How Shadow of the Erdtree BROKE Me
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- Опубликовано: 4 июл 2024
- Elden Ring's new DLC expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, helps bring the game to new heights with its excellent emphasis on exploration, but it's Tarnished somewhat by its poor boss design. This video will highlight some of the core issues I had with the DLC in the hope that FromSoft and other developers will do better.
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In my opinion, map layers would be *so* beneficial
I agree. A 3D version of the map would be great too
Yeah I was getting so lost that I felt like I was Roronoa Zoro.
The fissure definitely needed its own map
You guys are spoiled. I preferred it when it didnt have maps at all
@@jakemoore5077 Those games are much smaller in scope and more linear
Also no offense I think it is kind of silly to play without the blessings it’s like trying to play the base game without any golden seeds or sacred tears fine for a challenge run but I wouldn’t rate the game based on it
Yeah, it's clown shit. People always complain that these games are too hard when they're not using the full toolkit provided by the devs. It's like complaining that cereal tastes bad when you stubbornly refuse to put milk on it.
That has no bearing on attack windows and boss design. The scadu will make the fights shorter, not more fair.
Yeah, I always saw these things as the stuff they gave you on Sekiro.
The only complain is that it can be tedious to collect them all, because they give you the neccesary to get max level unlike Golden Seeds which they give more than you need, but from that to not use them at all, sounds that could backfire very easily.
Its like doing an RL1 because technically it is, and on a first run you dont want to make your experience more painful than it should be, this boss fights alone are normally endgame tier difficulty wise, if not more.
Yeah, I kinda agree. I get not wanting to use summons but not using the blessings makes the game so much more unapproachable than it’s intended to be. I did the dlc on ng+, 90% no summons and only found a couple bosses legitimately feeling overtuned. The blessing are literally there to let you handle the speed of the dlc. If you wanna say there’s bit of artificial difficulty baked into it because of that fine, but I think there’s only so much complaining you can do if you knowingly avoid using them
@@Miquellested The scadutree fagments greatly helps you on being more tanky as well, which makes these fights far more reasonable stat wise. Moveset wise...Is the Elden Ring boss design debate again, and like Iron Pinneaple said on a note after his review, im honestly a bit tired of this debate as well.
Not surprised with your take on DLC gameplay. You’ve said you didn’t really enjoy Elden Ring’s gameplay direction, and the DLC has definitely turned it up a few notches.
I’m very surprised to hear some of the souls vets speak this way. I’m old, slow and fairly mid at these games and I can do it without summons. Reminds me of back in the day when people said dark souls was too hard.
If you don't mind me asking, how old is "old"?
@@djbeema being a smidge self-deprecating, but I’m 30. Just past the peak reaction time was the point I was trying to get across. Lol probably just too in the habit of calling my self “old” when gaming.
@@Mr_Sunday_Gary30 is less than half the average life span. You’re in a bad place in life if you’re referring to yourself as “old” as 30. 30 year olds can still look like college kids
Playing as a caster, I cannot speak for the whole DLC yet, as I haven't finished it. I personally have noticed the bosses definitely seem to be much more capable of quickly closing distances or having attacks they can use at range. I have also noticed a few odd times where bosses seem to almost "commit" to attacking one target, regardless if another is hitting them currently, but I also confess I'm no expert on Elden Ring boss AI.
Yeah they ignore summons a lot
Like they know they just need to kill us to win
It's definitely a thing. Bosses here will ignore the hell out of your summons and ashes to laser focus on you. I've seen memes about it so it's definitely a common issue
Why would anyone complain about the difficulty if you aren’t leveling up? Did you beat the base game at level 1?
While I agree that the lack of tells and camera issues with the bosses, I think I'm in agreement with others that your feeling of needing to be more passive is entirely colored by the lack of blessings. For example, i was stuck on Radahn for 3 days, the way I ended up beating him without summons or a shield was just being super aggressive, knowing when to dodge or tank weaker hits, always healing instead of punishing when need be, and sneaking in hits between attack combos.
Even if I'm fine with the direction bosses are going, I do understand the disappointment with From's boss design here. It's the arms race with the skilled players. Roll catches, combo branches and extensions, attacks that can't be d and need either jumping, sprinting, or blocked. And in general, bosses can't reasonably be sight read, attacks aren't intuitive, and require more memorization.
I'm perfectly fine with this personally, but i can definitely see how divisive that is.
The only bosses I felt were unreliable, either by hitboxes or attack patterns, were Gaius and the last boss. Specifically, Gaius's hog charge--I would roll (medium load) to the side, or through him and slightly to the side, and *sometimes* the roll would succeed, but sometimes it would fail. Same direction and timings. For him, I ultimately chose to use Raptor of the Mists on the regular martial arts weapon in order to deal with the "chip" damage.
When I've played Elden Ring, extensively during the base game, it was apparent to me that one of the many guarantees of this game, is that you *will* take chip damage. From basic enemies, to bosses. The chip can be avoided with specific timings and positionings, but sometimes it's just worth tanking instead of waiting out, like Margit's dagger post-overhead-attack as a famous example. Hitless isn't the goal, just beating the boss is, no matter what restrictions and tools you apply to yourself. When I encountered chip like in Rellana's fight, where you *can* choose to try and stay mid-range, rolling left or right to maintain distance, but that choice comes with taking chip. You can also choose to avoid all attacks by both walking, sprinting, and rolling backwards and away from her, at the appropriate times. This was how I learned to defeat her at my weakest, ~rl90, +6 blessing, sub-60 vigor--you can just walk away from her attacks and bait out parriable ones. Sometimes you'll want to dodge in a different direction. I'd say parries are worth utilizing when it feels like the game is asking that of you, like for Malenia.
Ultimately, I found that, with time, each boss's attacks were as recognizable as Malenia's during her fight. Yes, it's confusing that there are multiple ways in which the boss can raise their sword above their head, but sooner or later you'll probably notice a difference, like where they move, what attacks they used just prior, or whichever. After listening to this video, I won't say you're categorically wrong or anything like that, but we must be interpreting the bosses differently, or have different forms of intuition, or *something*, because I kind of already felt used to most of the traits you've listed these new bosses to have. Things like rollcatching, and position-based attack patterns. I'm also used to swapping to one of, idk, seven or so, weapons if a fight calls for it, like Gaius's, so being "asked" to do something like that doesn't come off to me as wrong, it's just what the game wants, which is ultimately more important than what I want.
As for an indication of a difference between a three-hit combo and a ten-hit combo composed of multiple three-hit combos and such, idk. For me it *feels* like trying to read when an attack pattern is going to end, rather than trying to tell from the beginning. Like, with Malenia and Rellana, they have a ton of extensions, but the tell for when they're done (most of the time) is when they reach a pause in their combo, where they choose either to extend it or not, and basically if they *don't* extend the combo, that pause will be a little longer than usual, and *that's* your tell to perform an action right then and there, but you *musn't* hesitate. I don't know, really, how objective this reading of bosses is, but it's the *feeling* I get when fighting and watching them. It's really difficult to describe muscle memory when it comes to interpreting what's on-screen, like what I'm looking for at a given time. I'm basically "okay" with attack strings having rng, but yeah that doesn't mean anything.
The final boss, though, does suck. That's the one where I'd say a lot of your points, like *extremely* limited healing and counterattack opportunities, strange attack strings, and lack of indication--especially for those damn beams of light--can really show as issues. It is overtuned. Like, "15%" overtuned. I beat it once, on a relatively weak character--rl157, but with only a +12 blessing (at the time, I presumed the max was +15), using the Lucerne, and frostbite via chilling mist ash. I'm cool with the bullshit, conceptually, because it's more than plain that this is a boss *more powerful* than RadaBeast--it's *one* healthbar instead of two, but it also says "GOD SLAIN" upon victory, one of only two times that shows up. And, it's "as optional as" Malenia. It has, whether anyone likes it or not, earned its own bullshit. I do think it can retain that level of earned-bullshit, even if the boss gets an overall nerf, like slightly slower breaks between swings, and poise damage against the player being decreased. I know bosses are designed to ask the player to perform specific actions, and that's perfectly fine conceptually, but this final boss is asking for "too much", much in the same way that Malenia's Waterfowl Dance is *fine*, but also probably expects too much from the player, *even if* it can be dealt with in easy ways like use of a shield.
It's a cool boss, I'm fine with it, but yeah it wouldn't lose much essence with tweaks. I don't feel this way about Messmer, Rellana, Midra, Lion Dancer, etc, or even Gaius for the most part. A really easy way for me to conceptualize their difficulty was to recognize, repeatedly, that these guys are positioned to be harder than *Mohg*, no matter what. His fight is already a beautiful dance, with rollcatches, position-based attacks, encouraged use of a specific item (the crystal tear), and such. He *is* the prime example of what is being expected of you. If you can fight him with ease as your second shardbearer--a favorite exercise of mine, even pre-dlc--it is my opinion that it would be strange to find more than a couple problems with the DLC. It sounds to me like you can, Last Protag, so, I suppose that's why your review, while understandable, confuses me a little. I'm glad you made it, nonetheless. Your thoughts were explained well! Anyone who doesn't see where you're coming from, at least, would be acting disingenuous.
Your criticism sound like the ones i made in the basegame just to realize i just didn't understand the moveset. Then when i did, i found new openings to jump attack, crouch attack, heal and then you can stance break them more reliably trivializing all content. I did 3 playthroughs so far, one melee, one faith, one int, working on a sage build (fth/ith)
For some bosses it was better to fling spells, others i dropped the spells and went full melee. (No respec, i always build for both and shift equipment around) But in every case i felt the boss was fair, even after defeat i found that i could chew their lifebar increasingly pretty much in every attempt and honestly didn't mind dying 10-15 times to them due to the spectacle in my first playthrough (int build)
I did use scadu tree, and maximized my builds as much as i could for each boss, though i had about the required number of blessings for each case.
The only boss i actually feel was unfair is the consort one, 2nd phase. 1st phase is good fun. But the second kind of breaks every single build i'm accustomed to and had to resort to poise casting endure and mimic. This figut doesn't feel at all like it is intended for "any way you want to play" and feels like i'm going to have to either endure to open windows or fingerprint, which i never used at all until my melee playthrough.
Every criticism you make apply ten times over in that one.
Other than that, no complaints from me!
I would say though, i think your lack of blessings forbids you from trading completely which shuts down many opportunities for sure. I tend to trade more when i think i'm about to get a stance break, now you can't do that half as aggressively as i can. Definitely locks you out of a valid gameplay strategy. I think that alone changes your perception of the game. Moreover you say you don't like fights of attrition. That's what I'm looking for in these boss fights. 😅 It made me enjoy this dlc bosses much more than the base game by far
I know you said your issue was a separate one from the negatives from not using the Scadu blessing system, but the bosses weren’t designed with that separation in mind.
1) about the attack openings, it’s hard to be aggressive when every attack is doing too much damage to you and it whittles your resources to quickly. Not all attacks are made the same for a reason, some do loads of damage and some don’t do much at all, but when not using Scadu you’re punished more for attacks that you could be able to trade through for that last hit of a stance break, or spend too much time being cautious of an attack that when engaging with the intended game mechanics might end up being not that important to someone with more blessings. While I think every single attack is designed to be dodgable, it’s not intended for the average player to have to dodge every single attack.
2) When doing less damage you lose apart of the bosses design when it comes to health and defences. Maliketh does scary damage but has little health, it’s designed for the player to engage in a race to the bottom, a quick short-ish bout that allows maliketh to do all these crazy combos and have your hit still be meaningful after. If you’re doing little damage, yet having to survive a fight longer, these short damage windows will only extend the fight to where these combos become obnoxious and it feels like it takes agency away from the fight.
3) since you’re doing less damage than intend, the fights last longer. But the fights are not designed to be fought for that long. The longer the fight is the more likely you’re going to run into bad Rng or attack patterns that the player isn’t designed around and is less likely to see. I did 90% of a RL1 run before I ran out of time as the DLC dropped and doing that you quickly realise how jank some of the hit boxes, attack patterns, wall clipping, camera, and lots other unfair things that would be easy to brush off of wasn’t 1hkod by every attack at the end or wouldn’t be seen fighting the boss an average amount of times
I feel that doing a challenge run it should be expected that a lot of play styles will become unviable. When I did my level 1 run I had to be very patient when I attacked, and just dodging for the 1 opportunity was common. Maybe you would’ve found the DLC more fun if you did a low Scadu blessing run instead of a no Scadu blessing run.
On the other hand there’s a lot I do agree with. Rellana is my second least favourite fight in the series (fire giant being the worst), because the combos and aggression is just too much. I found myself not having enough stamina to roll all the combo, attack, and roll more because no time for it to recover on patterns, then again I did do this fight way below the probably intended Scadu tree level. This fight and area felt like another Margit, where it was meant to kick your ass and send you back exploring, especially being positioned right before a cross roads. Also the aggression of some of the bosses is a bit ridiculous, I do think all bosses should have some neutral if for at least phase 1. I think dancing entirely to the tune of the bosses is just not fun. Camera issues and lock on points have been a constant issue since the base game, looking at you ancient dragons and all the others mentioned in the video.
I loved the DLC, it was my favourite time gaming ever, but it does have its issues. I think it needed another 6months imo~. It feels like there was more they wanted to do but scrapped it, and the choice in final boss was very disappointing considering there was no build up to it in base game vs a certain other. Can’t wait to see your takes on the lore:)
At scadu 14+ and 53 vig bosses can still clear half to 2/3 of my HP per hit. So.... Yeah that. Scadu felt like a placebo to me a lot of the time
Ya know, you talking about how the bosses have no openings really reminded me of what people said about the base game bosses near the launch.
And Honestly, a lot of criticism of DLC just feels very reminiscent of what people were saying about the base game in general
I can't speak for others, but the only boss that felt kind of like that to me in the base game was Maliketh (as Gurranq) and the Elden Beast.
And not ALL of the DLC"s unique bosses were like that, but it seemed like the majority were.
@@LastProtagonist I’ve always said both of those fights have more openings than people give them credit for.
Like Elden beast for example: most people complained about his long drawn out combos and how he doesn’t have much of an opening after them, but in reality, it’s very reasonable to attack him in between the swings in his combos!
Now obviously every boss is different and I’m not saying attack in between the combo of the DLC bosses, but you get what I mean right?
@@shocked-by-your-nonsense although correct in that he is not famed for his gameplay prowess Specifically, I feel the way you worded this comment to be overly rude.
@@LastProtagonistAfter doing a second playthrough I found all the major bosses to have significant and frequent damage opportunities except Bayle and lightning phase lion. The main issue with Bayle is he has too many huge windup attacks that aren’t punishable in second phase. Also Radahns cross slash that roll catches you requires specific positioning to avoid. Unfortunately getting to the right position in time limits the punishes you can do what makes slower weapons annoying to use on him. All though if you don’t care about taking the relatively small damage from that attack you’re fine. Btw for what it’s worth you can actually jump the explosion on the nuke of Bayle. What’s stupidly unintuitive but that does give you a significant damage opportunity.
I personally really like bosses to feel unfair and frustrating when first fighting them but with practice and understanding they start to feel fun and fair. This makes me feel especially rewarded for getting good as I’m actually being rewarded with a more fun fight. I think every fight other than Metyr and consort Radahn give you significantly more damage opportunities with experience and in general feel more fun to fight the more you fight them what is ultimately what I’m looking for in a boss personally.
The one thing you are right on though is bosses are quick to punish you at range. This is imo an improvement as this weakness made many bosses comically easier with a range build in base Elden ring. It’s actually still much easier to punishes boss with magic in this dlc than it is in ds3. Magic was pretty insufferable in ds3 though. Despite having so much damage I honestly think magic was seriously underpowered in ds3.
Edit: Also added note that I honestly wish more action games would use more fights that are balanced around using audio ques to dodge the boss. You say this wouldn’t be ideal because of accessibility issues but I really think limiting developers expression due to possible accessibility issues is pretty silly. Devil may cry 3 is to this day the only action game that is heavily balanced around very distinct audio ques. The enemies on very hard and above gain their full move sets and it wouldn’t be even remotely fair or as unique/just good of an experience if it wasn’t balanced the way it was. The game on very hard and above is still one of the best action games ever made.
I agree, we have been fighting the base game bosses for two years. We know how to fight them so well now, but I remember at the time people saying there were no openings and unreadable infinite combos.
Semi-related:
You can fully upgrade the black steel greatshield and apply sacred to it to raise its holy absorption to 100%. Yes, 100%. It's actually kind of nuts. The most busted setup is to apply Vow of the Indomitable with sacred affinity. Makes bosses like Rada-Beast an absolute joke.
Vow of the indomitable itself is seriously underrated. I fought Gaius as a high mind caster and didn't even realize there was a problem with his charge move because I just voti'd through it every time. It basically just turns off a lot of moves
I found you just have to stay close and heal while you’re right there for a lot of the bosses in the doc
Yep and never roll backwards because they will just combo you
I found that these bosses punish passivety an aggressive trade with Rellana would net more benefit to waiting out her combos and attacking her during her return to neutral or a finisher
What im trying to say is DS3 player me was getting constantly punished during combo starters for attacking bosses near their finishers while my second run through of this DLC has shown me just how much the dlc rewards direct aggression and trading with bosses or hitting them during a whiff
And fighting Malenia which is a boss i suck against in the base game after beating the dlc shows me just how much ive improved after learning what the dlc was trying to push me to learn that agression and being willing to attack the boss during a whiff will reward you massively while playing passing will lead to a slow crawling and almost garunteed death it felt easy to basically bully malenia with an aggressive playstyle not waiting for her to attack and roll attacking several of her main attacks into an aggressive push that had me as a very bad player of the game rushing through her first phase try 1 and eventually taking an easy victory lap after releaning her second phase transition attack try 7 or so
So for me, the only self imposed challenge I had was no summons. I went in with an arcane build because I wanted to get as many drops from enemies as I could on my first playthrough.
Unfortunately, one of the first things I did was explore the first area very thoroughly and I managed to find the bloodfiend's arm colossal weapon in prospect town, I occult infused it immidiately because I thought beating things with an enemies arm was pretty badass.
I say unfortunately because that weapon alone pretty much trivialized the rest of the DLC, even the last boss only took me around 30 or so attempts, so initially when I saw all the complaints about difficulty I thought it was just normal Fromsoft new player influx business.
My next playthrough, I wanted to play as a dex build with backhand blades because they seemed cool, and this is where things started to make more sense for me. You really start to notice the attack windows when the couple of attacks you do get to make do very little damage (relative to an instant bleed colossal weapon smash) and on-top of that, even against regular enemies, if you get NO staggers, you start to realize even they are crazy relentless (the Fire Knights, for example).
It's funny that you say that the DLC encourages a passive playstyle since it had the opposite effect on me. Bosses like Rellana and Messmer forced me to fight them more aggressive but that's probably because i am mainly using a bleed build. Having said that, the talismans i equiped in most of the DLC have defensive effects like reducing damage, which encouraged to play it more aggressively due to the damage i take getting heavily reduced.
I definitely had to play more aggressively because I would run out of flasks if I didn't.
Yeah I just learned how to parry Rellana and radahn and it made me play super aggressive with them. Punish with milady and whip out misericorde for crits
Same. I used stormcaller and the new dancing lion talisman the whole time. I normally run sword and board.
That's another testament to how bad his "review" or "thoughts" are.
Funnily enough, we share a lot of the same criticisms, despite me having played by utilizing the Scadutree Fragments (and also using Spirit Summons here and there). The general trend towards "unrelenting aggression" is something that soured me on many bosses (I'm looking at you, Gaius and Radahn) and went beyond my first impressions. Like, i use CE so that i can rebattle bosses/train for challenge/themed runs and bosses like Metyr, Bayle and Radahn are just beyond frustrating, even at Max Scadutree level. The boss design definitely wants you to trade in the hopes that you will get a stance break/finishing blow/phase transition, matching the aggression of the bosses, which i gathered is one of the key reasons for the Fragments' existence. It's ultimately why i think that it's a kind of disservice towards the DLC to not use them in a first playthrough, because some of it is definitely really tough (even unfairly so, in some cases) if you play it as intended, but also makes some sections rather satisfying and rewarding, in a way that is unlike the base game IMO
Same
I really dont like the direction Fromsoft is heading
Problem is dlc balanced around easy mode like summon so it killed us solo player
I preserved and killed them solo but I dont really love the experience
@@katsuragirin6168 I don't think that using summons constitutes an "easy mode" to begin with. The base game is built around the supposition that you will use them, not the other way around. That aside, summons are as varied as it gets. They do not exist on a spectrum of "worse than - almost as good as the Mimic Tear" (although this kind of problematic represents a failure of the mechanic, especially in the late game). If anything, a problem in the DLC is that summons are more often than not useless, whether we are talking about Spirit or NPC summons. The AI of many does not mesh well with how the DLC bosses behave, leading them to be functionally idle more often than not. NPC summons end up inflating the bosses HP bar and resistances to a ridiculous degree, leading them to end up being a nuisance (ex: Thiollier and Ansbach in the Radahn fight, but also Dane in the Romina fight fits the bill, despite her being a really fair and readable boss). And that's a shame, because it makes the Revered Spirit Ashes feel pointless and also sorely needed (Torrent can take absurd amounts of damage really easily, leading you to use more Crimson Flasks than it would be desireable) all at once, while also making any sense of camaraderie with the new NPCs feel more like a burden, a self-imposed challenge if you see one of the summoning signs before the fog gate, which is not a feeling i ever had when i summoned Millicent at every occasion in the base game
After doing a second playthrough I found all the major bosses to have significant and frequent damage opportunities except Bayle and lightning phase lion. The main issue with Bayle is he has too many huge windup attacks that aren’t punishable in second phase. Also Radahns cross slash that roll catches you requires specific positioning to avoid. Unfortunately getting to the right position in time limits the punishes you can do what makes slower weapons annoying to use on him. All though if you don’t care about taking the relatively small damage from that attack you’re fine. Btw for what it’s worth you can actually jump the explosion on the nuke of Bayle. What’s stupidly unintuitive but that does give you a significant damage opportunity.
I personally really like bosses to feel unfair and frustrating when first fighting them but with practice and understanding they start to feel fun and fair. This makes me feel especially rewarded for getting good as I’m actually being rewarded with a more fun fight. I think every fight other than Metyr and consort Radahn give you significantly more damage opportunities with experience and in general feel more fun to fight the more you fight them. What is ultimately what I’m looking for in a boss personally.
The one thing you are right on though is bosses are quick to punish you at range. This is imo an improvement as this weakness made many bosses comically easier with a range build in base Elden ring. It’s actually still much easier to punish bosses with magic in this dlc than it is in ds3. Magic was pretty insufferable in ds3 though. Despite having so much damage I honestly think magic was seriously underpowered in ds3.
Edit: Also added note that I honestly wish more action games would use more fights that are balanced around using audio ques to dodge the boss. You say this wouldn’t be ideal because of accessibility issues but I really think limiting developers expression due to possible accessibility issues is pretty silly. Devil may cry 3 is to this day the only action game that is heavily balanced around very distinct audio ques. The enemies on very hard and above gain their full move sets and it wouldn’t be even remotely fair or as unique/just good of an experience if it wasn’t balanced the way it was. The game on very hard and above is still one of the best action games ever made.
I actually found the attacks in the DLC were more readable than in the base game. Some bosses are even as predictable as DS3 bosses. Messmer's in particular felt so intuitive to me.
I played Max NG+ with blessings, and my character was lvl 300. But I used a Cold Milady with the deflect tear and the messmer soldier shield. Occasionally used magic. As my build is that way to be a super version of my 139 spellblade. Which I'm also going through the DLC Currently. Amongst other builds. With some bosses like Putrescent Knight, I employed more caster strategies, same with Bayle (I did stagger him to then cast, and using projectiles is helpful for the bosses's retreats). Lion Dancer's elemental phases grated my spellblades opportunities to punish with spells. Though, I still am not good against the Lightning phase specifically. All other elements are fine by me. People seem to be having trouble with the Ice phase, but it came naturally to me.
I prefer melee approaches, but Elden Ring allowed me to actually play hybrid, and I found a whole new world of punishes opens with it.
In my Str and dex characters, I had no trouble with status effects, and all bosses have windows to land a charge attack and jump heavies. Most of their combo chains also have interludes where regular R1, fast AoW, roll attack, and even regular heavies can fit. I genuinely don't know how to respond when you say there aren't openings. The bosses give a lot soace when they retreat, and through both positioning and learning their attack recoveries you have time to heal/buff.
Aye! Another Milady enjoyer! :D
I frankly loved the bosses in base Elden Ring, and I still loved the DLC bosses! But I think ye are right in that regard. They felt much easier(except the Final Boss but I loved that fight!), but they were more engaging!
I do agree!
very much so, yeah. these are probably my favorite bosses in the game, give or take one or two.
@@mattb6616 I know for a fact that if I used any of my 125-150 characters in base NG and NG+, I wouldn't have had any big trouble except for maybe Radahn. People really just refuse to pay attention.
@@DrnMontemayor people don't like switching up their approach or understanding that the full moveset has a function. People will complain but not ever sprint, jump as a defensive tool, back step, crouch attack, do an uncharged r2, etc. they say the bosses are unbeatable while 2handing a colossal weapon and only doing jump r2s with what feels like 5 full seconds of recovery.
Whenever I encountered a new boss I was like "oh great, another 3-4 hours of tries until I kill him" instead of "oh sick, can't wait to learn him and defeat him"
Full solo playthrough with a no bs quality build with Q Milady, Dancing Lion and Radahn have to he the worst designed bosses ever
Scadutree avatar, Romina and Messmer are the best ones, not because they're easy (they ain't), but because they are fun to learn, and fair to fight; readable attacks, no bs combos or unfair business
Besides the bosses, this DLC really let me realize that open world just doesn't fit at all with the Souls formula
Yeah it's fun at first, mad fun, you're discovering new bosses, actual areas, enemies, items, but after a couple of hours you start seeing just repeated stuff over and over again spread out across massive empty areas
Whereas in classic Souls worlds (DeS up to DS3), every time you got to a new area, most of the stuff was BRAND new, yes there are some reused enemies here and there but at least every area has a new enemy at a minimum, and a brand new actual boss, not some reskinned dragon or an NPC boss fight
I do want this game to be the last open world Fromsoft does
Do as thy wilt to have fun, but these arbitrary and rigid conditions people apply to themselves on their first playthrus kinda boggles my mind, especially when they proceed to criticize the game or other players afterword based on that experience. Personally, as a lover of challenging games I don't find Elden Ring's combat very fun unless I'm running stats that others would call OP or broken. Idk dude, these games create a social effect I've never seen elsewhere.
I mean in this particular situation he is just not engaging with a system that increases damage and defence. He’s just criticising the mechanical/action game elements. More damage and defence would not fix mechanical and action game elements. I feel like it’s pretty clear in the video that’s all he’s complaining about. He is using all the action mechanics including summons so it’s not like he’s fighting the bosses in an unintended way. Just with less stats than expected.
@@porkwhisperer3050 But he is doing that with waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less stats then expected. Also, the great difference with stats will change how you approach the fights mechanically and will make you play passively, especially on a first playthrough. You need time and a margin of error with bosses in order to learn their attacks and possible openings, but if the boss one-shots you with every attack you will ofc play more passively and only attack when you are absolutely, positively, 100% sure that it is safe, and never with more than a single attack. Kinda like how you play when a boss you have been stuck on forever has only sliver of health but so have you (and no flasks left) so you will make damn sure that you dont fail because of greed. So you turtle up behind your shield and wait for that one particular attack/combo that you are absolutely sure will give you an opening. Additionally, new attacks that the boss whips out in the latter phases will probably also make you play even more passively, as they will probably one-shot you and you have already come so far into the fight, so you most likely wont be willing to sacrifice that "run" just to see when/if you can get in an attack or two.
The most important thing is health/defences as it is what lets you take risks and even some trades, creating more openings and a more of a back-and-forth feel in the fight. Additionally, having too low AR will make the fight tedious as you need to hit the boss 1000 times before it goes down. Having the boss one-shot you and you only be able to tickle it back requires you to play perfectly for very long stretches of time, draining you mentally and making you react even slower and play even more passively. Some people are really into that, and they're really cool for that, but to not be Ongbal-level gigachad and basically play the DLC on RL1 as your first blind run and then say it is too hard is just madness.
From what he says, he didn't want to rob himself of the challenge. He overcorrected his flaw and damned himself. Watching the video he said that he has what Pyrocynical calls "Ubisoft brain" where he will do literally everything else, obsessively explore the rest of the open world before doing the first boss and then hilariously steamrolling through it by accident.
It's not a skill issue, it's a knowledge check issue. If you think about it, the bosses are not based on reaction but based on how much you can memorize a script. Reaction and knowledge are different types of difficulty and I'm one who has never been keen on CPU enemies being primarily knowledge checks who hit like a truck, have little recovery time and heal punishment at every turn. It isn't fun and forces you to use a turtle build until you memorize the patterns.
As someone really bad at these games. I found that just having the Bloodborne/Sekiro mindset for this DLC made this easier.
I kinda disagree that there isn't enough punish windows. Positioning and looking closely at the seemingly random moveset helped wonders.
The blessings were a big help to learn the movesets of the bosses since I don't get one shot. I rarely used defensive talismans, although I made sure I had at least boiled crab. The blessings were the key to actually learning the aggressive moveset of the bosses and even then just be more aggressive and it yielded better results. It seems they opted to punish passive play here. The Deflect tear also lets you incorporate this aggressiveness into your playstyle through guard counters.These are huge for actually giving yourself space to hitback and usually after 2 to 3 of these you just are able to put a stop to the boss(Except the last boss).
Mindset shifting seems to be the best play here.
So let me get this straight, you complain about being forced into a passive playstyle because bosses do too much damage and forced you to use spirit summons, but you willingly ignore the scadutree system which mitigates this problem in the first place. What's next? Are you going to complain about getting one shotted because you went in your underwear and didn't want to level up because it doesn't match your playstyle? SMH
He never complained about the bosses damage. He complained about the bosses movesets heavily encouraging passive play. I still think he’s largely wrong but his criticism was about the movesets. Not their stats.
@@porkwhisperer3050 It's right there in the video. He's talking about receiving too much damage forcing a passive playstyle or having to summon while admitting to downright ignoring the scadutree system. If you go back to the same boss with higher scadu level the boss becomes much more manageable regardless of move set, as it gives you enough damage resistance to properly identify windows that allow you to learn when to dodge/block/heal.
Here's the thing, I used the blessing system and all of his criticisms still hold true. They aren't related to damage amount. I feel like you weren't paying attention.
@@djbeema yeah that’s just simply not true. Absolutely no one that’s interacted with this system will agree with you there. Seems you’re the one not paying attention to properly equipping yourself as well as taking affinity damage mitigation into account if you’re still having trouble. One look at your stats bar reveals objectively correct information on how your damage negation as well as damage dealt increases per scadutree blessing applied. It’s not an instant win button or a tank anything system either, you still need to properly equip yourself and learn to properly dodge or block.
Honestly I think they should have left the Scadutree frags out all together. Personally just finished a second DLC playthrough. I ended the first at Scadutree level 17 (RL150 NG) and felt underwhelmed by the final few bosses due to lack of challenge, so this one I went into the DLC at RL1(NG) and only used items/gear found in the DLC and no scadu frags. It felt a lot more rewarding the second time through because I actually had to learn movesets of bosses and enemies in the levels would regularly one shot me, causing me to actually interact with the crafting and stealth mechanics to clear levels (for probably the first time since the game launched). I understand with so many people already complaining about the DLC being too difficult having no real system to mitigate that would have been too much for many people so I get why they put it there. That being said the DLC feels quite well balanced even without scadu frags, so long as you're not new to souls/ER, I will admit I have over 1000 hrs in the base game so I am biased, but generally the boss movesets become quite easy to read for the most part after a few good runs. My first DLC playthrough (totally blind so not exploring everything) took about 50hrs and the second which I did explore pretty much everything you can and completed as many NPC questlines as possible, again with zero scadu frags, took about 40hrs so in the end they made no real difference for how long I got stuck on things like bosses and areas. I also ended the second playthrough at RL125 and despite the final boss' phase 2 being brutal still, it was very manageable with a proper setup. Obviously this is just my take, but I think your idea of going into it with no frags originally was a good one 👍
(Edit: Just finished the video, I think your problem was twofold. If the footage used is from your scaduless run, that is. Firstly the Raging Wolf set while peak in fashion has very mid defenses, when not using Scadu frags you need decent armor like 40% physical negation before buffs like golden vow etc. Secondly my man, you are using a COLLOSAL sword in most fights! No wonder you have no time to punish attacks you're using one of the slowest weapon classes available! I would highly recommend a retry with Light Greatsword, backhand blades, or beast claws, you need fast attacks when not using scadu frags.)
The dlc DOES NOT encourage passivity bro. Literally 90% of attacks are made to be dodged towards the enemies to counterattack and some bosses can't even hit when you're sticking to them like Radahn.
Watch Ongbal punch Midra or Messmer in the face for half the duration of the fight and tell me you need to play passively again.
I just dont see it. I disagree completely. There are many opportunities to be agressive, if there were more it wouldnt feel like Souls combat anymore imo.
And im totally fine with being on the defensive for a few seconds when bosses pull out their cool signature moves (even tho you can punish one or two of those too).
Unfortunately for Last Protag this video is the meme where a guy puts a sticj in his bicycles wheels and falls. Making the boss twoshot you made him pay passively since he couldnt learn the much of the moves each attempt, which is a suboptimal playestyle and absolutely the wrong conclusion to have about the DLC. When you learn the fights, bosses like Rellana and Messmer is a rythmic dance
Yeah, Rellana I found I could roll into her and basically be safe from almost all her swinging sword moves. It was almost my first time fighting her and I noticed that.
I did pretty well with an all caster build. The Talisman you get from beating the finger Story is crazy good
To answer the questions. I never had much of a problem learning much of the bosses since I learned to adapt to thier flow. Alot of them had a forward momentum to them, which played into how the weapons were designed in the DLC. I played mostly using STR weapons with high enough endurance for medium rolling.
I only did Lion, Messmur, Gaius, Hippo, Flower and Rennalla. There's some bosses I have to go through still, but besides not really getting much of a chance to learn lion properly(patch that improved the fragments made it so the boss did too little damage to me) I don't really agree that the bosses have small/little punish windows. Especially in the case of Gaius, Rennala and Messmur. These bosses seemed to rely very much on positioning for me and paying close attention to attacks that leave them open enough for a punish or a heal.
Like with Rennala, it got a point where I mentally kept track of how many times I hit her with a charged heavy or an ash that dealt decent poise damage. And whenever she'd charge her swords in a stance, I'd rush her to break her poise instead of waiting for the attacks to go off(she has a TON of frames where she does nothing after charging her swords). Otherwise I learned take advantage of sprinting to reposition myself to avoid certain attacks. I even hit her with full charged heavy attacks(the full two hits) while she's standing up post-critical to break her poise quicker on the following loop.
So yeah, I had fun with the fight. The bosses are very different compared to base game, but I like the metagame behind them.
I think the Abyss and Cerulean Coast zones were pretty barren and could have easily been half the size without losing virtually anything.
Sure you aren't just getting burnt out on Souls?
Some interesting ways to play. . "Not using spirit ashes if it s not aa fight against multiple enemies at the same time.." "..not leveling up after Malenia to punish that.."
Really intersting but if you allow that to interferes with miyazakis vision of what is a playthrough. Also not using scadudatree blessing but keeping on rantingabout difficulty spikes has made me unsubscribe.
The DLC starter area gives you quite some scadudatree blessing even before rellana for a reason. That reason being that it has it s OWN scaling. Choose to ignore andfind out.
They also added a soft cap so the earlier ones bring you even more HP and DMG dealt. After exploring the starting area i essentually FLATTENED Rellana and got access to scadu altus.
And from there it s basically open world. There is no way in hell ANYONE actually struggles with difficulty there. I currently have like 13 scadutatree blessing and i m not even done exploring but I can like 10 shot Bayle. I work full time and got very little time to play. But Elden Ring when it first launched was my first souls borne. The rest of froms masterpieces followed shortly after.
It CERTAINLY has some questionable choices; one being the lag beasts lag (dancing lion performance), the other one is probably the later "rarity" of graces whilst exploring paired with inconsistant fall damage and the map geetting pushed to it s borders here.
None of those are game breaking. The bosses aren t overtuned or unfair, like some in the main game. I entered the DLC lvl 120, which was when i beat the game and currently am lvl 150+.
Dancing Lion: typical beastial hyper aggression but easily stance broken with some heavies
Rellana: requires perfect positioning to hit inbetween her unending combos, if you dont wanna wait them out.
Altus rune bear: I never liked rune bears..
Midra: PEAK
Shadow Sunflower: HORRIBLE but at least weak to fire (lucky me my build had blackflame)
Bayle: CUUURSE YOUUU BAAAAYYYLLEE
Messmer: P E A K
I ll leave out more for now but these were the ones I mainly remembered in that exact order. And there wasn t really one where i felt like i had to gather blessings and return overleveled since most areas previously already gave me what I need. Being stubborn is cool. But also talking Sennessax down when with incantation i can have like 90% lightning reduction for 3 minutes is wild..
In which case; skill issue
get gut
I was a solo caster, throughout the DLC and it wasnt that bad but a lot of what you said resonated with me.
The only boss i got tilted playing was Gaius, and only because of the closing attack. If the game wants you to use a horse during the fight it needs to give you time to get on it, as you need to get away from the steps to get on torrent.
The fun bosses for me, were probably the ''easiest' fights i had, not because i didnt die, I died a lot. Its because they were visually interesting, or had some interesting aspect to them. like:
Scadutree avatar - great gimmick that made me second guess myself if i was doing things right and almost surprised me.
Metyr - there is very little eldrich-esq bosses and the areana is sick looking
Additionally, i do dislike how the difficulty conversation overshadows the DLCs flaws, though the mainstory is great parts, its ending falls apart. It feels like radahan was an actual boss reuse because they couldnt figure out how to get Godyin there,m or have enough time to make a model for him.
Please also guys, Remember, the DLC introduced a lot of game-play issues that left people with a bad taste. A bit more time in the oven and i feel these kinks would have been polished out or improved
Hey LP. As a low vigor challenge runner myself, I think never upgrading the scadus AT ANY POINT (especially against high HP foes like Bayle and Promised Consort Radahn) is not necessarily a good idea on a blind playthrough.
I'd agree with you that there is no need to upgrade with Scadus for the first 3 bosses (dancing lion, rellana and golden hippo) It can be nice in terms of scaling to do +5 for Romina. and +10 for Messmer, Bayle and frankly rest of the line up. Maybe for the final boss, you might want to go all out.
This will still force you to learn the moveset while never feeling that 'it is dissatisfactory' feeling you got from Margit after exploring limgrave and cealid. You don't need to cut the arm off just because your finger bleeds so to speak.
Furthermore, all the bosses have very precise yet hard to punish windows. I have posture broken each phase of all bosses (many of them multiple times) with reliability and consistency. There is almost zero waiting around. Not super easy to decipher all this on a blind playthrough but they can be understood and exploited.
And low vigor kinda helps me with that. Makes sure I don't brute force the boss with damage, actually learn and find my punish windows in an aggressive manner.
DLC bosses are hard but not that hard. And your no scadu rule kinda intimidated you too much (as the fight drags on) which probably made you more and more passive when you should be very aggressive to exploit these short windows of opportunities.
Kudos for doing a no scadertree blessing run, I was going to but immediately tossed that idea after getting two tapped by rellana, and honestly for me the best way to describe how the dlc felt is I felt like playing sekiro again, in sekiro I found myself learning to respond to the bosses instead of attempting to predict what they'll do, and you will still die a lot for it - the skill ceiling just to be able to play this game got Raised so far with this dlc
Watch FightingCowboy beat Rahdan, Dancing Lion and Bale in the face for half the duration of the fight once he figured out aggression is the way to go, and tell me you need to play passively. The DLC rewards hyper aggression and dodging then attacking.
I feel like people blow the difficulity out of proportions
i had almost no issues finding windows to attack or rebuff or figuring out how and when to punish, i never use Spirit ashes
i played lvl 155 Dex build with blessings and i had like blessing level 15 when i fought and beat radahn
i was scared at first by his second phase but after a few tries, it was fine
i played milady and used messmer soldier shield with parry ashes
The only fight i felt helpless a few times was Gaius, i dont even really know why, it's just that you can't block him that good because he does a lot of stamina damage, maybe?
Bayle is the only boss that felt like he really moved around a lot and gave you a very small window to counter. There's also the final boss, but that's somewhat the point, still way easier to hit than Bayle though.
And I'm always trying to re apply buffs. Sometimes you have to take a hit to get that extra thing you need to win the whole fight. Kinda the whole "Level Vigor" argument. You could take your time and only attack when it's safe, but I prefer to be more aggressive and take a few risks for big damage or combos to make the fight more fast and engaging.
If you stay in front of Bayle same as Midir it is very fun and you can get headshots after almost every move. It seems to be the design intent because if you are at his leg he will do a get-off-me firebreath underneath and move away more frequently.
I always prefer durable builds in my first runs because if the bosses 2 shot you, you dont really learn much after each attempt
@@formatomi Almost every time I went for his head, I would just barely miss and whiff my attacks right in front of him, then he would usually jump around to other parts of the arena and I had to chase him.
The melee weapons I use typically have shorter range, so needless to say, I was losing my mind.
@@bbluva20 thats a bummer, i usually use some piercing weapon on him as dragons weaker to it and usually have goodish range (square off op) The thing i found well designed that even when he jumps away, he comes back in range with the tail swipe followup. Of course its not 100% you dont have to move but not a chase fest as with something like a Night Cavalry
@@formatomi I had to switch to the Nightrider Glaive because it was longer, lol
Imo, the main problem with these bosses is two folds of infinite stamina, and absurd damage, one simple step can be done to make bosses fairer is give them their own version of a stamina system
I felt like the boss design and move sets were in line with how the difficulty of the base game was heading. I don't think it is fair to compare Godrick to dlc bosses. the base game move sets really step up the pace late game with bosses like Maliketh. In the base game these bosses don't have much health and you can do fine trading. The DLC just continues down that path, so to me it didn't feel out of place. However I do agree that while the player does get more powerful we don't get faster and the bosses do. It did seem to limit the builds we could go for since allot of attacks have wind ups that take to long to be able to punish.
Some bosses you could reapply buffs between phases and that was as good as it gets.
I played the game as faith strength, shield great sword. It felt really cool being able to swap items and spells around to counter different bosses which is something that only becomes viable once you are high level with many items and upgrade materials, so that was great, since by the time you have that in the base game it is over.
The issue with not using the blessings, is that since you limit the way you experience the game, you also make your own experience much more detached from the most common experiences of the players. A good approach would be to perhaps try it both ways, first play with and then without the blessings.
In regards to bosses.... I unironically find them a lot more fair than bosses from the base game, I think they are excellent.
The punish windows in main game
*dodge. Dodge, dodge, time for an AOW or several heavy/light attacks*
Punish windows in dlc were like
*dodge dodge dodge, dodge but get hit anyway, get hit again because you didnt dodge first attack, dodge, dodge, dodge, opening? Nope hit, dodge, dodge, punish window finally shows long enough to choose between a heal or a light attack before restarting the cycle*
Whole dlc is a war of attrition
How long can you handle 1 second punish windows every 30 to 45 seconds is basically the game
The blessings dont do anything to enemies. They give you a percentage buff to damge and defense.
Sorry you had such a a negative experience mate. This dlc was honestly one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. I had a blast figuring out how to punish the bosses and avoid their crazy combos. Definitely a couple stinkers in the boss pool (final boss mainly). But overall I thought this was one of the funnest pieces of content From gas ever made. Your views are valid anyways tho. Not everything is for everyone after all :)
I found no issues with the bosses, except maybe the final boss (I used a crucible knight great sword btw)
Me too but I had silurias tree also and sometimes devonias hammer
@@Sablemae76 I love the hammer!
@@D0verking69 I tried it for the last boss but ordovis was just faster but it helped me take down Bayle
I found many bosses to feel unfair. Long combos which could be mixed up and chained into other combos, and no windows to heal except for at the end of a combo. So you would have to survive a long string of attacks to heal, and give up any opportunity to get your own attack in.
That being said, by the time I had learnt bosses’ attack patterns, I was really enjoying the fights. What I was most frustrated by was the arduous learning process; it took so long because getting hit more than once was a death sentence, and healing was punished. Had I been able to heal more often and more reliably it would have been a less painful learning process.
Buffs are absolutely worth using if you have the proper upgrades to end the fight in a reasonable amount of time. Aside from the final fight, most bosses took me about 2.5 minutes to clear. That’s maybe reapplying during one opening and then you’re good to continue
The camera issues are a fair point though. I think From really needs to allow more options for the larger boss fights
Plenty of bosses have chances for charged R2s, you just need to get creative about determining which attacks are hard punishes with clear openings and which ones have follow ups to watch out for. Fights like Messmer are fast, but there are certain combo finishers where you will always have the chance for a big punish.
I think the camera issue is in part a positioning issue. If you fight Bayle just as Midir you can punish with headshots after almost every move and not have problem with the camera. Another offender, the dancing lion i found is better fought at mid range, letting him come in and attack with one of his lounges. You can see the boss clearly this way. Of course if you are in a boss’ asshole next to wall, it should be expected to not see cleary
Messmer in particular has a pretty simple 1st stage if you know his combos, with clear punish windows after the long impalement combo and his slow ground scraping stab that always follows his swipe. Stading close to him will quite reliably trigger this combo over and over, so you can bait punish windows. Second phase does include the mix-up you mentioned, but knowing that, you can just choose to not punish it if you don't want to risk a trade. The big snake attacks are much easier to punish with larger hitboxes that end up right next to you and long recovery time.
It's not necessarily about being passive, but managing risk and knowing when and if it makes sense to trade. If you played without skibidi blessings, your ability to trade would have been diminished, likely contributing to your overall conclusions. I agree that there are a lot of AOE attacks, many with unclead dodge windows, that you just need to brute force over many attempts. Some will say this is bad design, but to me this is just another obstacle to overcome. As little as swapping to the right defensive talisman usually did the trick.
Ya I'm like 2 hours in the dlc. And all I keep thinking is how are none of these crazy bosses elden lord? They are all so crazy fast and strong that I can't imagine them losing a fight to radagon. The balance in the dlc is just weird I dislike it. Love the exploration still.
Honestly I haven’t had much issue with telling bosses attacks throughout the dlc with exception of the final one. Though even then I was tired and in a rush to beat the DLC before a trip so I couldn’t enjoy it as much. From my personal experience, many of the bosses seemed to have a way you can manipulate which moves come out, or they have tells that show which move they’re gonna throw out next. This especially goes for the annoying ones. I was forced to use a bleed backhand blade for many of the bosses my first run, but in the 2nd run I’ve been way more capable of setting the pace for bosses and knowing exactly which moves to exploit and how to make them end certain combos at a certain spot. Like for example with Rennalla. A lot of her combos can be forced to end prematurely if you move out within a certain range, opening her for counter attacks. And this can be done with many of her longer ones especially. Maybe it’s because I’m just a bit more analytical with bosses, but honestly I had a lot of fun learning how to fight many of the bosses, except the last one again. Though I will definitely try to learn them as well, because it definitely seems doable.
You literally did a challenge run on your first play through of course you didn’t have fun. Having zero blessings is not on being equal level with bosses you were at a severe disadvantage no wonder you thought them as unfair.
I really liked the dlc. I played solo but used all the shards i could find. In terms of Boss design, i can completely understand your point. Starting with rellana, her moves are so quick and shes probably the most agile enemy in elden ring. I struggled so much that i decided to parry her. Im not really good at parrying but it was still easier than dodging everything and i think it speaks for itself when parrying is easier than fighting a boss normaly. Messmer is one one of my favourite bosses. For me dodging in Phase two felt really intuitive, almost like a ds3 boss. But Radahn is a different beast. Im actually on Day 5 of trying to no hit him and i can say, you are kind of right. Most attacks are very good and fair designt. For fast weapons there are even consistent openings during combos between attacks but there are also openings that arent openings because he has a short pause and then can attack again but few off his attacks come out so fast that you will 100% get hit if he decides to follow up with this specific attack. Stuff like this off course reduces the number of safe openings and i think its more prevelent in the dlc than the base game. I think the bosses are great, just some attacks and follow ups are so fast that you need near perfect reaction Timing which sometimes takes a bit off fun away.
..for man with no forgiveness in heart, life worse punishment than death - Mr. Miyagi
The theme that stood out to me with the DLC bosses is that they are SO. GODDAMN. AGGRESSIVE. I consistently felt like I was unable to do anything during fights because it seemed like the bosses were not just trying to get up to my face, but up my nose too. I got the impression the devs were trying to encourage melee-only builds. The only viable way to handle Gaius that made sense to me was to get him stuck on a corner of the building and cheese him. Otherwise I would just end up trying to dodge his attacks while not having time to do anything else until I got hit once, and then I was just stun-locked to death.
@ZeroSpawn47 I started faking my inputs. Like I would hold the summons button open on the final boss at a distance to try and trigger the spinning gap closer. Easy dodge and then I have time to buff/summon/heal whatever.
I have no idea if that even did anything but DLC final boss is the hardest I ever fought in a From game.
Agree with most of the point made. But the lock on point, I think death bird is designed to be fought head on and hitting its head should be the main goal of the player, hitting its legs does significantly less damage and make the fight really awkard
Completely agreed on the bosses. This dlc had some of my favorite world exploration, and some of my most hated bosses of all time. This is the first time I've ever felt like I'm getting too old to play these games. I do not have the patience or energy to sit around defending from endless combos just so I can poke them once every few minutes. I *had* to use spirit ashws or summons just so I could have a second to heal or buff or even just cast a spell. Is it just me or did like 80% of the bosses have a one-shot grab attack triggered when you heal? Dont even get me started on the terrible camera issues that haven't been changed since demon's souls. It wasnt a problem much back then because of how relatively slow and methodical bosses were. Now they are all hyperactive backflipping spinning all over the place and, jerking the camera around at breakneck speed.
This started with Sister Fride. From gave her Bloodborne dodge while you had standard DS roll. Anyway, about punish windows, From has now left us only one option, attack when bosses are in long recovery only, whereas previously you could attack when you SAW that the boss finished a combo.
Been playin since demons souls. It had some weak moments despite being such an insanely good game. The crafting materials got a lot of flak and along with healing items got addressed in DS1. DS1's bed of chaos is notorious for feeling really shitty, despite how loved the game was and still is. DS2 had its own issues too, with enemies pivoting to avoid backstabs and things like the map layout not being coherent geographically. Bloodborne definitely had some unexpectedly bs moments, seeing a pthumerian blade fly through a column with 0 resistance that should've blocked the attack has stuck with me for years. Iirc DS3 had a lot of issue with poise and I think covenants were meh too. Sekiro was definitely something that could divide souls fans since the pacing was unlike any other while still clearly being a fromsoft game.
And then we get to Elden Ring, where Ive seen the most 50/50 comments. It has the bosses you can learn and use good timing against without having to scramble nonstop but also bosses that make the player character seem like theyre in the wrong franchise. Then the DLC takes it up a notch further. The exploration in some areas is bonkers, with some real cinematics going on (reaching cerulean coast for the first time). But you also have the furnaces. Daunting at first but very very easily learned and quickly turn into a complete chore to hack away at. Sure its not hard, but its also not fun. Some of the areas feel completely barren. The Finger Ruins and Abyssal Woods had a total whiplash effect from how much nothing is in such a large area. By far the worst issue I can think of that I dont see mentioned a lot is how insane the weather and day/night cycle are. Very jarring how abrupt the time cycle is on the dlc.
While I won't say your opinion is invalid, I will say it comes from a source that would reload a save 200 times for the grafted Scion kill. I would do that, cause I'm neurotic, but I understand my point of view is far different from others. As such, I'd challenge you to play the dlc from the perspectives of other players and see how well the game caters to that playstyle and not a very extremely particular one. Just my two cents bro, I was frustrated at first but I had to play it like others did before I got and then got to play my way ✔️💯
I also had similar concerns about the DLC being too easy. But I chose a different way to increase the challenge. I started the DLC at NG+7 and never summoned. Because of that, I really enjoyed the new Scadu-tree blessing mechanic. I could experience the joy of progression and becoming stronger, even as a level 400 character
I agree with adjusting builds. It was so fun to change my build for the 10th time because I couldn't beat Midra. I had to use fire negation spells and focus-buffing items
Regarding criticism about bosses' attacks being hard to telegraph, I don't entirely agree, but I understand. When I first faced Bayle or Radahn, I thought it was random BS. But after dying 30-50 times, I started to see all the patterns. Of course, I still can't perfectly dodge everything, but at least now I can see what attack hit me and understand why it was my fault
About windows being too short, we have a lot more ranged options here. If you're using some ranged skills, throwing items, or spells, you will get a lot more windows. For example, I used the new anti-dragon katana against Bayle
Regarding your questions at the end:
- About statuses: I really like applying statuses, but bleed is too strong, so I rarely use it. I often use poison or rot. Malenia's scarlet flower can trigger rot on every boss in the game with just one cast. I used it a lot and felt good killing Radahn with Scarlet Bloom-it felt like a canon event)
- R2: It was harder to spam R2 in the DLC, but I don't think that's a bad thing. R2 was too overpowered in the base game.
- About cheese: I cheesed the Death Blight Lion Dance by using a bow and killing him from a distance. I also used double seppuku bleed spears to kill Metyr. I was too interested in Ymir's quest and didn't want to spend time grinding the boss.
What are your favorite bosses in the DLC? From the video, it looks like you didn't enjoy a single boss
And I am interested in your take on the location emptiness. Do you agree with the common criticism? Personally, I don't. My favorite moment in the DLC was discovering Marika's village. Even though it's a huge area with nothing there, it felt so emotional and impactful
I liked Midra and Metyr a lot. Sunflower would've been a lot cooler too if it weren't for all the random slowdowns ruining dodging its projectiles
Only bosses that made pull out the Mimic Tear were Gaius and last boss.
Gaius hitboxes felt broken and phase 2 off the last boss is visually cluttered and way too relentless.
The bosses in the DLC generally felt like they were hyper aggressive and had 3+ hit combos you had to dodge for an opening. Basically felt like the bosses played Sekiro and we Dark Souls.
But my biggest gripe with the DLC is that the last boss, as the end for Elden Ring, felt really disappointing.
Personally I agree, I thought most of the base game was well balanced giving opportunities to fight in boss fights, I was able to enjoy multiple different types of builds, really liked playing as a caster, I didn't mind using summons, but the DLC is different the bosses have become over tuned, now they can beat up u and your summons, due to unlimited poise and aggression, constantly knocking u over , and roll catch after roll catch, honestly I would think all of that would be kind of doable if it wasn't for the fact that the bosses often can jump in and out of your range in an instant. I think at least one of theses elements needs to be reviewed for most bosses in the DLC .
I can agree with you on punish windows and attack chains. It can really feel like you just roll for a minute and do one fast attack if you do solo strength for some enemies. I think the biggest things for me though is readability and inconsistency. Readability in the sense of how tf do I dodge this since you need to consider whether you roll, jump, or just run as well as the direction of where and that can be really unclear(Radahn). The inconsistency in that some bosses(Radahn) just randomly decide not to follow up on combos and go on a different string or the damn terrain cause the boss to do some janky shit.
tldr: Radahn is jank af and annoying and so are some other mfers
IMO dlc is Tekken paced. After assumung I only have max 14 frames to punish, things went smooth with using carian slicer. If it turns out boss is still recovering, added 1 more slicer, total half a second (30f) punish window max
i am so glad that someone mentions the insane gap close potential all bosses in this DLC have. i have beaten it twice now, completly solo. My first run was an UGS Str build and i rarely got to even breathe in a fight. I played every soulsgame and a lot of Soulsikes. Finished SL1 for every soulsgame and i do not think that those bosses are well designed. They are not too hard and not "not fun". Just not well designed. Numerous Camera issues on Hippo and Lion Dancer. Obstruction on visibility on Messmer and Radhan. Overall very messy DLC
bayle with no blessings really do be a challenge
charged r2?only jumping r2 with dual colossal swords
and we need more scorpion liver drops or a merchant to sell them. i ended the dlc with 6 scorpion livers, why give us the picled liver recipes right from the beginning without giving us the chance to get the ingredients?
Elden Ring DLC would be ez if they made Dryleaf Arts Hwoarang's BS combo pressure.
Honestly while I do agree Bayle is a bit of a bastard, and some of the bosses aggressiveness can be aggravating to deal with solo, I think some of your struggles come from your 'imposed personal challenge'. Now let me be frank I am not disparaging your playstyle nor saying it isn't a viable way to play; I just think it flies in the face of the design of the DLC's intended challenges and level sets. From what I gather, this DLC ENCOURAGES the use of the spirit ashes, and changing up play styles and equipment (to give you a reason to seek the new loot aside from acquiring it), and it maybe those design philosphies fly in the face of your play style. Also due to the scaling of the DLC being layered ONTOP of the vanilla game's leveing system and ONLY applies to the DLC regions, you really are nerfing yourself by not using the Scardu Tree fragments and Spirit Ash buffs since the DLC is intended for NG+ level players given most players will have NG+'d a few times, or have multiple characters and builds.
After all, while the devs do want all players to have it their way; the game still has a layer of INTENDED sets of programming and challenge, which the devs want the players to seek out and try on top of player choice in approach of quests and play styles. Just because a style can be done, doesn't mean it is viable entirely without some measure of fraught danger for a playthrough. After all while a player can play the game without leveling and using starter gear... just like the prior FromSoftware SoulsBorne-esque games, while you CAN do it, it isn't the intended way the devs envisioned for players to play the game, otherwise why would they bother creating all the upgrade and leveling systems? A players self-imposed challenge is still a SELF-IMPOSED challenge, which may fly in the face of intended game design, which may suck for your challenge, but is the way it is for a reason.
Now I'm not saying the game and its systems are free of criticism, and I do wish for the devs to act on feedback and fix balancing issues; I just personally feel this DLC while challenging and at times brutally harsh... has been fair. I've been having a grand time and feeling most combat encounters are fair, and suck mainly from my own lack of skill (and I am FAR from the best Soulsborne player let me tell you), or I need to think outside the play box I subscribe too. I've found style switching a boone and helped me conquer much of the game by utilizing every bag of trick from the vanilla game and the new tricks gained from the DLC.
IMHO I always felt self imposed challenge runs to be, well counter-intutive to the intended gameplay experience of these games. Yes you're free to do them, but as I stated above, aside from the personal glory of powering through said challenges, but you also open yourself to hitting hurdle after hurdle approaching the gameplay in such a manner.
Thank God a respected Souls veteran critiqued the DLC and is fretting about the direction FromSoft is going. I don't want the bosses to be nerfed, I just want the Tarnished to move faster. Can we _please_ go back to the combat in Bloodborne? It's so slow. 😭
Playing as a sorcerer was impossible. You cast the spell too slowly and it can't hit the boss because he moves too fast. Even Comet Azur is pitiable. I tried out five different builds because of Messmer and maxed out Intelligence and Dexterity to maximize damage and spell casting speed, but in the end, I used Rivers of Blood to kill Messmer.
Good talismans and buffs like golden vow, you can get to 80-90% damage negation...
And using no scadutree is like not upgrading your flask, makes no sense
Great video! You really hit the nail on the head in the issue with the boss designs. I played with a friend and even then you can feel the too short windows. Seems like fromsoft is really punishing people who dont use some form of metigation to draw the bosses aggro.
This discussion reminds me of the level 1 runners when bloodborne came out. There is so much arbitrary elemental damage on later bosses, and resetances is governed alot by level. It is still the hardest game to level 1 in the series....or was not sure now lol.
In the end, I'm curious how people like the dlc in the future. Can be hard to judge in the moment, but I think yours will hold up.
I personally did use the Scadutree blessings. The boss design is indeed quite annoying. The only boss that had me result to using spirit ashes though was Consort. This was before I had heard shield-poking trivializes him, but though that would have saved me time it would have been equally as unfun as fighting the boss normally.
After I beat DS3's DLCs I was constantly putting my summon sign down to fight Friede and Gael. For this DLC I have disabled multiple summoning pools and have zero desire to refight most bosses. Video games are supposed to be fun, this was not.
I really enjoyed the DLC, but from the start tried everything I could think of to kill bosses. This resulted in most bosses dying on the 1st or 2nd attempt, though some (one much more so than others) were still quite a struggle. Almost every boss seems to be hyper aggresive and combo happy. Makes me feel like I won, but I'm not quite sure what happened during the fight.
I can't help but feel like I would love the game to just... slow down.
Really been looking forward to hear about your opinions on SOTE, gameplay and lore implications-wise. I am sitting at the kid’s table as I can’t play these games due to lack of motor coordination and lack of a cpu or console to play on, but I aspire to someday be able to play, so I can’t levy praise or condemnation on the design. It seems FromSoft have a lot of plates to spin when trying to balance a game in their typical punishing style while also allowing an open world experience. How can you “balance” a game that offers so many options for players to customize their experience, and what is truly the “intended” experience? Is there, in fact, an “intended audience” for this game, or is it an attempt to widen their ecosystem, rather than restrict it? Anyway I always value your nuanced and intellectual perspective and greatly look forward to your streams, if you intend to continue them. Best of wishes to you, LP! Thank you for your hard work!
I’m not very far yet, but I had one situation like you’re describing: after almost beating Renalla a couple of times, I walked through the door and she immediately launched across the map and stun locked me for about 3 hits. I got up, rolled, and when I tried to heal in a usual window, she continued swinging and killed me. I never had a moment. I just died. Took about 6 seconds. Craziest RNG I’ve ever had in this game. If they get in a mood, these bosses can be relentless.
I've had Malenia spam waterfowl 3 times in a row at 75% hp
I've also notice bosses have Ole Reliable Bs moves they sometimes start spamming to win
Rng is real af
@@sk8legendz yeah, one time I fought the guy who has rivers of blood and he just spammed the ash over and over until I died. Sometimes it just be like that. But in the DLC their aggression is crazy and windows of opportunity are already low. So when they get extra aggressive, you just don’t get to attack for 30 seconds plus.
Art direction was great. Looking at everything and discovering all the new stuff was great.
Gameplay wasn't as fun, ended up reverting the guard counter cheese build .
I also beat the entire DLC with a Twinblade build, only needing to switch to longer reach Halberd on Bayle, and a single Katana for the Final Boss, for less end lag time on attacks.
Edit: Oh, I also used Vow of the Indomitable to beat Bayle. Never blocked, it was a Perfumer Shield anyways lol, just to used the Invincibility from Vow of the Indomitable.
I don't think I needed too, but I just wanted it to be over sooner. I had more trouble with Bayle than the Final Boss honestly. All bosses solo btw, if I didn't make it clear.
I really don't understand players' contempt for using shields to block. You know, what a shield was designed for.
Sword-and-board supremacy.
@@edward.constantine Shields are heavy, the better they are, usually. Less space for weapons, like a bow for range instead, or something to cast spells.
Personally, I tried blocking way back in DS1. My guard would break, or I would still take chip damage. It seemed like it never worked, and I should just dodge to avoid all potential damage, and reposition myself for an attack instead. I know I can do things to improve blocking, but it's still not my style.
I sometimes use shields for a fashion idea I have or roleplaying, but even then, it's never as good as just attacking and dodging for me. It just makes combat go by faster.
Some things are definitely better to block than dodge, but you can find other ways to mitigate that. Like Raptor of the Mists, or even Quickstep/Bloodhound step.
FYI you can just jump Bayles nuke and punish him, its really fun fight if you stay in front of his head and stand your ground not trying to go under him.
@@formatomi I could jump certain attacks, sure, but other things can't be jumped that were giving me issues. I also always stayed in front of his head, still kept missing often with melee swings.
Okay, so for the I'm getting old argument : If your past 45 yes, otherwise no. Your reflex stay nearly the same without training from your 25 to your 40, then you can keep them high with conservative training and can improve them till you are 60. After 60 well it's time to die so nope.
I use spirit summons, scadutree fragments, and have fun playing the GAME 😅 remember it's a game supposed to be fun. Why handicap yourself and give bad rating when the tools are there to use, you're just too proud. Ain't no shame in my game. I'll summon like a bitch, shoot the enemy through the fog wall, etc. I like having fun
Been looking forward for more protag lore
Nearly all bosses have NPC to summon
These help to reapply buff and reduce the pressure on you
And it's not like ash spirits, these NPC summon are literally a game mechanic for the dlc
The footage speaks for itself: the camera is terrible, many attacks take up your whole screen, and some attacks are very awkward to see coming. Sadly, this has been going on for a few games now. The camera is the most inexusable part of these games.
This DLC doubled down on an annoying trend that Elden Ring base game had already continued from previous games: enemy attacks with weirdly long or short windups and follow-up attacks to catch the most natural of player's reactions.
It's almost like everyone said the base game was too easy so they gave you the opposite lol
I played with the blessing. I fought some bosses with a spirit and some without. My build is the execution sword at level 200. Fighting solo I was able to three shot most of the bosses with the charged ash of war. I'm not sure how I feel about multiple parries on a boss, I like it at the same time it's frustrating
The dlc is a 6/10 for me. Alot of the bosses( Rellana and Gaius chiefly) were unfun chores. Exploration felt cheap with a lot of empty spaces . My knee jerk reaction to the final boss was that it made no sense but on further introspection, i guess it kinda works. I just don't see the final boss being particularly close to Miquella. Also the non existent ending just irritated me. And yea, continent wide gap closers is fucking annoying and bosses spamming a 10 hit string made me feel like I was wasting time. Was rocking the Guts greatsword ( strgh/faith) build with deflect tear. I actually despise Rellana + Gaius more than the final boss. If phase 2 of the final boss did 5-10 % less dmg, it would've been a great fight or at least have the light beams that follow an ataack from the boss not stagger you out of an attack/counter attack.
I really don't understand this idea of players expecting to automatically beat new content just because they have mastered previous games from said developer.
Dont change things up, and its gonna be complaints about shit being cakewalk, change it up and now they get complaints from "souls vets" Who feel entitled to beat the game.
How the hell does from win in this lol.
A good way to change things up would be improving the combat system. Since it's so simple (even after adding jumps and crouches) and heavily centered around stamina management, the main way for the devs to tune up the challenge is to to tune up the aggression and raw numbers of bosses. Would be cool if From actually tried to do something interesting with the combat beyond 'dodge/block and attack during a brief punish window', but I'm not too optimistic when they even failed at making it clear which enemy attacks are jumpable in ER when that should've been an obvious priority in their gameplay design.
@@kingnro1I have never had an issue with understanding which attacks I can jump lol that is definitely a personal issue if you have it. I'm not even that good at these games but I intuitively knew exactly which ones I could and couldn't jump.
It's almost like people want a souls game to not play like a souls game anymore... The jank is part of their style. You remove the jank and it's not a souls like anymore lol
+1 for using meteoric ore greatsword
Basing your opinion on the dlc solely on a zero scadu fragment run is always going to be skewed. Definitely agree with the camera angles being pretty bad sometimes. Being locked onto an enemy with my shield up just for them to whip around and hit me in the back was annoying.
I love this channel for Bloodborne. Would be cool to compare the DLC with Bloodborne. Got a lot of Bloodborne vibes
No offense but some of this genuinely feels like the dreaded "skill issue".
The amount of punish windows i found during my RL1 no blessing runs is crazy and I really dont understand the complaint. You can weave a lot of hits with fast weapons.
And heavy weapons are not supposed to be able to abuse these windows imo, they should punish big windows with big hits and stagger with those (even tho you can still absolutely humiliate bosses with heavy jump attack spamming because jumping dodges half their moves). This gives incentives to incorporate another weapon/skill/spell into the build that can cover that weakness.
And you even used the Meteoric Ore Blade, this thing has the best skill for punishing attacks that you usually cant due to distance! Those were some of my favorite openings to discover! :C
Bayles nuke for example is absolutely punishable, i dont see you not being able to do it as an issue.
I see you are using a colossal greatsword for a lot of these clips which i also used for my first playthrough, but i went in with the expectation that i would only be able to punish big windows with it, but that those punishes are big bonks, and it felt pretty intuitive and satisfying to me.
Same deal with Messmer, you are just incorrect about not being able to outposition him. You can make him completely whiff parts of his combos and smack him by just positioning behind him. The tracking is absolutely nothing special, i genuinely dont know where this is coming from.
Being "clipped" or getting rollcatched also sounds like an issue with positioning/roll direction. Yes, this happened to me too, but i was able to fix it by just adjusting the roll to end outside of the range anyways.
You can also simply outrun a lot of attacks, even circling the enemy to be in position to punish. Those were also fun to discover/use.
I also noticed the fact that sometimes moves are punishable and sometimes they are not, like Radahns forward vault that can have a followup, but i also dont really see the issue there. This actually improved the fight for me since i couldnt just brainlessly hit the punish, but had to watch closely if he was doing a followup or not and act accordingly.
It sounds like you think the options are either going for it and risking RNG punish or just not going for it which makes the fight a drag, but you can absolutely wait if a followup is happening and if it isnt do a quick punish, even with a colossal greatsword.
Having to use the Mimic Tear on the Lamenter, even with no blessings, also clearly shows to me that you didnt observe or understand the fight properly since it is absolutely not necessary in any way if you learn his mechanics.
You can easily tell apart the real one from his positioning and AI, even if you do almost no damage its not an issue since hitting him stops the attack.
Playing aggressively is absolutely an option against most bosses even with no blessing but that requires you to play very well. As i said, no offense, but I think you would have had a lot more fun and success playing offensively if you just used the blessings giving you a much bigger window for making mistakes.
I know it sounds very annoying and condescending coming from someone who does RL1 no-hit challenge runs and stuff, but i think these fights are way better designed than you give them credit for. This feels very similar to the complaints people had about the base game before everyone took some time and tried different things.
I just cant agree with a lot of this when watching my own fights and other peoples fights uploaded on YT. It just doesnt apply for the gameplay i have seen. I did not have any issues with telegraphs personally, I actually felt reading the attacks in the first attempts was easier than the base game but there is obviously a lot of subjectivity in how difficult attacks are to read. People pay attention to different tells.
I also dont see different attacks looking similar as a flaw, that makes the fight more dynamic and demands more detailed observation as long as they are not actually close to identical (which just isnt the case here imo). I think bosses switching up their patterns makes for more diverse fights.
Also blocking and turtling is already a broken strategy that can completely trivialize the game even with the low damage reduction besides physical, i really dont think that playstyle needs help by also negating other damage types (unless there is a tradeoff of physical negation like with the new Shield of Night).
Every boss was already beaten without rolling once a week from release. Even Asmongold learned the power of the tankshield build and managed to beat the game quite easily after literally quitting.
I understand the frustration with the camera. When fighting enemies that give you trouble with that i highly recommend just unlocking the camera sometimes. I know it can be awkward at first and takes some readjusting of the way you handle dodging but it really made all of the bigger enemies more enjoyable for me and a lot of others.
Sorry for the unstructured rant, i dont know how to make myself sound less like a dick either. I dont have the time, editing skills or a good enough PC to record my gameplay to show everything with clips in a proper and structured response.
Maybe its just because of the different way i approach bossfights in Fromsoft games but from a purely gameplay perspective i completely disagree with your stance, Elden Ring and the DLC have much improved boss design even if they obviously increased the difficulty to match the playerbases skill increase and availible options due to the open world design to destroy bosses completely.
But Radahn phase 2 attacks can be quite visually cluttering unless you already know the best way of fighting him is to stick to his face, which can make learning that in the first place frustrating.
I want you to watch ongbal beat the crap out of Midra or Messmer with his bare fists and tell me you have to play defensively, the combos are too long and you dont have enough windows to punish. He is attacking like 50% of screentime.
Even more wouldnt feel like Souls combat anymore imo. I think when bosses do their cool anime combo moves its totally fine to be expected to only dodge for a bit.
Also if anyone actually read this go try the Deflecting Heardtear right now, it genuinely feels like a new game. Its so fun. Its the best addition in the DLC.
And happy lore hunting.
Well said, I think you articulated my own issues with his complaints. Skill issue, and his lack of utilizing the tools intended fore the DLC, which frankly if you don't use them, you get DUNKED. At first I held off using the buffs as I heard erroneously 'they make the game too easy', but then it was clarified they are INTENDED for the DLC's scaling. Suddenly I went from having common enemies taking meaty chunks out of me, and not being one-shot by the opening boss enemies, and I felt I could be bolder in combat, vs. having to play chicken a lot. Again this is my own skill issue, but once I utilized the fragments, the game was still harsh but felt more 'fair'.
Beautifully said, basically covered almost all the things i had to say about the video. I think his conclusion is way off about the optimal playstyle bacause i found that the bosses not only not reward passive playstyle, they punish it pretty hard. If you roll backwards in the face of the bosses combo, they will just go on an on and catch you, especially the final boss. I found its way easier to just roll behind the boss and heal at their ankle than rolling backwards 3 times trying outspace and heal.
I wonder how much of this was perfect for some people and not so much for others. Like with Sekiro, they aren't trying to filter people out, but not every game will people click with or be good at. I wonder if FromSoft are tampering with things on purpose, though I wouldn't be surprised if not everything was perfect considering they never planned for a DLC. Still impressive they put this together in the time they did. I usually roll with the punches with their games as I don't get as engaged with builds as others do, I treat it like Armored Core or some strategy game and adjust accordingly until I win. They did a great job with their open-world, but I do hope they go back to more contained environments in their next game and see how they approach things.
Instead of the using the blessings and summons, it would be fun to see a run where you summon a friend for the boss fights. You could figure out some duo strats! I'm sure it wouldn't be a cake walk if you were both level 150, zero blessings
I did most of the DLC bosses solo with star fists for my second NG+ run. They were way tougher on NG+ than the first time, but I knew how to handle them better. I used a summoned player only on the final boss. So, I think the bosses were pretty fair. (except for that pig)
Why do we fall
To get up and try again
To answer some of your questions-
1. Solo Casters are either some of the easiest or some of the hardest playstyles in the base game, and the same applies to the DLC. Fast spells or spells that behave like Melee Weapons are the easiest and slow spells are the worst.
2. I got as many charged R2s with a colossal weapon (Anvil Hammer and Bloodfiend Arm) as I did in the base game. In fact on my 1dt playthrough I caved and summoned Black Knight Commander Andreus for Radahn and switched to a Flame Art Fire Knight's Greatsword with Flame Spear for Charged R2s and stance breaks on Radahn
3. After beating the game solo, I'd say medium weapons really suck in the DLC. The Great Katana class has the attck speed of a colossal and poise damage of a greatsword. It feels genuinely awful to me.
However depending on your playstyle, I have found both passive and aggressive playstyles to work properly.
5. I know you said this multiple times, but I will say again. A no Scadutree run is the DLC equivalent of a level 1 run. Like a RL1 is not the best for putting all the bosses on the same level, a no Scadutree run will significantly affeect late game difficulty while barely affecting the early game. Still its your choice what you want to do.
Final Note: I found the DLC boss design to be rather engaging for a wise variety of solo builds, as for the boss moveset complexity, well its what makes me like modern FS boss movesets. My openings are during combos, not after. During. Well all said nice video!
Hell yeah great review. I didnt really understand what fromsofts design goals were for elden ring but the dlc kind of convinced me they care more about spectacle and making bosses crazier to match their public image as the company that makes hard games. All the issues from the base game are there like having horse combat but no realistic way to or dodge, roll/health punishing, undodgeable attacks (radhan), lame rewards and the story is inconsequential and boring!
Melania and the Elden Beast and Maliketh are the only bosses that come close to the bullshit DLC bosses use...
And they are fair and have lots of opening once you learn their moves
@@formatomi What are you trying to say.. that only half a thought?
@@hankskorpio5857 That they are fair fights, you just have to learn the movesets, same as in the DLC
@@formatomi ok... Im talking about difficulty spike. Are you saying that arent at the same level or something?
You literally made a Level 1 run and killed the main incentive for exploration in a game centered around it
Not a great plan, i can respect that, but it's note the ideal way to judge a game
I don’t consider myself to be any good at these games, it probably takes me about twice as manny attempts to beat bosses as the average player, but even I was able to find consistent openings on bosses and play aggressively solo. The bosses really teach you how to change your mentality, you’re here to learn the boss first, and beat them after. If an attack is unsafe to punish sometimes then you shouldn’t punish it and continue to engage with the boss moveset untill you get an opening. Delayed attacks require to actively dodge instead of panic rolling. Long range gap closers punish passive play, the player has to choose whether to attack or heal/buff and aggression is rewarded with posture breaks that deal big damage and give opportunities to heal/buff as well (they did this in the base game as well)
Also: I found out you can punish bayle’s nuke if you jump, it’s really stupid and funny to pull off
So I mostly agree with what you said, there are certain From trends I dislike, but I cannot agree that "players should feel free to enjoy games the way they want to enjoy them."
That can be a fantastic philosophy but it is far from the only way to design a good game and not every game can or should be that way. Eventually Fromsoft may make a game that just isn't for you or me and that's fine.
I play offline the first run. I actually used more charged R2s as Dark Moonlight Sword ended up being the weapon I used most. Though Moonveil came out if I really needed it like against the final boss. Full disclosure: I don't enjoy challenge runs. I can and have done them for DS1/2 but its just not very fun.
The dlc also broke me... specifically the ending.
I mostly play with summons and spirits, especially on my first playthrough. Ill usually try it solo before just capitulating and summoning, and in the DLC there was only 2 bosses I solo'd, Metyr and Romina. I love Romina, genuinely one of my favorite fights in both the DLC and in base game. Metyr is alright, enjoyable and difficult, but with a few problems. I did end up cheesing Metyr though. I was playing a strength build, but I used the weapon art you get from Gaius on my collossal GS along with a bleed infusion to bleed the everloving shit out of her. Speaking of Gaius, I hated him so much, as well as the Hippo. As for boss difficulty in general, I feel like it was definitely a step up from base game, though I think bosses such as Fire Giant, Mohg, and Maliketh still stand as some of the hardest bosses for me. Also, as someone's who's a huge fan of Placidussax's fight, his rival Bayle's fight definitely didn't dissapoint. What were your thoughts on the final boss from a story perspective. Personally I find it a massive dissapointment thematically, story wise, and in terms of gameplay.
I would've preferred Miquella want to steal Radahn's body for his own or to have a bit more foreshadowing leading up to it than a missable NPC quest.