse, the items/rewards were worth the exploration. However a lot of the areas just felt like pointless wastes of space where the rewards were either cookbooks or ancient smithing stones. The worse offenders are the finger ruins.
@@CuttingEdges I just felt guilty that this was the most beautiful video game world I've ever seen, and instead of stopping to smell the roses, I was just hightailing it on torrent from point A to point B as fast as I could because of these huge stretches of nothing
Aesthetically it looks really nice & it makes lore wise but there’s just no rewards for going to some of these places. On a second play through I just skipped these areas
I really hope they ditch open world for the next game. It was a good experiement but the DLC is proof that this is not the way to go. We need to go back to bosses being gateways to the next area and serious choke points of difficulty.
I truly think that both the Radahn fight and the ancient ruins of Rauh (but not Enir Ilm, I think that's great) are results of late development rush or changes. We've come an immensely long way from Lost Izaleth levels of what that results in, but the fact Romina has like zero explanation and there's just a bunch of awkward tunnels when the rest of the world has such more interesting and varied locations kinda makes me think they had to fill space a bit.
Even 2 years was not enough for the scope of this dlc. I also think this is the downside of doing open world games. Size is so important for people that the inevitable consequence will always be quantity over quality.
Not Enir-Ilim, really? After first seeing that floating shadow castle in the sky I was so excited, but it turned out to be the shortest and most linear legacy dungeon in the whole game, with some bs enemies here and there
Agree with all these criticisms although I would like to point out that whilst Bayle doesn't have a remembrance he does drop his own exclusive dragon hearts that can be used to get his exclusive dragon incantations, which I honestly thought was cooler than a remembrance thematically.
Yeah but you can't duplicate it to get both spells like rememberances
@@ScottJundmy exact same thought. It sucks cause those are my absolute favorite dragon incantations too
@@ScottJundI suppose to encourage replaying the game. Honestly the game IS replayable since most player are going to be missing some secret quest such as the dragonmaid’s spirit summons and other things. Is only a nightmare to replay the game if you go with the mindset to do pvp and ONLY pvp. Most player don’t care about pvp and are only replaying the game for things such as completion. Saying that the game is not replayable is disingenuous.
Edit: I goofed up and didn’t pay attention about him saying that this game is the least replayable of all other souls series.
@@davidenriquez4582 not really, it depends on the type of person you are, I'm not really into replaying games because the "wishlist" is too big so I usually complete once and go to the next to have completely new experiences
@@davidenriquez4582 i didnt say it isn't replayable i said its the least replayable of the souls games in my opinion
who else tried throwing a hefty frost pot into the golems? Lightbulb TICKED, this HAD TO BE IT. womp womp.
Taunters Tongue still is able to be toggled and there is no 4 player limit rip
Oh hi
PvP in elden ring will forever be garbage.. and the pve gets boring after 1-2 play through
I'm also a biff miffed with the Leda Gank. Felt like it was an entirely missed opportunity to let players invade on both sides, so you could have had a chaotic mish-mash of a 4v2 NPC fight plus the player and 2 summons, and then you could have thrown invaders on both the player's side AND Leda's side for even more chaos.
As it is, it just... doesn’t feel fun. I get what it's supposed to be in the lore, of those still charmed by or loyal to Miquella fighting against you and those who broke free, but to me it feels like either you get embroiled in an NPC fight, or you summon two people and gank the crap out of some NPC's with ridiculously inflated HP.
Like, the fight didn't feel *bad,* per say, but it didn’t feel fun, and much like Radahn, honestly felt like a letdown after the rest of the DLC.
Honestly, the entirety of Enir Elim felt more like a chore than a challenge to me, a sort of sunken cost fallacy of, "I'm not having fun because everything does too much damage despite having 60 vigor, heavy armor, and wearing talismans to further negate damage, but I've gone this far, so I feel obligated to get to the end." The entire area felt like the mountaintops from base game all over again, with the EXACT same mistake of a bunch of enemies we already fought, with massively inflated HP and damage.
Radahn himself was cool for about the first three attempts, and then I realized the NPC summons were way too useless to justify the health boost Radahn got, and after 6 hours of getting to phase two and repeatedly ending the fight with me putting my controller down and going, "how exactly am I supposed to dodge that?", I just got an antspur and verdegris shield and poked him to death with rot on the 2nd attempt of that.
Lore wise, that fight is very cool, even if I'm left scratching my head as to what the hell happened to the base-game plot of Miquella trying to use the Eclipse to revive Godwyn's soul.
Mechanically, I think this is the first Fromsoft boss that I've actually hated (not counting Gideon, Ymir, or Leda's gank, because I refuse to consider an NPC with an overly inflated HP bar on the bottom of the screen a boss fight). Minus Waterfowl, which was literally just memorizing a frame-perfect dodge and making sure to always have enough stamina for at least 3 rolls, even Malenia eventually felt like a puzzle to unlock, and it felt very satisfying to dodge an attack string that would have killed me several attempts ago. There was no point at all in that fight where I had an "aha, that's how you dodge that!" moment, it was just, "oh hey, I managed to dodge that, maybe I can get closer to being done with this."
I basically saw the final boss as a chore rather than a challenge, and after the base game, base-game Radahn included, and DLC bosses like Bayle, Metyr, Messmer, and Midra, consort Radahn especially just felt like a fucking disappointment, an anit-climax, and I just had a sour taste in my mouth after killing him.
I've had VERY few issues with the rest of the DLC, but the fact that it feels like they learned nothing from the base game by knocking it out of the park but choking on that final stretch with the exact same mistakes really makes me miffed.
Ledas fight was top 5 in the DLC for me. It felt incredibly fun and made me really wish we could have 6 person fights in the overworld
Basically agreeing with everything you said. Me personally I heavily dislike NPC fights because they're either stupidly easy because of exploitable AI or feel like complete bullshit because of overinflated HP and damage, inhuman reaction times and other benefits that NPCs get but the player doesn't.
I hate Radahns fight, it makes no sense that he would be there, he and Miquella got never mentioned together before but suddenly he's the object of Miquellas obsession. Oh and his 2nd phase is just stupid.
Oh and I personally really dislike the lack of new enemy types in the late part of the DLC. (Re-using one of the major DLC boss fights, really?). The same glaring issue the main game also has.
Leda's fight is so unfun it genuinely feels like a knowledge check for subsequent playthroughs. Always give Moore the LTG speech, always neglect to give Freya the letter unless you want her sword, always indulge in Leda's paranoia so she attacks Hornsent, or else the game just fucks you.
idk man I had a big ass brawl with me, mimic tear, thiollier and ansbach versus freya, hornsent, dane and leda. it was great fun
@@Kurai_69420 haha. I had to fight every single npc and I thought that was the most fun way to do it
At first i liked the scadutree fragments and didn't mind re-exploring the map, but Co-op made me despise them.
The amount of people who summoned me to fight late-game bosses with 3 or 4 scadutree fragments drove me insane.
I honestly just dislike Fromsoft's direction with Miquella. I don't think he works as a villain, and I wish they would have just had him function similar to Melina, in the base game.
He's not a villain. He's just on the other side of a war
@@spooky8662 There's no war, our character just murder-hobo's until there's no more content.
Forcing you to fight Leda even if you side with her both times earlier in the game is such garbage. The fact they didn't allow the main plot of the DLC (the faction war) to have multiple endings is a travesty. First playthrough I got both Ansbach and Thiollier to the finale and it was a glorious 4v4 brawl, on my second I sided with Leda and ended up with a disappointing 3v5, because the game just gives you a random Sanguine Noble NPC so it wont be too big of a gank. Terrible waste of potential, having Miquella be either an ally or enemy at the end of the DLC, without a boss attached to him, would've been the best choice
There actually is a reason for Godwyn to be the final boss; The Death Knight's are looking for "The Prince of Death's cadaver-surrogate". They're looking for either Godwyn's "real" body (which implies that the one under Leyndell isn't entirely his) or they're looking for the fake body used in his funeral.
Either way, they haven't found the body (though they did find another growth like the one under Stormveil) so I imagine the original idea was that Miquella was trying to revive Godwyn by using his cadaver-surrogate over his real body.
Additionally, the Suppressing Pillar states that "all manner of Death washes up here" to be suppressed by the Pillar. I recognize that Godwyn's Soul was supposed to be destroyed, but they always could've asspulled something to bring it back, especially since Ranni's actual body is only burned rather than completely destroyed.
Radahn honestly feels like a last-minute lore change compared to their original idea.
No, if you keep reading on Death Knight lore, they're all protecting the fake bodies/surrogates, which are just more tumor Godwyns growing, so that the age of Duskborn can happen. Essentially, his most loyal knights are following Fia's quest, too. Like, the Age of Duskborn is textually referenced in the text of their set. So no.
No offense to Radahn lovers but he's also kinda boring.
Nah asspulling something to bring back Godwyn just ruins one of the bigger quest lines of the base game.
The entire point of Fia's quest falls apart when you just let Godwyn return, ontop of the narrative significance of destined death as a concept.
@@theresnothinghere1745 I mean not really. Fia's quest is about equalizing Those Who Live in Death and seeking justice for their prosecution; Godwyn is just the mechanism through which that happens.
It could just as easily be any other random macguffin that lets Fia creating the Mending Rune, Godwyn himself is only important because he's the 'Prince of Death'.
@@L0rdLexan01 No Fia's quest is all about re-entering death into the order.
All about accepting what's gone, Godwyn is gone changed into something alien and will never come back in the same way.
In much the same vein the order will never be the same again no matter what ending comes about.
Bringing him back as an aspull does nothing but make the resolution of the quest, where Godwyn becomes the rune representing the irreversible change to the order, pointless.
This is again not including how Destined Death loses its importance when you can just bring back someone killed by it.
Art direction: 10/10 (The world is breathtaking, as expected)
New content: 5/10 (Heaps of recycled base game enemies, world is even emptier, most loot is trash, makes exploration tedious)
Boss design: 3/10 (Some are easy, others are hard, but very few are actually fun fights)
Overall impression: 6/10 (Disappointing. Instead of raising the bar as they have in past DLCs, FromSoft exacerbated most of the base game's shortcomings)
The boss design philosophy isn't interesting at all.
i agree with your points, although I would add the OST is great so for me it's maybe about 6.5 or 7/10. The boss design is the most disappointing aspect of the dlc plus the ending
I would give it 6.5 but yeah very fair rating
Glad you covered the scadutree fragment issue first and that's exactly what i've been complaining since the release: there are too many fragments and you need all of them to maximize your level rather than the game providing more than necessary like the golden seeds for the flasks. That and second problem being that these fragments doesn't have a pattern on where you're suppose to find, like the chalices which you would always find at a church, or golden seeds that you find either at a erdtree twig or erdtree related boss
Would have loved less empty space, but I gotta say at least the biggest offenders it kinda makes sense. The finger ruins and the abyssal woods being 99% empty was okay since you really didn't want to run around there in the first place. With the paralyze snipes going on it would be a pain if you had to also grab items there. Other than that definitely a few dead areas they could have done without.
Abyssal Woods, Finger Ruins should've been reduced in size by at least 50%. The entire southern coast could've been cut with no loss.
@@incius8341 It added to the scariness of that region for me to keep running and find nothing with that creepy music. I love the emptiness when necessary for the first play through but sadly all the other play through will be just running to the items and bosses only.
I think the finger ruins and abyssal woods were a mistake. Especially the finger ruins, abyssal woods, although still a slog to get through, can get a pass because of the atmosphere and what they were trying to do. Finger ruins have no excuse. Just a huge open space filled with annoying enemies and nothing interesting.
I think overall the open world was a success for elden ring but I hope future titles will go back to just the tightly designed legacy dungeons with branching paths to different areas, allowing for the same freedom to explore different areas if you get stuck and come back stronger, without being filled with so much empty areas that you just waste time running through to get to the good stuff
It feels like they drew the map first and then determined what to place in each area after.
Promised Consort Radahn is the 2nd Souls Boss I ever cheesed and felt no remorse in doing so.
That 2nd phase is busted.
What was the first?
@@buffoonustroglodytus4688 Micolash from Bloodborne because chasing him throughout his arena is stupid, and he can potentially one shot you with his Call from Beyond if you aren't for ready for it. Plus, cheesing him is just funny because of how valuable he is to poison.
@@ivoryquillum4436 yeah I can definitely see why you and many other people don’t like micolash. I think he’s too funny to hate but also I do like it when fromsoft tries something different with the boss encounters, even tho they rarely succeed. Bosses like micolash, yhorm, etc always end up at the bottom of most peoples top bosses list.
godwyn has a body, mutliple bodies, thats the whole point. Problem is lack of soul. With current lore it doesn't work, but of course, dlc adds lore. Could of explained away godwyn just like them explaining away radahn. Either Resoul godwyn, or reanimated/remodel godwyn and turn him into puppet godwyn. Point I'm getting at is that Pre-dlc lore is open enough to almost go anywhere for a final boss.
SOTE bosses are fair once you figure them out, the problem is reaching that point is HELL. Some attacks were genuine trial-and-error unintuitive.
Most critically, they're just not fun anymore. The Tower Knight, a clunker from 2009 with 3 attacks who dies instantly gave me the same satisfaction as the final boss.
Something else that is easily overlooked, the localization of the DLC in a language that isn't English is terrible.
Missing punctuations, nonsense sentences, false translations, spelling mistakes, missing spaces between words, too many spaces between words, texts that go beyond window borders, just about every mistake in the book, at least for the German version.
I wonder how the localization to other languages went...
English has plenty of errors, too. Fromsoft used to patch a lot of text in past games, too. Probably will happen again.
It’s about time the germans, italians and french learn english.
@@DrnMontemayor It sometimes goes beyond simple mistakes, sadly...
Some weapon descriptions are unrecognizable, like the black-gaol armour set and weapon or the serpent shield description. The item lore was a big part of From Softwares story telling, which is why this bugs me. I also don't understand how these mistakes came to be, todays machine translations don't typically have these errors.
Established terminology for enemies and allies is also not consistent at all, examples being the Kindred of Rot (not the forager brood) and the Drakes from the DLC.
Its more than embarrassing for a title as big as Elden Ring.
I hope this is addressed in a future update...
The localization of Armored Core VI had the same issues and is terrible to this day.
@@buffoonustroglodytus4688as a translator, this is such a stupid idea. So, so very stupid.
This might sound like a skill issue but, I feel like they were trying to mimic the festival aspect by making you have extra summons for the fight but instead of them just being there like in the festival, they wanted the player to build bonds and loyalties to these characters. On paper this could've been a neat idea but the amount of health he gets per summon is so high to the point where its at a detriment to even consider using Ainsbach and Thiollier. Also the fact that having any extra body in the arena makes his already excessive moveset somehow more excessive and unpredictable is mind boggling to me.
About how much extra HP does he get per summon?
You've hit the nail on the head in regards to why I also hate the final boss.
I've had several arguments with people who don't understand the difference between something being impossible and something being unfair trying to defend this fight by showing me videos of people no hitting him.
I've beaten Malenia at level 1 and I still think she's a terrible boss for the same reasons I think the final boss is also terrible.
The issue with the fight is how his attacks are poorly communicated to the player. Essentially forcing you to learn by getting repeatedly pancaked by them. It's trial & error design at its finest. It's not that it's impossible to beat, it's the learning proccess that isn't fun.
Agree on Radahn v2. Completely disagree on Malenia.
@@visperad541 I think Waterfowl Dance puts her in the same category. It's not intuitive to dodge and is just a wildly unbalanced move in general.
@conor9745 I disagree that it's wildly unintuitive, the problem was that dodging literally didn't work unless you did a frame perfect spaghetti step, twirled around three times and sang the star spangled banner. Post-nerf rolling at the intuitive times works pretty well (unless I'm just so used to fighting her that it being easier makes it much better).
But seriously? One move of Malenia's puts her on the same level of Radahn? Who's entire second phase is an incoherent mess of movement and light? I completely disagree.
@@visperad541 Yeah mabye not as bad as Radahn. But I do think she's in the lower tiers. I know the fight pretty well at this stage and can have some fun fighting her. But the PTSD I have from learning her prevents me from looking at the fight as a whole in a positive light.
@conor9745 Are you positing your opinion or assessing the quality of the fight? Because, for example, I don't like Godfrey really at all, but the quality of the boss is seperate. As far as how good he is, he's a pretty good boss.
I think the patch that front loaded the scadutree fragment power is being really overlooked here. I cleared the final boss before the patch at blessing 19 alone with a brass shield in one hand, and a katana in the other. After the patch, the difference is blessing levels is staggering, the old 19 is the new 16, that's 38/50 fragments versus 47/50. The old 17 is the new 12, which is 26/50 fragments instead of 41/50. The patch has made it way less important to collect every fragment, and that is a huge improvement. I do agree that some of the phase 2 attacks are hard to visually see, I'm not 100% sure what the solution on some of those are.
Still that doesn't solve the issue that the collection process is boring
The solution to the unseeable attacks would have to happen in the design phase. It's too late now. The problem is that they needed the fight to look grandiose but couldn't reconcile that with making it look readable. They've managed it before but not here.
(As a comparison, the Absolute Radiance fight in Hollow Knight's DLC also has the boss spamming bright projectiles every second but you can always tell what's happening.)
Yep that patch was excellent. I got through most of the dlc before that patch and only felt behind power wise on the first couple bosses which that change would have helped. As someone who enjoys exploring I didn't have any trouble after that, now people who don't care to explore will have a much better time too.
For Radahn the only really hard to read attack imo is when he's in the air and you get bombarded with white flashes first followed by him, in that case they could make the flashes translucent and curved rather than coming straight at you similar to Malenia p2. The meteor should have some indication where it's landing and the massive aoe could be more clear that it doesn't fill the entire arena, just give it some kind of visible border.
I'd try zooming out the camera for the 2nd phase
I thought the Ancient ruins of rauh were great. It's like an open world legacy dungeon, almost. Miyazaki said the DLC would blur the lines and make the mix of legacy dungeons and open world zones more seamless, and the ancient ruins do just that. And exploring labyrinthine levels is literally the best part of FS games for me. The ruins are meant to be like a maze, and I love that, it reminds me of some DS1 levels where you legitimately can get lost. I don't see an issue at all.
My main issue with the scadutree fragments is that they simultaneously encourage and discourage exploration. If you don't explore the world enough you'll find bosses are two shotting you while you do chip damage in comparison. Find too many and you'll kill bosses in 30 seconds and wonder where the challenge is supposed to be. Find just enough and you'll have a great experience with the boss but you have to coincidentally find them at the right blessing level. I found Midra and Metyr at what felt like a way overlevelled scadutree blessing and killed both of them first try because they just died way too fast. I see people talking about how Midra was such an amazing boss and can't help but feel like I was robbed of a great boss because I found him later than the devs would have liked me to. Similarly I found Bayle at what felt like the perfect level so he was an amazing boss while a friend told me they found him too late and he just sorta fell over
This is Messmer for me. I killed him in like 3 tries and I still don't know most of what he does because I played poorly but did so much damage that it didn't matter.
This is also Bayle for me, whom I tried at a lower scadutree level and had a miserable time because of all the damage he did and all the garbage damage I did. At least Igon was there to cheer me up.
The more I play this the more I think the blessing system was a mistake and I hope they don't do it again.
Isn't it more of a problem of the open world nature of the game as a whole? You could easily be overleveled for certain areas in the base game
@@thewanderer6869 It kinda wasn't as easy. The game's layout made sense to do some areas in a certain order, and even if you were a few levels over, you don't really get that much from a few stat points. Upgrades were much more important, and unless you went into high-level areas to get high tier upgrade stones, the stones you found in the legacy dungeon area would be just right for the legacy dungeon.
SOTE has a different layout with multiple overlapping layers and a higher impetus to explore thanks to the blessing system that makes it much easier to have an uneven experience.
@@NotLuigi that is just a problem with stat based games in general. It's why I advocate for more Sekiro like games. If you saw an enemy there you knew it was meant for you to fight it without worrying about being over or under leveled or having the wrong stats.
sounds more like a main issue of elden ring, base game has the same problem of exploring too much makes it hilariously easy
After having beaten DLC Radhan 4 times by myself, I completely agree. There are still attacks that he does that I have no Idea how to properly dodge. It just feels random, even though it might not be. He also clutters up the screen with so much shit, that attacks that you can perfectly dodge in phase 1, seem undodgeable in phase 2. Not a terrible boss per se, but far from being one of my favourites, even though I usually enjoy hard bosses
couldn’t agree more.
im respawning bosses with Cheat Engine every day just to fight them all over again, but i simply stopped trying this boss, Radahn is NOT fun… attacks are way too overtuned, and i second the entirety of what Scott said about Radahn. its a pity that the potential for the greatest boss in the existence was dumped
Well for me everything about him is perfect. He is fromsoft best and hardest boss. Beating him (twice) were a real rush of endorphins.
Yeh not a fan. I was just glad it was over. Plus I didn't really care about fighting him tbh it just had no implications for anything, I don't think the Haligtree or Malenia got brought up once eve though that's his whole presence in the base game
About empty space, I agree that the abyssal woods just just one more thing. One other enemy in there other than rats and inquisitors ? Maybe more environmental traps, like exploding eyes ?
As for the finger ruins, I don't mind the emptiness per se, I mind that there's nothing to solve there. It's essentially just a big locked chest and you're not going to know that you can't "clear" this area until you're given the key, which underwhelmed me.
I don't really mind the other issues raised otherwise. Scadutree, Rauh and Radahn don't really lose points for me, the flaws they do have don't outshine what I like about them.
Great review that helped validate my feelings after the first playthrough. I think the only redeeming factor of the Radahn fight for me was just the fact that It felt like fighting in a nuclear war, explosions and constant chaos, all while my personal favorite soundtrack of all time played during phase two. While those parts were pretty awe inspiring, the fight itself did feel pretty unfair. Can't wait to see what FS does next.
I still remember that sinking feeling of disappointment on my blind playthrough of running through Rauh Ancient Ruins for the first time after defeating Messmer. I vividly remember thinking, "Uhhh, did they run out of time giving this entire zone a meaningful purpose?"
The movesets for like half of the dlc weapons suck and all the weapons needed one or two balance passes.
5:10 just wanna make one small note here, there are many enemies in the base game where giving them more of their status causes them to overload. This is probably most prevalent in the land squirt enemies where if you give them poison or rot respectively they will literally explode and die.
And there’s even a merchant note that tells you this in Liurnia, iirc, so the game actively tells you the mechanic exists
There is, but there's also enemies that are completely immune to their status/element. You only figure out which it is by trial and error or by finding the note. With how rare the components for furnace pots are, it's no surprise most people don't waste them experimenting. If Furnace Golems looked like colossal land squirts, or had some sort of land squirt styling to their basket, it would be reasonable to make this inference.
@@Hello-lf1xsits not a good mechanic to read notes. All previous souls were notorius because they didn't just tell you stuff.
They would give a sort of 'advice' and/or design an enemy in an intuitive manner so that you can figure out on your own how to engage it.
Also even if you never figured it out the game was still more forgivable to those who bashed their heads over and over without learning.
Well I mean, the dlc is like the second half of the base game. Big, mostly empty, unbalanced and a bunch of bosses without lore explanation.
Last boss should’ve have been godwyn
- Blessings force exploration: this depends entirely on your approach, it's definitely not required.
This criticism was already dubious before the patch, and now after the patch it's just strictly wrong. After 12-15 blessings you can stop looking for fragments because further gains are so miniscule they could just as well be non-existent. If you think you actually need more fragments to beat the game or to have fun, then I think you need to change your mindset.
Furthermore, do you not enjoy exploration? If not, why are you playing Elden Ring?
So the word "force" is wrong. "Encouraged" would be correct. But it's only encouraged in the first playthrough. I'll get to that in a later point.
- Most don't come from fighting, but from searching: technically true, but this fails to acknowledge the game design.
You will naturally end up in most of these locations if you progress normally through the game. If you want to rush through the game, that's your prerogative. But you can't blame the game for not rewarding that particular playstyle. ER rewards exploration with enemies, other challenges, items, NPCs, lore and art - and you're complaining about that? This is about 50% of the philosophy of the game that you're complaining about.
- Deletes replayability with new characters: let me explain why replayability is in fact enhanced, not diminished.
You get better at the game as you play, therefore the challenge is naturally reduced when you do another playthrough. If you think you need the same amount of blessings as in your first playthrough, then you need to change your mindset (especially after the patch). You're encouraged to collect fewer blessings in consecutive playthroughs so you can continue to have a challenge. This enhances the replayability. It's better to play a less powerful character the second and third time because you grew as a player.
However, if you prefer to live out your power fantasy after your first playthrough, that's what NG+ is for (or backtracking and exploring areas you missed) since you've already collected many/all blessings.
In this way replayability is enhanced in two different ways. Fromsoft designed it very well.
- Linear sense of character progression: this is factually wrong.
You can collect many fragments before fighting tough bosses or you can ignore all of the fragments and immediately head to battle. That's the core philosophy of open world game design. It's literally the exact opposite of linearity because you can stay underpowered or become overpowered as much as you like. What does that have to do with linearity?
Your criticism of the "emptiness" is also highly dubious. The DLC has the same overall density as the base game. If you criticize this in the DLC, then you'd have to apply the same criticism to all of ER. Which begs the question: why do you rate the DLC so highly if you're so unsatisfied with the game's density? This "emptiness" as you call it is a major part of the game and you're criticizing it, which means your overall rating of the game doesn't make any sense.
Furthermore, if you dislike the "emptiness", how about you experiment with the game and create your own fun? It's not a linear game, you can do almost anything at almost any time.
Just to name one example: have you discovered the ability to ram torrent into enemies yet? The item for that can be crafted in large quantities and it turns the exploration element into a more fun experience. You can basically roaming around with a literal tank and toy with all kinds of enemies just for the heck of it. It's more engaging now than it ever was.
You have some valid criticisms, but the majority of your complaints are very poorly thought out. If we condense this video into just the valid complaints, it'd be about two or three minutes long.
good review, i talked about intuitive design / attacks a lot when discussing the final boss with other players as i think it is the most glaring issue in fights like this (other than undodgeable attacks). feeling like you dont know what you were even supposed to do after dying to an attack is one of the worst feelings for me in games like this and between gaius' clusterfuck combo and metyr's laser show, theres a few of these in the dlc. im enjoying my second dlc playthrough but as you mentioned, elden ring suffers a lot in terms of replayability and i have to limit myself to specific weapons to get a meaningfully different experience. overall a genuinely fantastic dlc and undoubtedly a milestone in the soulslike genre with what feels like many entirely avoidable issues
How do you feel about the cut veil removal from the gameplay trailer? In a chinese interview he stated
Q: In the concept art of the “Shadow of the Erdtree”, there are some curtain elements in the background near the broken Erdtree. What do they mean? And at the end of the trailer, as Miquella raises his hands, why did the curtains disappear?
A: We want the players to feel that the Land of Shadow and the Lands Between have a physical barrier; we want them to feel like it’s a world that’s been sealed away. As for the disappearance of the curtain, we can’t disclose much right now. What we can say however is that, the fractured “Shadow Tree” (影树) is designed this way because we want to present the idea that "this is a world where resolve and motivation are twisted and gradually heading towards total collapse".
Yet we dont really get anything like that in the game. If this was just made for the trailer why would he talk about like this? Very odd.
Fromsoft did the scadu tree crap and overturned all the bosses aggressiveness because 1 basically everyone had one op over leveled character because why not? Its fun to stomp everything sometimes and 2 because they new 90% of players use the mimic tear. Those 2 things are primarily what went into the design process of the dlc bosses imo.
And they still can get steamrolled while the rest has to deal with spamming bosses. If i want to get spammed, I do RL1 runs and let Gideon finish his speech.
this is actually insane cope
Intuitiveness is exactly how I described the problem with Radahn in a convo I had with friends. Even though I can count the number of times I did it on one hand, I like the concept of a boss being beatable in one try.
While i can agree with some things in this Video the whole Scadutree Fragments Argument never made much sense to me. Out of the 50 Fragments 35 or so are found literally on the Main Roads, big Chruches next to the road you see on your map and in the World or the legacy Dungeons and not hidden there but next to the Crosses. Only like 15 are held by Pot Shadows, Hippos or next to a Waterfall so require a little bit of exploring. And to top it all off you don´t even need all 50 Fragments 26 or 29 are enough to get you to Blessing 12 which acts like a "Soft Cap". So with Twinks you have an even easier time getting them again since you now are aware of where they are and where there is empty Space in the DLC Areas.
I like how prayer beads were handled in sekiro with them being behind a lot of mini bosses that skill check you but are still very beatable for players. Better than having them hidden in obscure areas
There were also beads hidden in obscure areas! You can still do that, but balance it out.
Yeah Radahn is probably the worst boss they’ve ever designed
Stop crying you can’t beat him that’s why you’re salty get good kid!🤡
@@deathbats3231That really is the go to response for anyone who has a criticism with some of the bosses in this game, isn’t it? Some people seem to think that because you can beat a boss without taking a hit, it must be devoid of any flaws. It’s ridiculous logic honestly lol
@@deathbats3231 Hope you're being ironic
Technically, Bayle DOES give a remembrace. It's just named differently, can't be consumed for runes and is redeemed in a different place, but otherwise functions the same - its description provides some lore, and you can turn it in for some nice powerups. Yes, it doesn't give a weapon, but it's not the first remembrance to be like this (Divine Beast, or even Fortissax from the base game).
7:40 I didnt think of that I just respecced to 60 endurance shield spec and antspur rapier cheesed the fight. Truly a shadow of the erdtree moment.
I honestly can’t beat him even with mimic tears and I don’t think I will, it sounds boring to put up a shield then keep poking
@@koktszfungI got 'em with a medium parry shield, rot and bleed with a mimic (lv 18 skibidis and lvl 9 spirit). It was still somewhat challenging with his target swapping and crazy aoes. The best part of using a mimic is the time you get to re-buff when it gets charmed in p2.
@@apharys8921 I might give it some more tries later
An important note on the scadutree fragments. Blessing level 12 acts like a soft cap, and after it the improvements are marginal. This was the case even before the adjustment patch, albeit to a slightly lesser extent iirc. So you really don’t need to find all of them, unless you’re desperately trying to eke out every last bit you can get for the final boss. There’s a case to be made that this was never communicated and helped fuel the feeling that the system was unfairly punishing though
@@_SmiIe_ I feel like the DLC got it right since I wasn't a fan of finding useless Seeds in the base game. This way, those not interested in exploring can still get 90% or so of the benefit and those who are can get that extra bit.
Genuinely, I had no problem with the game. The only problem I had was the final boss. Radahn is a cool boss. But we already fought Radahn. never mind the lore, I just feel like I'm fighting a less thematic, buffed up version of Radahn.
I really don't understand why they couldn't make Godwyn the final boss. I know from software has had problems with final bosses in the past; but man, Godwyn is simply free real estate. That's ALL you needed to do was make Godwyn the consort. It would have been so fucking epic.
It literally makes no sense from a lore perspective. Godwyn's soul is bye bye, gonezo, there is nothing to revive
@@isr4el187 Okay, you pretentious fuck,. Godywn's soul was destroyed; but his body was left rotting. He can't get into the Erdtree ... BUT, it doesn't take much to add to the story how Miquella figured it out. I mean, throughout the game, there was hints of Miquella trying to figure this out . I mean, bro, it's all made up, anyway! I hope you know this didn't happen in real life. 😂
Shit, wanna talk about Lore. Mogh was an empty shell, right? Why not make Godwyn's body the empty shell, and put Radahn's soul inside Godwyn's body? Please use your brain a little.
@@isr4el187god this argument is all i see and it's so stupid. They bent the lore to bring radhan back, they could have bent the lore to bring godwyn back. It actually makes even more sense, there's that whole aspect of the eclipse being capable of bringing people back from death, or godwyn's cadaver surrogate, they had so many ways of doing it that would have tied up some open plot holes in the lore and it would have worked a thousand times better than making up new lore for randomly bringing back radhan. It's almost like you're forgetting they write the lore and they make the decisions, they don't have to follow any rule when they can just make new ones. Godwyn would have been a perfect closing touch.
@@jacklandedhere5157 Dawg they literally wrote all of this before the DLC ever came out. They didn't finish elden ring then write the DLC. I guarantee you this was the planned events from the start. They didn't 'bend the lore' for Radahn to come back, that was the literal plan.
I don't get this meme of saying ER is the least replayable souls game when the open nature of it is basically DS1's world design on steroids, allowing you to do whatever you want and jump in the mid and even endgame if you know what you're doing, you even have a bunch of teleporters to aid you with this.
If you're starting a STR+FTH run, possibly a PVP focused one, you can literally rush to areas where you have solid STR+FTH weapons and spell, like going to Liurnia for Lightning spear, going to Gurranq for rock throw, going to Caelid for the Guts sword, Weeping Peninsular for the Longhaft Axe.
Golden Seeds are also backloaded hard, the game has way more than you need to max out the Flask, so even skipping a bunch at the start in , you only need to get every single one early on if you're doing twink builds and need all the chugs you can get for 3v1 ganks, but for PvE, rushing to Altus and geting the 5-6 there is enough, especially if you're familiar with the game.
I guess it can be a slog if you have a obsessive compulsive need to grab every single drop and do every single catacomb in Limgrave one every character you create, but even doing that that once or twice per year as a slow relaxed casual run is very engaging because the moment to moment combat in souls is very engaging, especially when you're trying new weapons, posture break combos, talisman synergies etc, that's why in games like BB there's players that have 500 hours in root dungeons.
Not to mention its got the most actual gameplay diversity of the bunch.
Most of the soulsborne have basically 3 types of build.
>Dodge press r1
>Block press r1
>Spells/Incantations
Elden Ring has much more meaningful gameplay variety with
>Guard counter builds (Block and go for r2's)
>Shield poke builds (Block r1)
>Stance break builds of 2 varieties (Trading IE R2/ash of war aiming to poise attacks vs dodging IE heavy attacks at big openings with r1's in small openings to maintain stagger).
>Status effect/consequtive damage builds (r1 spam)
>'All hit' builds tanking everything (Buff management)
>Summoner builds (Aggro and health management)
>Standard magic builds (Ranged combat with slower attacks).
The Shadow Keep was a major disappointment for me; It has good bosses, but the enemy variety is lackluster, especially compared to places like Leyndell or Stormveil from the base game. The Specimen Storehouse area is particularly bad; you go through five graces fighting the same four enemies(Vulgar Militiamen, Shadows, Giant Bats, and Messmer Knights.) It doesn't help than none of the enemy placements are particularly difficult to deal with; encounters are placed relatively far apart, enemies often don't aggro together, and tough enemies like Messmer Knights are usually fought alone. I can't help thinking that the level would be so much better with more types of enemies: Abductor Virgins, Omenkillers, and Perfumers; or even just rats and dogs all make sense lore-wise and appear elsewhere in the DLC, so why not use them here to make the encounter design more interesting?
Or new enemies?
And maybe the level design would be a bit more like Leyndell and not badly copied from DS3 Grand Archives?
Bruh, can someone actually bring some criticism for the Gaius fight besides the charge? It comes across as such a hivemind mentality and doesn't make sense when you compare it to other bosses. What about if Dancing Lion does the breath frontal at close range? It's even worse than Gaius's charge. Then that boss has the stupid AoE ground explosions in the lightning phase, the camera turns 800 degrees in half a second, the boss attacks you while the camera is facing his back, and overall his model makes it hard to tell which attacks he's going to do. Yet, people give that boss a fair ranking while absolutely shitting on Gaius solely for the charge. I thought the charge was less bad than Hippo doing the grab attack at close range, Dancing Lion doing the frontal at close range, Bayle jumping away after all his combos, Radahn's double slash into cross, and any Metyr's phase 2 attacks plus whatever she chooses to do whenever you are to her side in both phases. I would say the charge is about on par with Messmer doing his big snake ultimate in phase 2 and you getting hit by the mud pool because you were too close to him when he started it.
I honestly think gaius is one of the best bosses I've thought yet. Yes, sometimes I feel like I shouldn't have gotten hit by the charge, but everything else about the boss was on point. Also, being able to use torrent in a boss is always a plus.
The charge completely lacks a hurtbox which means he can just become projectile immune instantly which is an extremely lame mechanic. Several of his attacks (Including the charge) can sometimes doublehit which results in oneshots. He has no pomp, no circumstance, no voice, no presentation. Gaius could be a field boss. He guards +5 scadutree fragments and his own pants with nothing else.
It's such a letdown in every single way.
I actually like a lot of the updated moves that consort Radahn has. Lion's claw, the gravity pull, the gravity meteors attack, the blood flame slash, and the hitscan flaming meteor work because they are all attacks that you've seen before, but have slight twists.
One of the coolest moments in my attempts on Radahn was when he did the Lion's claw attack, and because I was using the new savage lion's claw AoW in the dlc for a bit, I knew that he was going to do the follow-up spin even though it was first time I had seen him do that attack.
The lion's claw is my favorite move of his. Something they couldn't do with the base game version for obvious reasons, so it's great to see him pull it off here
@@minerman60101yeah, after all it was the move of his knights
Then he does it 7 times with his after images...
I personally think Scadutree fragments were added because Elden Ring has had a high-damage problem since it launched. The more you progressed through the main game, the more damage enemies did but to an absurd level. PvP was straight up unplayable due to that issue. It seems the DLC added that “solution” purely because the damage was still a problem in the game.
Also, knowing now that you have to collect them again in NG+, I will definitely be looking online to find them all as early as I can. The more I think about the DLC the less I like it.
I mostly agree with your video, and the whole video was enjoyable regardless of whether I agree or disagree. I think of most RUclipsrs I've watched you do the best job of making your points in a concise and sensible manner. I'll just touch on two points.
I absolutely loved the Ancient Ruins of Rauh. I loved how it was structured, and my friend who was watching me play remarked that the structure felt reminiscent of 64 Zelda to him. While I wouldn't go that far, I definitely appreciated that they designed a proper level for the last Torrent section of the game.
And I personally LOVED Radahn. Outside of the three slashes, I love his entire moveset and I love that we actually got to fight a really cool boss in their prime, which is a huge change from the usual FromSoft fare. I hate to say it but I never got hit hy Radahn's hitscan attack, the moment he jumped off the ground I figured he'd be doing a similar attack to what he did in the first Radahn fight. I don't think I'd consider it untelegraphed when the "same" boss in the same game does a similar move. I honestly really enjoyed Consort Radahn and considered him the highlight of the DLC, but I'm aware I'm in the extreme minority with that opinion.
As for that thing with The Old Hunters, I'll just say Vicar Laurence is easily one of my least favorite DLC fights FromSoft has ever done. That's kind of irrelevant to the video as a whole, but I think Old Hunters gets way too much praise sometimes.
i agree HUGELY on the last paragraph omg the old hunters is phenomenal dont get me wrong but it really does feel like people have nostalgia goggles on whenever they talk about it bc it’s FAR from perfect and laurence is a clear example of that😭
Me too, I actually enjoyed Consort Radahn. It was an absolute struggle for me, but I didn't have to use summons or a cheese build, if you had max or near max scadu he really was not as bad as people are saying lol. I know he played on the review copy, and that does sound like a nightmare, but it only took me a few hours and I consider myself pretty bad at fromsoft games.
It's amazing just how much your experience with Radahn mirrors my own. I wasn't on the review copy, but I did play through mostly blind. I eventually gave up and followed what I read online and heard from friends and made myself a super high armor build with the (since nerfed) bloodfiend's arm and just bled him to death. There was no satisfaction and the feeling of emptiness really put a damper on this entire DLC for me. I immediately wanted to beat him again, maybe slogging through the fight with my unoptimized build would give me some sense of closure... but I'd have to do the entire DLC again for that, and... all things considered, replaying this entire thing doesn't appeal to me anymore.
I've tried to help others beat him and spent quite a few hours doing it since then, but it's mostly just funny how quickly people die and how miserable it is to employ a bunch of randoms to 3man this incredibly tightly-designed boss that seems made more for coordination and live communication than random casual cooperation. Nevermind some hosts have a level 10-12 blessing and get absolutely 2shot by the boss and there's nothing you can do about it except sever out.
it’s quite funny to go out of your way to cheese a boss and then get upset and blame the game for robbing you of the experience. all you had to do was have perserverance and not take the easy way out. yet you folded. and blame the game. lol.
You can always use someone else's save file or cheat a new one if you want to fight just one boss without replaying the entire game.
@@badatit576 I didn't cheese the game, I played it as everyone says the developers intended - I used all the options available to me. I was an arcane build so I just used the most powerful arcane weapon and armor. Didn't even use spirit ashes.
And the point is that I felt compelled to do all that because that's what the boss expected of me through his very design. Sure, I could have tediously learned all of his moves over a 10 hour period of grinding muscle memory. But I only do that if it's fun, and this... wasn't.
@@xefficient1948 Sure, but I'm not as attached to that character as I am to one that I myself raised and prepared.
@@poiumty my point is more that you intentionally went out of your way to approach the boss in that manner and then got upset when it wasnt fulfulling. Like what did you expect? And then you want to blame the game instead of yourself for making that decision? Just seems super immature and lacking accountability.
Learning the bosses moveset probably wouldnt have taken you 10 hours. It took me 2 or 3 with just the trusty claymore, and I’m not incredibly good. I just perservered instead of giving up and whining. Felt amazing to beat him and it’s a super fun fight to go back to once you know how to deal with all the moves
In my opinion I see the entire abyss area, the woods and the manse as one big legacy dungeon that pretty much says, if you don't use the stealth mechanic and just parry, its going to feel emptier than a discord mods shower. My favourite area.
I think another reason for Scadutree Fragments existing is so that you can dip into the DLC earlier than you’re supposed to on a new character and still get by, since most of your damage and defense comes from them. They definitely should have been less of a collectathon all over the open world like you said though. Ultimately the DLC suffers from a lot of the same issues the main game does, where the first playthrough is a magical experience but every subsequent playthrough becomes a bit of a slog, much more so than the previous souls games did. What you gain in that wonder of first exploration, you also sacrifice in replayability. That’s probably just the nature of creating a vast open world rather than a carefully curated series of dungeons.
Your other Miquella criticisms make sense, but I don't understand seeing Radahn leap up out of sight and not thinking "oh, it's just like the meteor move from the original Radahn fight, I need to run away so I don't get exploded".
yeah but you dont know where you are supposed to run to. with first radahn's meteor, you can literally shimmy 10 feet to the left and be completely fine.
@@ScottJund You can reasonably intuit you're supposed to run "away". Every time I've faced Radahn, I just started running once the meteor started. Just picked a direction and started sprinting.
Second Radahn, exact same thing. I saw him do that animation and grunt before leaping up, thought "oh fuck he's doing this again", and started running away immediately, not stopping until he landed. Same method, same results. Only got hit by it later on when I started trying to get cute with it and raptor of the mists through it(doesn't work great because there's multiple hits).
@@LazyMaybe It doesn’t negate the criticism of how it’s to properly telegraphed. Stop fanboying so hard.
Did not expect to see you here lol but judging from your latest vid it makes sense
God the buildup to the acient ruins was such a bummer because i saw that bridge at the very beggining and was flabbergasted, "oh my god theres going to be something wild up there", and... it's the most bland, full of repeat enemies area in the entire dlc.
Consort Radahn is a testament to FromSoft's sudden mentality change. They believe they're known for "difficult games", so they feel compelled to double-down on that concept.
They should've focused more on what they're really known for: beautiful worlds, intricate plots, amazing character design.
Get rid of the fragments.
You enter at 100, then everything starts at 100
Fight as you normally would and you still feel like you’re getting better and stronger rather than picking up the Shadow Realms trash to get stronger. You have no idea how many there are, or how to find them or how many make any difference. It’s a dumb fucking idea on its face.
7:15 well it does. Radahn was able to keep the stars at bay with his gravity powers and that's the exact reason why ranni was not able to ascend to godhood hence she tasked us to kill radahn. Now imagine miquella having radahn as a consort, that basically means as long as radahn is alive and holds back the stars no-one will be able to make contact with outer gods and ascent to godhood
Using summons/mimic tear is the default, and playing without them is a challenge run! There's no shame in using intended game mechanics; only exploits or hacks.
Look, I know a bunch of us are souls vets and are used to playing without summons, but ever since Dark Souls 1, summons were an intended game mechanic. Optional, maybe, but the game devs intended for them to be used.
Some are even mandatory for the quest.
That's a bad design choice imo. Designing the fights to the point where using a summon feels more appropriate is just so backwards when FS knows that a lot of souls players love to tackle these bosses solo on their first playthrough.
I feel ZERO satisfaction if a summon takes the aggro away so I can hit the boss in the back and repeat that until he dies. That's not something that ever made these games fun to beat, so its really weird that they decided to balance ER bosses around summons.
@UncleGael1999 Fighting the bosses without summons feels more fun (usually) so I generally agree.
I think the problem is they didn't give the player enough tools to outpace the bosses being given so much more aggression, combo strings, and difficult to avoid attacks. Like twin gargoyles for example is way harder than literally anything in all of Dark Souls 1.... and what can the Elden Ring player do that the Dark Souls 1 player cannot? Jump? Maybe a couple of fancy L2s (which are not even better dps than R1 spam)?
@@Arclor yes, but Lightning trivialises the fight as it’s in a water arena... it makes it so much easier...
@@UncleGael1999 And that is why without summons and cheese, ER is harder than DS3 imo
wait wait wait wait. I have 1100 hours into ER and you're saying it's the most unreplayable? They changed the bellbearings (all smith stone and gloveworts) in an update ages ago so you don't have to get them anymore with each ng+ runthrough. And any bellbearings that automatically put items into the finger readers inventory stay there for each ng+ run too so that includes the new bellbearings from the DLC.
The furnace golems suck so hard and finally someone is acknowledging this.
It’s just not fun to fight them and it’s not interactive gameplay at all
My biggest issue with the exploration in the DLC is just how maze-like and completely unintuitive it is to get to half of the areas.
The Rauh ruins are bad enough to navigate even without having the map for it be placed in a completely different area.
Even then the map doesn't help all that much.
Several times I had to resort to using a guide to figure out how to get to certain areas (which resulted in me getting spoiled for a few bosses) because the entrance to them was behind a hidden passage on the complete opposite end of the map.
Getting rewarded with an underwhelming spell/weapon or god forbid a fucking crafting recipe just isn't worth the nightmare of trying to navigate the map.
The complexity of the map is the best part of the DLC by far imo. That's what makes exploration engaging to me. That's why this is one of the best open worlds ever made. It's not just a bunch of flat fields. It's layered and maze-like and you actually have to wonder how to get to certain locations, and when you do finally figure it out, it's enormously satisfying.
And you didn't have to look anything up. You could've just kept exploring until you eventually found how to get to your destination. But you chose to give up and just look it up even though it meant spoiling yourself. That's on you, not on the game.
11:10 bRO Senessax ruined my Entire existance. WHY is he even there? "By the way he's Optional" OH THANKS IVE BEEN FIGHTING HIM FOR 3 HOURS BRO. Legit took around 7 or 8 TIMES the attempts it took for Bayle, WHY CAN YOU ONLY JUMP OVER THE LIGHTNING WATER SOMETIMES? They laughing at me chat, The Whole Studio at FromSoftware is sitting, watching and laughing at me while having a Translator tell them my cries of pain. "SHock him Nuts AGAIN" - Miyazaki.
Lmao. I dont know how you can melee him in ng+7. If I didnt have manual aim giantsflamefrom afar, I legit would have been 2 shot every time from frame trap AoEs
@@DTPandemonium I just fought him again, and they make me SO MAD bro. I realized that some of the Aoes just dont do any damage at the point of impact, so if you perfectly roll on his attacking foot they just miss. I swear to Marika I roll back and get hit with AOE's, I roll forward and the lock on just 180's the entire camera and I can't see him winding up his moves. All I see is his Noodle Neck Clipping his head into the ground, and then I get Spanked.
Just run past him on Torrent and fight him on land. He becomes just another ancient dragon like any other that way .
How is this the best dlc you have ever played? 40 bucks and half the map is empty, the final boss is a mechanical nightmare, and the reqards for exploring zones are pitiful? God of war valhalla was WAY bettwr. 0 dollars for a great expansion
A new arena mode unlocked at the Scadutree Basin after Gaius that lets you refight bosses and get larval tears for beating them would be an incredible addition. Just the ability to refight bosses without NG+ would be great fun. Infinite fights and infinite respeccing builds to use against the bosses again would be amazing!
I don’t know if I have Stockholm syndrome, but I kinda loved Radahn’s fight at the end. I found it to be a visual nightmare (Miquella’s hair obscures Radahn’s swings?) and there were moves I never learned to dodge, but I beat him without summoning using the giant sunflower. This isn’t to say I’m a pro gamer, I’m ass, but I liked learning his fight. The ending was weird, I would have preferred a new boss that wasn’t reused, I don’t like that his boss weapon is just the same as his old one but with a new art of war X2, but I liked how it was built up and hinted at through dialogue.
I will add: I like Gauis, which is a nuclear take from what I’ve seen. His charge is hard to dodge, he runs around somewhat, and he has a crazy combo. I think moving him back to the start of his room makes the dodge a lot less offensive, it’s still hard to dodge for some players. For some reason I’m able to dodge it consistently. I like that he runs around a lot because that gives me time to heal. And the last point about having a crazy combo is polarizing. I like them, the Putrescent knight has one, Radahn has one second phase, Bayle has a weird four hit combo? I think these are trailer moments that really add to a bosses fight. When you learn how to dodge them it makes the fight feel really fluid and usually rewards you with a big punish or time to heal. Idk though sometimes it does feel like you’re waiting for the boss to let you play. Darksouls 3 was my starting point and that game is funny because you can just trade hits with the boss. I like being incredibly aggressive, but that doesn’t really work in Elden ring because you’ll get hit and if you try to roll your way out of it you may get roll caught, I just have to think a lot more about what I do. Makes for a less relaxing, but more hype play through.
I was with you till you started crying about radahn, ive played through the DLC 3 times now and I still love that bosses move set and presentation, if you seriously couldn't figure out that you were suppose to run away when he mimics the meteor attack maybe wake up and do some puzzles to get the brain working.
I think what sums up the DLC for me is when I beat a boss normally I’m pumped up and excited for the next, in the DLC I’m just happy it’s over. Not a good look.
From giving us a boss gauntlet run like Sekiro to earn larval tears and ancient smithing stones would’ve be an amazing and appreciated implement
TBH They should have just made us restart as l1
I also don't like how the Scadutree Fragments push you to explore but as you approach Shadow Keep you get a notification that Miquella's great rune breaks and it can ruin like 3 questlines. IIRC, in the base game you can't mess up questlines by exploring areas.
i’m like 90% sure the miquellas charm message doesn’t break any quest lines at all it just progresses them. but if u haven’t started the quests yet u still can after uve broken the rune. for example i rmbr on my most recent run i entirely forgot where to find thiollier till after i’d already beat golden hippo and when i eventually found him he was still hanging out in the same area he starts in, he only leaves to cerulean coast after you’ve talked to him then rested at a grace
@@kiwamihollie It can also break them, I lost the Ainsbach invasion option by just advancing towards the shadow keep.
The one thing I will say in defense Shadetree fragments, is that a player doesn't really need to collect all of them in a single go. Just half of them is enough to get to tier 11 blessing, which post patch is a 75% improvement to damage and negation. That's enough for basic NG difficulty, and because blessings carry over into NG+, whereas all the fragments can be recollected, a player can easily finish maxing out that way when it matters more.
Yeah, it's still kind of a pain whenever creating an entirely new character, but for a game this big, it's really only the most dedicated players, like challenge runners, who are going to be doing that with any frequence. For the majority of players, they are probably only ever going to play through the whole game onve before moving onto something else, and if they do make a new character, it might not be until years after the fact when exploring the world all over again will feel more nostalgic than a chore.
You could definitely tell they developed the world first and filled it second. There's a lot of interesting nooks and crannies that aren't used, but also just tons of random stuff strewn everywhere and some areas that were more a concept than intentionally designed like Raugh.
Elden Ring needs to be the last souls game. This combat system is so over done and bland now.
We need to move forward whether Miyazaki chooses a Sekiro like system (the superior one imo)
Or something else entirely. Also id like to see a return to linear games. The open world is cool, AT FIRST. But on subsequent playthroughs it is GENUINELY MADDENING having to go across the map here and there just for two items for my build.
Its the opposite of replayability. Especially the DLC where you MUST go and get SOME scadutree fragments.
I hope Miyazaki is all souls'ed out and moves on to something else with hopefully more depth ala sekiro or something new entirely that is linear.
non-based non-Chad comment.
I don't think you realize just how much money elden ring made
@@four_corner_days Miyazaki seems like someone who cares about his art. Even with the money I'm sure he'd finally move on from this onto other projects.
I VERY much doubt he will accept being shackled to souls games forever by his fan base who knows nothing other than their roll r1 souls games.
Eventually he will move on and the fanboys will have to accept it or leave.
I only hope ER was the last one. Give us a Sekiro 2 or Bloodborne 2 or something else entirely.
@@maggotthemadman8142Nah, I'd be ashamed if he made yet another game with this fake "Dark Souls" combat. It isn't even like from DeS/DS1/2, it's ripped from Bloodborne and got turned into DS3, which then became...ER.
They will never stop making "Souls" games, and nor should they. But they can give the medieval settings a break for a bit and make something with the creativity of Bloodborne or Sekiro, and add something new to their combat other than just making everything faster.
Least replayable souls game? Yikes, could not disagree more with that one...
Do you have anything to add besides, “I don’t agree?”
What do you get from going into NG+? The boss weapons/spells you missed? This is undeniably the least replayable, no incentive, once you did it all one run...why do it again? You really wanna do Road's End Catacombs a second time? You'll just do the Rememberance bosses like a speedrun. Bad incentive.
He's kinda right for the DLC, I disagree the base game isn't replayable, the fragments are very useful but on subsequent runs going back to collect them for an extremely long time is really tedious.
Elden ring lives and dies on the premise of exploration.
The moment that mystery is gone it only leaves you with mostly mid bosses and mid dungeons.
@@ultimaabyssal2484 You could start a new playthrough and use different builds. Having beaten Elden Ring near to 100 times, I'd argue it's the most replayable for me personally.
Radahn is the only boss that made me use the greatshield so much. I didn't even bother dodging most of his attacks, I just tanked everything, even his meteor attack in phase 2. The talisman that reduces non-physical damage taken while blocking helped a lot with that. And he also made me respec for a bleed build to shorten his slog of a fight.
regarding scadutree fragments, only 28 of the 50 are really required to hit the softcap and the rest are negligible. so you dont have to collect all 50, in fact if youre replaying and are decent at the game, around 20 are enough, which easily come by without any additional search in your playthrough.