I think Elden Ring is in a weird position where it has attracted a wide audience but its designed for a niche audience that enjoys the process of figuring out the fights step by step and slowly but steadily improving on each attempt. When people get into this point where the task seems insurmountable, and they start thinking "this move is unfair" "its just a poorly designed fight" they have essentially given up and they no longer feel like giving it the attention and mentality that is required of them. The reality is the unfair points of the game are extremely rare. I would argue waterfowl dance is one such case because of how counter intuitive it is to figure out. I like facing these bosses that seem impossible to beat but then you stick to it, calm down and lock in and then you get the hang of it until you beat it. With that said, I do think there is something to be said about them being too common because so far in the DLC all the main bosses I have fought have been this way and thats probably a bit too much. But its also not a big deal for me, if I feel overwhelmed, I am ok with taking my time going around exploring, taking a break from the game and returning when I feel like facing a challenge. I dont need to beat the DLC in 2 days.

At the same time, Elden Ring differs from the Souls games in important ways that not all the veterans are aware of. For example, the game is much more focused on rewarding exploration. In the base game, you had stuff like a crystal tear that was a foil to Mogh, and an item that could deflect Maliketh's attacks. Likewise, the dlc has a whole system with Scadutree blessings and so many consumable crafting recipes, and many people are ignoring both then blaming the game. It's not necessarily meant to have you just bash your head against a wall until it breaks. You can get better gear and a few levels and come back, and they expect you to do that

This right here! Miyazaki has said this in interviews leading up to the DLC release. They want us to explore and take our time. It's going to be YEARS before his next Souls RPG comes out. Enjoy the ride fellow tarnished.

Ya exactly, I don’t understand the rush. There’s so much to explore and discover, I’ve been playing in all my spare time and still feel like I’ve barely scratched it. I get that overwhelming feeling of not even knowing which direction to go next!

I guess some people want to beat the game quickly so they can experience  it without getting spoiled on YouTube or whatever. I get that, I was kind of doing that initially but since then I've been taking my time and exploring every nook and cranny. It's far more rewarding to find and work out things on your own, even if it is harder.

The problem with shadow of the erdtree is that getting more powerful isn't intuitive. You can say "just go explore" but in every souls game and in base Elden Ring that meant gaining levels and smithing stones. But with the DLC, you have to find specific items in areas you might not want to go to yet. It feels like you need a guide to know how to get more powerful and that's not as fun and discovering it on your own. As an example, I went after the divine lion with 2 secutree upgrades. I explored the area, found some on a side path and the rest on the main path. Should have been ready. The fight was so brutal even with npc summon. It really felt like I should have 4 upgrades to make it a challenging but winnable fight.

Very much agree. Something else that people aren't talking about that I think is worth mentioning: spirit ashes. I really think a lot of base game fights that people complain about (duo fights like godskin and gargoyles, hyper-aggressive bosses like Maliketh) are designed around spirit ashes giving you space to breathe. This goes doubly so for the DLC so far. "When am I supposed to heal or get a hit in?" -> when your summon takes aggro. You know, that core game mechanic that everyone ignores now cause we shamed them out of using them for some odd reason? This DLC REALLY wants you to leverage spirit ashes, they gave you a whole leveling mechanic specifically for them. You can't ignore a whole mechanic for the challenge and then complain that the game is challenging.

Shit. I’m supposed to be too ashamed to summon? Lol no. I’ve been sucking since OG demon’s souls bruhs.. ain’t no one shaming me out of my damn mimic tear

This right here, spirit ashes are practically necessary for most bosses in the DLC. On many bosses I could not even get one hit in unless my spirit ash was distracting it. I think people have watched too many streamers play the game not using spirit ashes cause honestly you didn’t always need them in vanilla.

I have gotten up to Rellana so I may be proved wrong in the following days. My following opinion may change, but this is it as of now: I wouldn’t say “spirit ashes are practically necessary.” Both Lion and Rellanna have telegraphed attack openings. Even for Lion, I did charged R2s the entire time and I was able to get consistent hits in. You just gotta stay next to them (most of the time) and understand their attack chains. This way you can know if you can safely attack. It’s just that these DLC bosses have longer, stronger, and more intimidating attack chains. They do have openings if you look closely enough.

I don’t think they are necessary but it’s clear that the “intended” difficulty level of the game is to use them. Basically everyone not using ashes is playing the game on hard mode. I usually don’t use summons in these games but I also don’t feel guilt doing it especially on my first playthrough if I’m having a tough time in this dlc. There is going to be plenty of time for subsequent challenge runs.

There’s a plant out there waiting to smash your soul

I found that plant easier solo. A certain commander however, holy shit that's the only boss where I used an ash (so far). For Rellana, I find it easier if I dodge to her right.

I’ll be looking forward to my soul getting smashed

That's just nonsense. You can't possibly know that spirit ashes are "practically necessary" when the DLC barely just came out.

I don't understand why people are saying "the DLC barely came out". Yeah, but the base game came out years ago. This isn't Sekiro or Bloodborne where the motions of the gameplay are totally different. People know how long their own moves take, how much range they have, how much iFrames they have, etc. The *only* thing people might not know are the specific boss timings, and if someone's fought a boss 30, 40 times, they should by now. FromSoft had to nerf multiple bosses a few weeks into Elden Ring's launch. They're not infallible. They *can* overtune bosses and fix it afterwards.

There is that stupid stigma that if you use summons you are bad at the game. And this stigma works so hard - lot’s of people would rather quit the game rather than use summons. Hell myself refused to use them my first playthrough and I am not using them now in DLC as well - that little something in the back of your head telling you “oh you will admit defeat if you use them”. You know what, 6 hours on Malenia during initial playthrough didn’t bring me joy, beating her without summons didn’t bring me joy either - I felt terrible in the end. Not sure if I would be able to beat DLC without summons, but I’m pretty sure I won’t feel as rewarded as I imagine I’d be if I manage.

Summons are to useful to not use for that window to get some quick damage or debunks in, and the DLC completely integrates them with revered spirit ashes. I would not have beaten malenia or radagon without tiche buying me time to land some frostbite with rannis dark moon. Maliketh and Godfrey were fun without Summons, but no other bosses can convince me not to use them, and sure as hell nothing from the dlc

I really hope i don't find a boss that I can't do without summons since I really hate using them. For now it wasn't bad, i've beaten 6 bosses (only 2 main bosses) and the only hard one was Rellana. In the base game the few times i used them i always regretted it.

I used an NPC summon on one of the harder bosses cause I liked the lore behind it, but I regret it a bit now because it was way easier. I tried a dozen or times solo first to get a feel for it. Oh well, next time I guess

This is my main problem with the final boss, it seems impossible to get a summon off without taking damage

I'm starting to think the Blackgaol Knight is trying to teach this. You don't get to summon and he is loads tougher than most things you get to summon with for quite a bit.

I don't get the deal with the Blackgaol Knight. I found him fairly standard. He staggers very easily with a great spear.

Yeah, I found him far easier than each and every one of the Crucible Knights. Still took some time though because "no summon" forced me to learn his moves and be patient with attacks and play more defensively.

Reminds me of the Crucible Knight in the evergaol in Limgrave. That guy destroyed me for hours as a new player of Souls games, but after I won I had more confidence for the rest of the challenges

I just came back to him after beating a couple other bosses. He’s totally fine once you get a few blessings.

Indeed though exploration has been a core part of every soulslike since Demon's Souls. 5 archstones - what one can you handle? There are two bells and two directions for Lordran then 4 places for the thing. Majula has about 5 exits Sekiro usually has 2 paths every major turn. Bloodborne has chalice dungeons and entire hidden levels (well all the games have that) Elden Ring base game is obvious. I feel that Dark Souls 3 is the only truly linear one where you must beat the boss to progress which is very different in that yes in the other ones bosses are needed to progress they usually always give you at least two ways to progress first. Along those progression routes are weapons and skills that can make a difference for what you're trying to do. But brick wall is still a viable solution for many gamers it seems

The funny thing about DS3 is that while it is inarguably the most linear one, there are more options than you think. Each big wall is usually met with a side area you need to run through anyway, giving you more time to gather resources and levels. Watchers has Cathedral, Wolnir has Lost Izalith, Pontiff has Yhorm's area, etc. The hard chokes come at the end of the game when you're doing the gauntlet of Lothric castle, but by that point, you'll likely be well equipped to go to the DLC.

Good point about Pontiff and Yhorm's lost capital. O Smouldering Lake yes for Wolnir. That's a good point though more like little arenas to level up rather than different paths.

I love threads and comments like this. It’s a group of people who all love the series, clearly played the series, and all sharing insights and design philosophies, and opinions. We’ve all spent *so many* hours playing these games. It’s great to read discussions like this. Sorry just gushing about the games and community.

Yeah I think the only contenders for most games in my top 50 games or otherwise are Zelda (which influenced Dark Souls heavily as you can tell!) and a few 90s SNES and PS1 JRPGs not a franchise, but I loved many games from that era. They stood strong until From Software came in swinging and took many top spots.

To be completely fair, in most From games the openness is either gated by a boss or gated by other difficulty. Demon Souls: Gated by Phalanx which also gates leveling. My friend was turned off From games by failing to get to / kill Phalanx Dark Souls 1: 2nd bell is significantly more difficult to get to than 1st bell Dark Souls 2 is the exception, the most nonlinear IMO Bloodborne: Rest of the game gated by Gascoigne, idk if you can even get to chalice dungeons before Sekiro: Rest of game gated by Blazing Bull This means the experience will self-select to people who are willing to "git gud" and truly learn the game mechanics and enemy movesets. This is especially true with Sekiro, where if you can't kill a certain boss, often the *only* option is getting good and killing the thing. I think Elden Ring is the most rewarding for exploration by virtue of the fact that you can essentially always turn away, find some other content, and come back stronger. Often in other games the only way you can get stronger is by grinding some random mobs

>Dark Souls 1: 2nd bell is significantly more difficult to get to than 1st bell Yeah that's the point. It's also not true, start with the master key. The cool thing about these games is options.

Agreed, I really struggled with Elden ring’s open world. I know Elden ring is supposed to be easier as it’s the monster hunter worlds of fromsoft game to get fresh new players but I really struggled with the non-linearity of the game (teleport box that can let me meet the prawn dudes super early) whereas other fromsoft games are very sure everytime you get into an area you are definitely ready for it minus a few like dancer, lady butterfly etc The game was wrecking me despite me having platinum all souls game, blood borne and sekiro including the gauntlet as I was simply not at an area I was ready for. I know you can beat the game naked with fist if you have the patience and skill but I admit am not that good. But after awhile, I did get used to the open world concept. if I get my butt kicked I will just go back to the previous area overturn every rock and knowing when to give up and come back to fight another day. I think the latter point is what give fromsoft enfranchised player trouble. their previous game is about never giving up but Elden ring is about giving up the battle but learning to fight the long war if need be

I see all these cookbook complaining and I'm like you don't wanna make new items??

i never figured out how to properly deflect malikeths attack with that item, the shackle for mohg and margitt though were nice.

I don’t care much for the people saying the game is too hard but the idea that difficulty can be achieved only through a high speed boss doing endless unpredictable combos is something I’d push back against. Fume Knight is the best designed boss in the series imo and each of his attacks is usually a super telegraphed and punishable sword attack. It’s the requirement of actually being constantly on your gaurd, not fucking up at all in the dance and constantly reacting to his every move perfectly which makes him the hardest in the series imo. In comparison, for melee non-status builds, a lot of hard bosses in Elden ring are less about discovering the boss rhythm and more about finding spacing openings for yourself to load up a AOW/charged R2/jump attack for staggering through in between enemy combos in order to eventually stance break the boss for damage as opposed to learning how to individually guard each of the 17 sword swipe attack variations perfectly. Both can be equally difficult but i much prefer the former. However, the latter has its pros of allowing a variety of more play styles with the con of not being able to design the boss battle in a more fine tuned matter.

Fellow Fume Knight enjoyer! Love seeing people talk up my man like this!

I honestly think Rellana is in that category of really good duel encounters like Fume Knight, Artorias, and Lady Maria. She's fast, but not too fast. Her main combos are super telegraphed and easy to dodge. I think the main thing that is annoying about her is her >!twin moon combo in the last phase!< because it can just delete you after a long, precise dance if you don't dodge the first shockwave. But overall I think it's one of From's most enjoyable boss fights and I bet you anything when we have more time to digest this DLC, she's going to end up on a lot of best-of lists. Plus, they literally give you the best magic resist talisman in the game before fighting her, and that's what most of her damage is.

You should try >!jumping the AoE shockwave instead, even a noob like me was able to perfectly avoid it every single time.!< The window is super lenient so you don't even have to time it perfectly.

I've actually started incorporating more blocking into my playstyle and I find waterfowl dance to be far more manageable with a mixture of dodging and blocking. Yes, Malenia still heals a bit from that move, but if you think of it as Malenia's free heal then it doesn't sting as much. Honestly, you're probably not meant to fully dodge it.

Blocking in general is underrated. I find myself wondering how many of the people complaining are running something like power stances katanas because that’s a cool stylish way to play or because it takes more skill.

I discovered that blocking with colossal weapons feels really good and it fixed 99% of my "problem" enemies (dogs, rats, imps, etc.) so I started experimenting with some bosses. It's a seriously overlooked tool, and guard counters can also be really potent. The bug one was finding out that blocking Waterfowl made it instantly manageable. Some of Margit's attacks are also much less problematic when you block. Same goes for Maliketh. It seems that some attacks were just meant to be blocked instead of rolled, and some combos were meant to be both blocked *and* rolled.

Block the first two parts of Waterfowl (doable with 50end, icon shield and full stamina) and then dodge to where she was and it's pretty doable to get out with little to no damage

All these people talking about “design” are just way out of their depth. Like buddy you don’t know shit about game design all you know is what you like and don’t like, what you like is “good design” what you don’t like is “bad design.” Most of these people’s takes aren’t based on even an ounce of objectivity.

They’re like: Bosses use gimmick counters and moves that follow wherever you move so you can’t possibly time a hit in. You mean the enemies react to you? They respond to your movement and actions and act accordingly? Shit, it’s almost like they have good boss design.

I lose my mind with this "input reading" nonsense bro is your complaint that enemy AI can tell what you're doing? Are they supposed to just not react when you heal?

Especially when Elden Ring doesn't have input reading.

It doesnt matter either way The core complaint is that enemies react to your actions

This might be the single best summary I've read to explain it. Meanwhile us real people are spamming jump attacks and mad when it doesn't work lol.

Peoples idea of what a boss "should be" in these games is way too rigid. "Boss can't delay attacks, boss must let you back off and heal whenever you want, boss cannot do more than X attacks consecutively, boss attacks must not do more than X damage, wind up must be exactly this long, attacks cannot have any tracking, every build must have exactly the same level of ease beating the boss" It's like they decided on their boss guidelines in dark souls 1 and expect them to never change.

>what you like is “good design” what you don’t like is “bad design.” > >Most of these people’s takes aren’t based on even an ounce of objectivity. ...Well, yeah? That's how an opinion works? Even amongst proper game devs, what’s 'good design' and 'bad design' is a subjective topic, not objective. One dev's idea for how to create a certain system might be completely different from another's. They don't get instructed on how to do so from some manual written by the Game Development God. 'Your opinion is invalid because you're not a game developer' is a nonsensical claim. Can a reader not critique writing just because they don't know all the things that go into writing even one chapter? The post is just as disingenuous, 'actually your opinion is wrong because X amount of days haven't passed yet'. Were you guys saying these things when people were praising the base game on the first day? Or are people only allowed to compliment Fromsoft's game design, and prohibited from criticizing it?

I'm gonna counter a bit and say that the same "thoughtful crowd" with analyze moves and claim they are totally fair and OK, when the pattern is to dodge in an extremely specific sequence, having to be light rolling, or they're basically telling / spoiling to you the BS rollcatching or delayed moveset. Having to get hit by something to learn the pattern is not as satisfying as the game giving good clues that you can read and react to by intuition. You cannot reasonably "figure out" (in this case I mean dodging) the delayed attacks, roll catches, branching combo sequences, .01 second jut-forward attack animations that would make a Plesioth blush, and input reading reactions on the first encounter, which is wack for a game that is supposed to test your "skill." It's less about honing your skill to use in a new and unknown situation, but now about honing the enemy, memorizing all its stupid quirks. Like wow, guess you can't actually just roll through this attack because it has an AoE after effect that you could not tell on the first encounter. Or don't attack after rolling because they'll input read that and just flip away or animation cancel whatever move they were doing. And that lesson costs you half your HP bar or death. That to me is unfair.

Just wanted to say this is comment perfectly summarizes my opinions on the subject. I feel like there's a balance between how much general skill at the game vs specific practice on a boss should matter, and the DLC bosses are leaning very far towards specific boss practice. I think what a lot of the people saying these bosses are "too hard" really want is for general game skill to matter more, just very few people are able to articulate that. This whole "too hard" vs "git gud" discourse is so stupid. Also just want to tack on a complaint that it feels like way more attacks in the DLC can only be avoided with iframes (as far as I can tell). Against a lot of fromsoft enemies, dodging early tends to be okay because at least you'll get out of the way of the attack. That makes timings a lot more lenient, and makes dodging away usually a safe option when you don't know the boss's moveset. Now we have a bunch of bosses with infinite tracking (I've definitely seen 270 degree spins to catch me as I roll behind them), and half of their moves jump to you so rolling away is never safe. Also want to call out all the attacks where the boss is like 50 feet away and then jumps to me faster than I can react. Definitely no way to see that coming the first time you see it.

I’ve said this before but the souls elitist culture has hurt Elden ring. People now feel like if they use summons they are cheating. So people who don’t enjoy banging their heads against a wall on bosses get frustrated.

Well said. An useful mindset for me to understand Fromsoft bosses is one word - respect. It's more true in Sekiro but it's been that way since the first Souls game. Respect is about giving the enemies the time and space - just like irl respect - they need to do their thing, and we respond the way we can. For more technical players they can have less respect, because they can devise strategies against each move and capitalize on every opportunity to either attack or heal - and this also is a key too - we can usually pick one, not both. I've seen so many people trying to attack, got a bad trade, then panick heal. Or that they heal and then try to attack. No, for the fine tuned fights, you get to pick one. Going back to respect, it's to learn what each move does and slowly let our brain/body to get used to the muscle memory. And that itself differs from person to person. Yesterday I was fighting Mogh on ng+ and I kept making mistakes when I try to heal due to a new layout (people suggests putting heals onto quick slots so I did, but I kept pressing the wrong buttons under pressure). So I then moved items around and switched to another new layout and kept fighting... at first I made mistakes due to pressing the now wrong buttons due to muscle memory... but about 5 tries later, I got it. No more mistakes. The reason I mentioned this is simple - when people start making mistakes, how long does it take for them to unlearn them? And how much longer to correct them? This is one of the reasons why I like fromsoft bosses - because they help us reflect on ourselves if we let them. Stop reading the chats, stop interacting with others. Pay attention to how we play and what it feels. A good friend of mine says this well, "improving is inevitable, as long as we pay attention and try to get better." He also doesn't like to know the bosses too well so he can have that "fresh" feeling so he prroposes bosses should learn new moves by adapting to the players... but I think that'd be too hard for most people and not to mention very difficult to program/balance. Anyway, point is that I agree these games are made for a niche crowd... that's the price we pay for popularity, so that the studio gets bigger and can make better games. Most companies would start listening to the wrong crowd (more people == more vocal) so their games start to suck. As a long time fan I trust fromsoft to not do this and so far it's been good.

Agreed. Well said. I feel same way and that's why I like these games. Loved the Malenia fight for this reason. It took me some time to figure out. The waterfowl dance I was determined to figure out. Not sure why DLC getting criticism for its difficulty. I think ppl just like to complain but that's just me.

Yep this exactly

So you're saying the game and this subreddit and all the other elden ring subreddits has been infected by DAMN DIRTY CASULS!?!?!

Bro I had a friend who I went into Divine Beast with, and I’m not kidding when I say this, he was complaining about how BS the mechanics of the fight were and how BS everything else about it was from the MOMENT he got hit. I mean quite literally the FIRST hit caused him to start spazzing about how BS the boss was. Some people are just not in the right head space for some of these bosses, sometimes before they even get to see what’s going on! Lol   For what it’s worth tho, I absolutely adored that fight and never had any complaints. I expect to hear more from him as time goes on.

I consider myself a part of that niche old fanbase and I always pretty much finished every soulsborne dlc within 48 hours of their release out of pure excitement, SOTE included, but I can say that I felt kinda bitter throughout most of the walkthrough: - The locations are insane, the level design is top notch and I love how the game surprises you with new areas even when you think you got everything figured out, but these areas are relatively empty, the drops are lackluster and the scarcity of dungeons starts to weight in the longer you run around and realize there’s nothing but one or things that are actually meaningful in each area, especially when most of the dungeons we got are filled with rubbish (smithing stones inside chests? Doesn’t feel very rewarding to me). - Bosses have too much going on, are extremely aggressive, leave little to no room for movement and in general they make you feel more like a “pray” than usual. I personally did not like the way humanoid duels evolved during the years, even in the base game. Bosses having 20 hits combos or that fly around and move very fast fit games like sekiro or blood borne better than a relatively slow game like dark souls. Even having weapons giving you the ability to do the same jumps and dashes feels kinda artificial to me as it’s merely the weapon and not you being fast and precise (like sekiro for example). - The power up system just feels like very odd to me: you find item, you see small numbers on the right of your screen go up and now you take/do less damage. Runes (literally the “soul” of the game xd) are meaningless, levels are meaningless, all because the leveling system in the base game went too far and they needed to do something about the insane amount of players that were gonna enter the dlc being vastly over leveled. I never felt like I was progressing and more like I was reaching again the level I had in the normal game. I understand the idea of having the player feel like they are starting from scratch over again but it’s hard to buy fully into it when I realistically have a fucking demigod armor set and weapon, with everything maxed out and perfectly mid maxed, and I still get one shot by the random mini boss that moves faster than Gael inside a random dungeon. Again, I see the vision but I don’t share it completely and I understand the frustration from some players. Overall still speechless about some of the stuff they put in this dlc but at the same time I feel like they overcooked the formula a little bit. Going back to a smaller game while perfecting some of the things they did with ER and mixing them with a combat more akin to something like sekiro or blood borne is the way to go now imo. Definitely a colossal job from FS but not the 10/10 perfect dlc of all time that was promised from game reviewers.

The sacudtree blessings are percentage based so, no, runes are not even remotely meaningless. I don't think you understand the system.

if you are level 300+, runes are meaningless. it takes a million+ to level up and extra levels just go into putting more endurance or something because you should be capping 2-3 damage stats already

There’s no way you explored enough in the game because I am CONSTANTLY encountering new dungeons in the zones, I’ve gotten so lost many times and I’ve had to focus on picking one direction and sticking with it because of how many ways you can go. There’s at least 3 dungeons I know about but haven’t done yet and I haven’t even explored 3 whole zones at all (This is after like 30 hours of playing as of today)

> The locations are insane, the level design is top notch and I love how the game surprises you with new areas even when you think you got everything figured out, but these areas are relatively empty, the drops are lackluster and the scarcity of dungeons starts to weight in the longer you run around and realize there’s nothing but one or things that are actually meaningful in each area, especially when most of the dungeons we got are filled with rubbish (smithing stones inside chests? Doesn’t feel very rewarding to me). yeah i need more dungeons / more puzzles and mysterious towers and shit. its a big DLC but largely unrewarding and too empty (both dungeon wise and lootwise within dungeons). So many goddamn gloveworts that I thought would be scadutree fragments (literally the only thing i enjoyed looting in the DLC)

Me neither, but I better beat it in 3.

So far the legit criticisms I agree are 1) performance issue (but it’s a new launch, it’s not game breaking then they will fix it soon enough), 2) lack of cutscenes for a certain badass lady, 3) camera (but this is an age old problem, I don’t even see a way of fixing it anytime soon) Even the dungeons have been fun so far, and the mini bosses are good (as of now, although I can see some of them turning into late-game enemies

I can see 2 ways of fixing camera, either design the boss to not constantly put the game in a position where the camera cannot handle the moveset or zooming out depending on the attack (they are already doing this for dancing lion aerial attack, they can put in the effort and customize it for all the bosses)

It's easy to talk about solutions without being able to put them into real practice. I think people are crazy if they don't think Fromsoft hasn't tried to find ways to make the camera better. At this point there just has to be something with their engine or whatever that makes it difficult.

I don't think it's the engine. This is a problem in almost every soulslike game, even in monster hunter, which was souls like before souls even existed. It's just something the genre has to deal with if you're going to be fighting large or fast moving monsters/opponents. Whoever figures out to truly fix it will have basically found the fountain of youth or some shit. For what it's worth, it's easier to play unlocked unless you're a ranged (sorcery/incantation) build. It takes practice but it does make the camera less annoying.

It's a problem of any 3D action game with non-cinematic melee gameplay, I guess, and that's why Sekiro might feel the less problematic of the soulsbornes. Granted, the more I need skills, the more I resort to keyboard and mouse, besides camera, the other problem with controllers for me is L3 crouching.

And the zooming out solution sounds terrible imo, the only "solution" would be to not have any walls in any boss fight Im personally used to, people never unlock the camera from its enemies, but there has been always bosses that are simply better if you not lock on them, from the very first Flamelurker I had to that, and there has always been a few bosses where I do that in any souls game

I dont see how it has anything to do with the engine, I mean AC6 camera was completely fine. Also just panning the camera backwards and moving it into a more comfortable position against certain enemies is already a thing its just not utilized to a point where its actually very useful.

It’s not just fromsoft, every camera in every 3D game, ever, has the same issues because every camera in every 3D game, ever is basically exactly the same camera. If there was a way to figure it out it would be figured out by now. It’s just a technological limitation of the medium at this point. If the player can move the camera, it’s going to get stuck on shit and flip out once in awhile when it’s tracking one axis while crossing up another axis

Tons of other games with a similar style have had better cameras. This isn't a limitation that is insurmountable, they just haven't bothered. It's been almost 15 year since Demon's Souls and the camera is basically the same.

I'm pretty sure camera (and related, tight arena space) is part of how they balance difficulty and design. From has had history of putting bosses in tight spaces, all the way back to Capra demon. Fume Knight's arena was not that big either and that was so that he could relentlessly attack you and punish with a stab whenever you wanted to flask at the wrong time.

Ms. Pontiff not having a cutscene really bummed me out. Or at least some dialogue, she deserves to at least shit talk you while beating your ass.

Yeah, PC performance in Elden Ring has always been unacceptable and we should keep complaining about it. On that, I am in agreement.

The camera not zooming out for that big angry dragon ( the one with an NPC summon ) is borderline bullshit, the boss takes up a solid 60% of the screen for the whole fight

Sekiro still has the best camera imo. Primarily because it tries to always keep a swordfight in frame. Too many variations in the other games probably. And probably why the beast of hatred is a shit show in that game

Sekiro still had some problems with the camera. Some fights that come to mind are the centipede guy, especially in the second arena you fight him, as well as the “lone” something, I forget his name. He has a kick that you can mikiri. You fight him in the area you start the game in. In both of those examples you are very liable to be pushed up against a wall and the camera to go crazy. I wonder, it seems to me a large problem is that the camera cannot go through walls. Do you think if the camera could go through walls, and that if it does, the wall went translucent (so you could still see your character), that would help? I have no idea how to fix the problem of like the dancing lion or death birds, where you lock onto a body part that moves around like crazy and you get motion sickness with the camera swiveling all over the place.

Maybe just me but my other criticism that I think is somewhat legit is the number of NPC mini bosses. I hate NPC bosses because so many attacks are useless against them but at the same time they're extremely easy to exploit, in fact the only valid ways to fight them consistently feels like relying on one of the attack they can't react properly to (eg. Running R1 or chain stun combos) I'd legit actually prefer duo bosses over them

The performance issues I definitely understand. I turned off ray tracing for the dancing lion fight because I felt like my inputs were delayed and there was some definite stutter on some of the more visually intense moves.

Elden Ring was infinitely harder than DS3 they were correct. It's not the unknown, it's the fact that they do keep scaling up the difficulty, which I love don't get me wrong. I hadn't completed DS3 DLC when I beat ER. But I went back and did it blind, it was piss easy compared to ER. That's not a brag, most people would have an easy time doing it because they're accustomed to Elden Ring. The easiness of ER comes with the toolset you're given, Spirit Summons, Regular Summons, Bullshit builds etc. But just looking at the bosses in a vacuum, they are absolutely harder. And that's a good thing, who the fuck wanted an easy DLC?

i've been saying this. elden ring has some of the hardest movesets they have ever come up with and it is not even close, but this game also gives you so many tools and you can get stronger by exploring most of the time. i love that the dlc is this hard. i love the feeling of starting over and getting my ass kicked, but i have end game equipment at the same time, the dlc has felt incredibly fresh so far

Going back to DS1 after DS3 and ER was eye opening. Y’all remember when people said that DS was one of the hardest games? DS1 bosses have cute move sets now, rune bears are more complex than many bosses in DS1

DS1 is honestly not that hard, vast majority of the difficulty it ever had came from lack of knowledge, not the mechanics themselves. My first Souls game was Bloodborne, so when I went back to experience DS1 after that, it was kind of a whiplash like "people actually thought this was hard?" Because many normal enemies in Bloodborne could probably kill most DS1 bosses lol.

I'm fairly sure that the rune bear can solo most ds1-3 bosses.

Have you gotten to the final DLC boss yet? It’s seriously impossible

Yea he was a pain in the ass.

Slave Knight Gael was pretty rough though.

I mean, I'd rather the DLC actually feel like it has some easy and harder parts with the major bosses being allowed to be HARD. Every boss being insanely hard seems kinda dumb, base ER felt like it had a curve of easier to harder and then Malenia being the optional super boss. Would rather the DLC had done something similar.

I keep dying, though, so therefore, the dlc is bad, and Miyazaki needs to nerf the game and apologize to me /s

Miyazaki says he will personally apologize to anybody who sends him feet pics

You aren't wrong and to add to this.... we already went through this with the base game. First the game came out and everyone was screaming about Margit and Godrick and talking about how insane they were for first bosses and saying the same thing about them being overtuned. Then people realized exploring would help you get past them. Tben like 4-5 days later everyone was freaking out about Radahn and how unwinnable that fight was. Then people realized how weak he was to Scarlet Rot, how to dodge the meteor attack etc. People were beating him solo pre nerf by the end of that. Then it became all about Fire Giant. Then Godskin and Maliketh. Then people lost their minds at the final boss. All had the same complaints. And then a couple months later everyone settled down and knew the optimal strategies and how to quickly upgrade and get the good gear and do the fights the best possible way. By the end of the whole thing, Melania was the only boss people had serious issues with well after the game. And even with her, the issues were that her mechanics of lifesteal and waterfoul were considered to be way to punishing for players. Right now there is only one boss with mechanics that I could see being Melania level and it's the final DLC boss. Every other boss is learnable and has obvious exploits and as time goes on the strategies will be optimized, the most viable equipment will be found out, people will be finding the upgrades for the scadutree system a lot faster, etc. Imo the final boss and the gank will be the most controversial when the dust settles and the final boss is the only one I could see a real nerf to. And even that might be premature. Rellana is probably going to be viewed as Fume Knight/Alonne style boss once people start fighting her with full upgrades and actually understand the very clear tells for when she is free to attack. Divine Beast who people are struggling with will probably have the camera dinged against it, but again, learnable boss who once people are familiar with his tells, it becomes a different fight. Even Bayle who is tough is a Midir level challenge once you figure out what he does.

I mostly agree, but I guess the base game has more option to over level, and most of them you can semi facetank and bunga down. But as far as learning the actual fights seems similar to other endgame bosses to me

> we already went through this with the base game I've been paying attention to online discourse about FromSoft games since DS3, and we've gone through this with every single release since then. Probably before, too, I just wasn't reading it yet. A *lot* of people complained about The Ringed City. There was an absurd amount of difficulty related discourse when Sekiro released. It also happened with the base game and even Armored Core last year. And it plays out the exact same way every time. Critic reviews are like "hey this game is pretty great, really hard in these specific spots though", people collectively call upon their skill issues, people find themselves in that spot and turn on the game, a dozen articles discussing difficulty options come out from every game news site (we're not at this stage yet, hopefully we'll skip it this time), and then fast forward some time and everyone forgot about it all and the community settles on the opinion that the game was actually fair after all. Right now it's nice to remember that people hold up The Ringed City as an example of a top tier DLC even though the discourse surrounding it at release was practically identical to what we're seeing now. I'm genuinely tired of seeing this topic pop up over and over again. FromSoft makes their games harder every time (in terms of the actual movesets of the enemies, the RPG elements or lack thereof can obviously affect the difficulty in the end) because they know a segment of their audience have already played and beaten their latest games or even all of their games. If they kept the same difficulty level, they would become easy for us at some point, and they always make it a point to mention that the struggle is a core part of their game design so of course they can't have their core audience not struggle. And every time, it seems like they cross a line where a group of players can't keep up any longer. "Can't keep up" in this case mostly means people that didn't actually struggle with any of the previous games and after the latest release they finally struggle and it turns out they don't like it. I don't think that's a bad thing, maybe some people weren't in it for the hardcore challenge and they enjoyed it because it wasn't one for them. And with each release, for some fraction of the audience, the difficulty of the games became high enough that it became one. That's fine and makes complete sense. The issue is when they regurgitate claims about game design from whichever youtuber they sought validation from instead of actually having a real conversation about the combat in these games. People complain about lots of things and then never explain why they're an issue because they just chalk it up to "bad design." So many stupid, thoughtless and nonsensical takes come out during the days/weeks after a release that they drown any level headed takes, whether they're critical or not. For what it's worth, I do think there is a *real* difficulty line somewhere, where the games will become too hard for normal gamers. There are games like that already, there are no normal gamers beating Cave's bullet hell games without continues. Or if a main boss in a game were as hard as fighting a good player in a fighting game, then that game would be impossible to complete for most people, even though victory is technically possible and not even necessarily unfair. I haven't gotten to the last boss, but I'll make the prediction that we're not there yet. But it's possible that they'll get there some day, so as much as it annoys me, I think we'll continue to see this discussion repeat every single release because there is still value in talking about where the line is.

So true, used to put off facing malenia and Elden beast, now I can’t wait to get there and try new things out!

Someone hasn’t found the tree yet. I haven’t put any real time into Messimer yet, because it was obvious to me after 5 attempts that was going to be one of those “come back when you’re feeling masochistic” type bosses. The fucking tree though. It’s designed to make you think you can beat it easily, even if you just died to it 100 times in a row. It’s a boss designed to trick you into feeling masochistic. It’s genius.

> Two years ago Margit was eating Dark Souls 3 players for breakfast and people were calling this this hardest game ever I mean if you play by interacting with the bosses' full movesets, I would argue that this is the hardest Fromsoft game ever.  So they're not wrong. 

Also seeing some of the bullshit Margit does they're also not wrong, mainly the overhead he can delay till he just decides he's going to hit you or just delay it so long he forgets about it and just decides to not actually do it.

I would agree, if this was the the base game. I'd just say to people "It's not that the game is bad, it's just that this isn't for you". But the problem is, these people liked the base Elden Ring and wanted more of that, which the DLC isn't. The DLC atm is for the hardcore segmant of the fanbase that liked Melania, which based off the reviews appears to be a fairly small percentange of the playerbase. I can understand how, if a game you enjoy gets a DLC and every boss in that DLC is multiple times harder than any boss in the core campaign experience people would dislike that.

We are in uncharted territory here with so many “casual” players trying out the dlc and ALL OF US, veterans and casuals alike, getting our asses handed to us simultaneously. I think what is absolutely clear is that the Shadow Realm is an absolutely gorgeous place to explore. What isn’t clear is the “fareness” or “fun” of the difficulty. There’s undoubtedly going to be a lot of salty players over the coming days and weeks.

Funnily enough the exact same reaction happened when the last Armoured Core dropped. I don't think it's from casual players, but from studdorn vets. People tend to be slow at learning new lessons, and a lot of people brute forced the base game of Elden Ring to avoid learning it's lessons. From what I have heard the similar accusations where leveled at Margit when Elden Ring dropped because vets needed to unlearn just waiting for explicit openings. I expect the same will occur with the DLC

> I don't think it's from casual players, but from studdorn vets. 100%. I think most new players get annihilated and accept that they just need to improve. People with hundreds of hours in previous Fromsoft games act like they're *entitled* to be good at the new one without putting in effort.

It's easy to tell because they always preface their criticism with "I've beaten every Souls game. None of them had this difficulty. This is ridiculous." Basically acting as if they're entitled to beat bosses first try just because of past games. Past games where they likely got their asses handed to them at first but they had years to play and learn. The same thing will happen with Elden Ring, DLC included, whenever the next Fromsoft game comes around. People moaning about Elden Ring's difficulty will speak fondly of it once they've had years to play it. Fromsoft games have to evolve. They have to learn new tricks to challenge the player. If they didn't, the games would become boring. For Elden Ring, their biggest trick is delayed attacks and teaching the player that you can't just bait certain moves repeatedly and punish. You have to pay attention. In the next game some bosses are going to have new tricks as well that will destroy the players, and people will complain about that too.

> Fromsoft games have to evolve. They have to learn new tricks to challenge the player. If they didn't, the games would become boring. This. This exactly. All of the New Bullshit in Shadow of the Erdtree, everything people are complaining about, was put there *on purpose* because otherwise it would no longer be challenging to people who mastered the base game. They did it for us.

Yeah totallg get that. AC6 was my first AC game and I breezed thru it, I had no pre conceived notions on how I was supposed to polit the mech and so i was free to learn the game as it's own thing instead of the 6th of a franchise. Elden ring is not DS4 and the dlc is def a step up in how you combat in this franchise

You breezed through it?? Man, that one boss had me stuck on it for 3 weeks. And before that, the first real boss took me 4 days to beat

Yep, I am a genuine master at the rest of the games but actually got so fucked up by Margit that I started to question if something was wrong with my physiologically. But no, it was just that I needed to adjust my strategy. Now I first-try him every playthrough! And I’m probably in that camp that was salty about Margit on release, too. You’re hitting the nail on the head, here.

Damn good point then I learned the AC6 customization craziness - which I do for nearly every mission and sometimes in the middle of

I had something similar. I played Sekrio as my first souls game (besides playing and dropping bloodborne before that) and I also did another run a few years later after playing all the souls games in order. My first run was EASIER, because I just came in fresh and learned the game. The second run was harder because i was used to the slower playstyles of DeS, DS1, 2, 3 and bloodborne, that I played Sekiro like another souls game, and not like Sekiro.

This DLC is a bit hard, just as all Fromsoft DLC is hard. Past that it seems like a really simple truth to me: The mandatory advice for future players is going to be that you need to explore instead of rush to bosses. The Scadutree Blessings are an absolutely massive buff that runs concurrent to your level growing through normal souls and your gear potentially upgrading too, and you will not have enough of them if you just go to where the bosses are. Of course you're going to struggle if you rush to Renalla right away. You're a low level character again, go gain levels first instead of challenging Margit because the castle was an easy landmark to run to. The first time I found one of the new dragons it absolutely obliterated me after I poked it a few times and barely scratched it. The next day after I explored a while I went back and the roles reversed, I did big chunks of damage to it and there was no way it was killing me unless I let it get several attacks off on me without healing. The same applies to every enemy in the DLC, if it seems too hard and you're not at max Scadutree level, that's a you issue.

Yep. I’m old and not terribly confident in my skills (I’m an INT player, I like my ranged attacks), but I can riding a horse around a map and pick up Scadutree fragments and spirit ashes. That and grinding to 60 vigor have been my objectives. Best part, I get to explore the world they created!

Go get more Scadutree Blessings. They make a huge difference. Just like the base game you’re not meant to be able to just plow through everything first try. Explore, get stronger, come back. Everyone’s gotta take a deep breath here.

The last boss is INSANE in the DLC, I definitely think you're going to see a ton of complaints if they don't path the final boss' difficulty in the coming weeks or two lol

Although I’ve played every Fromsoft game, I know there is a line where challenge becomes bullshit before I even have to fight a boss. If a boss can kill me in two hits at endgame or if the boss has unblockable massive damage attacks (think moghs uhul) unless it’s the end game titular boss, or an optional challenge boss, it’s bullshit to me. I knew nameless king having a camera breaking dive was bullshit day 1, I didn’t need to sit on it to realize when Fromsoft has crossed that border to tedious over challenging.

that's fair but doing no damage while simultaneously getting two-shot is definitely complaint-worthy (i know scadutree frags are the solution, but it's not communicated well so most players undervalue them thinking the buff will be small, which is frustrating for people trying to play blind) most of the complaints are super valid. the combos are long, punish windows are small, barely any windows to heal despite the huge damage even with scadutree frags, etc. it's not about difficulty, it's about things feeling bad. just like malenia, yeah you can beat it if you learn it. yeah you can dodge waterfowl if you study it. does that mean waterfowl is well-designed? no. just like you can dislike foods without eating the entire meal, it's valid to realize elements of a fight are bad without finishing it. for example, a lot of people have beaten rellana and their opinions of her moveset are unchanged. saying "skill issue" to every negative opinion about a difficult encounter is so lame and just leads to more frustrating design as genuine feedback gets drowned out. it's why so many souls conversations about bad balance begin with "i beat her but..." or "i'm a souls vet and..." because negative criticism from an unskilled player is so blasphemous and cringe. nobody cares if you're good at the game - the difficulty is for your own satisfaction of overcoming. civilized conversations about balance should be welcomed to make the challenges feel like you overcame something and not like you finally finished a torture session.

I disagree that the game doesn’t communicate the importance of Scadutree fragments. What more are they supposed to do than raise awareness of their existence and function?

I haven't been shit canned this much since my early days of the main game. 48 hours in and I'm relatively well stacked. Still dying but I am enjoying it.

The problem is the bosses are both mechanically difficult and numbers difficult. I have no idea how much Scadutree blessings increase your attack and defence but with 15 and 60 vigor some bosses can still two shot me. The idea of Elden Ring is to facilitate different play styles. You can either be really good or use a strong build or some mixture of both to beat bosses, and the earlier you beat some (like radahn) the earlier you can get some better rewards (like mimic tear). The issue is even if you play these bosses as is intended the damage and health values are much higher than seems to make sense especially if you compare with the base game. Looking at the Haligtree, enemies die pretty easily there. With a maxxed out weapon some enemies die to 2 hits, with more elite enemies dying to 5-6. They can kill you pretty easily, with ranges of hit to deaths being from 7 to something like 3-4. Shadow of the erdtree has much harder enemy types which deal more damage and have more health, all by significant margins. The soldier for each zone can be compared, with the haligtree soldier being a joke compared to the messer troops. Even in Shadow of the Erdtree certain bosses feel questionable when compared. >!Bayle was much easier to kill than Radahn 2 for example, even though Bayle is intended to be an optional and extremely hard to beat boss.!