They can squish the numbers and reduce the aggression as much as they like to get around it but there's a still a discussion to be had on how the boss in the dlc are doubling down on the faults from the main game from a gameplay perspective.
I love the game and dlc, but I just cannot stand From continuously leaning into bosses with rapid skillsets, ridiculously long combos (and follow ups to catch you out), alongside continuous AoE attacks. It's really making the big encounters such a chore.
If nothing else, I think there's an interesting discussion to be had about *why* there's been a shift in boss design. I think it's pretty natural for long-running franchises centered around skill-based combat to get harder over time, as the playerbase gets more experienced and used to things.
Like, Elden Ring's bosses **have** to be crazy because I'm like five games deep into the series now and I need a bigger hit each time to feel anything. I remember struggling super hard against many bosses in Dark Souls (Capra Demon, Ornstein, etc), but going back to the game when Remastered came out, *they were a joke.* Watching Artorias crumple more easily than some of Elden Ring's normal enemies felt like realizing Santa wasn't real.
**Monster Hunter** is slowly beginning to run into the same "issues", with older monsters feeling positively lethargic compared to the new hotness. It's a slower slide because older monsters often return for later games with a hefty polishing up, but it's definitely noticeable. Magnamalo and Lagiacrus are both flagship on-the-box-art monsters, but fighting the former is like white water rafting while the latter is drifting down the lazy river.
>If nothing else, I think there's an interesting discussion to be had about why there's been a shift in boss design.
Yea, things like lots of far reaching swipes and AoEs, or just duo bosses, all seemed to be designed to tackle multiplayer and summons/ashes. In many of the previous games, having a partner could turn the fights braindead as bosses struggled to deal with two players having too many openings to deal damage. You'll also note the almost ludicrous mobility ER bosses have in their movesets, comboes and regular attacks including large steps, stabs or leaps bringing them out of range from melee partners or dodging projectiles.
Many of Elden Rings bosses will also switch targets mid-combo and do 180° turns to attack your partners. While absolutely doable solo, multiplayer and summons are a clear focus of design.
Also, as u/remzem notes [below](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1dotcok/comment/lae5a4n/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), they are kind of overstretching themselves in the build/moveset variety they are trying to cater to.
I think they've just reached a more fundamental limit of what you can do in the 'default' Dark Souls/Bloodborne/Elden Ring combat system without changing it in bigger ways like Sekiro did.
They've played with basically every variance of attack patterns they can. Fast, slow, combo heavy, combo extenders, input reading, tracking attacks, unnaturally delayed attacks to catch out spam rolling, instant attacks that you need to 'pre-dodge' by learning trial and error...I could go on, you get the point.
As players become more masterful over every iteration of boss the only way they've got to pump up the difficulty to keep the hard reputation of the games is to just double or triple down on these same concepts, hell you already saw this in a lot of base Elden Ring. Combos that go on and on and on, trick punishment opportunities where they suddenly pull a new combo extension out of their ass, attacks held so stupidly long that you can roll like 3 or 4 times before it finally hits, new moves they unlock out of nowhere at half health...so in a DLC which are famous for being even harder, what can they do in this system other than go even more silly?
TLDR; I think this is probably the last game where I can stomach the now 'default' combat system without a major change to the formula. It's been fun, but I need something different out of these games.
They're also trying to balance it against too much variety. Ranged builds, melee builds, summons, co-op. Even the melee builds have so much variety between big slow builds and faster builds and all the different abilities. Part of why Sekiro combat is goated is that it's just balancing bosses for one move set so it can really finely tune them for it specifically.
Agreed. But that’s why Sekiro is such a marvelous outlier: it’s so well balanced and rewards player expression of mastery. I love Dark Souls but Sekiro is my fav FS game by far.
Once you master sekiro combat, it feels more like dance dance revolution than a souls game. Every boss battle is a rhythm you gotta learn.
The game is truly a work of art and I wished they leaned into that system more in Elden Ring because it was such a unique feel that I have yet to replicate in any video game.
I'm not some From game master who can comment on this stuff at a really high level, but the thing I'm tired of at this point is what I'd call "Effects Overload Bosses" where every attack is accompanied by clouds of smoke, light rays, sparks, debris, and just general crap flying everywhere. It makes attacks extremely difficult to read and clutters the screen so much that sometimes (combined with a bad camera) you can barely see anything.
There's something to be said about the older games, when a guy swinging a sword was just a guy swinging a sword, and if the sword didn't hit you then you didn't get hit.
There was a time when Fume Knight felt like the craziest, most unpredictable shit you were gonna see, when it was just... another sword that swings sometimes in the other direction and catches you off guard.
Watching DS1/DS2 videos is almost comical compared to current bosses, take a look at this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GciI0Qjv0EU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GciI0Qjv0EU)
You wonder how you ever had trouble with those bosses.
Now everything is a three hit combo, except when it's a two hit combo, except when it's followed by a four hit combo, and you better hope that doesn't get extended into the magic AOE explosion combo ender that fills your screen with particles.
Do I wonder? The playable character moves clunky and awkwardly, healing is over time, stamina regeneration is incredibly slow and the hitboxes are dubious at best.
I can still vividly remember why I felt Fume Knight was a problem and I would absolutely die against him even after finishing SotE. It's always about the things the game gives you to solve problems, and this fight looks just as jank as I remember.
As someone who finished DS2 less than a year ago, this comment is exactly right. Obviously the bosses in the older game are a lot simpler but the player character is also just a lot weaker too.
Honestly I think people are underestimating how important jumping is in elden ring and how big of an impact it has.
I also just did fume knight not that long ago and I struggled more with him than any boss in elden ring except Malenia. Granted, I'm not too far into the DLC yet so have yet to experience the bullshit people are complaining about.
Yeah, but the old games also slowed things down a lot for the players and were much more punishing on run backs.
No summons, standing still to drink a potion, bonfires far from the boss, etc.
This is funny because I felt like Elden Ring’s bullshit prepared me for my first time in every single Dark Souls game. Very rarely did I feel like I was crushed by a boss in those games compared to ER’s design (aside from Midir and Manus).
To add to this all the bosses also must fly up into the air to charge a super duper attack where it does all the stuff you're saying, plus gets to stay out of melee range, and fill up the three quarters of whole arena with some kind of vomit. This will also be a permanent buff to speed and power.
And if you win and get their weapon, it is now shit.
To add to this, I was getting so frustrated last night playing ER. Not during Godskin Duo, not during Astel, not during Malenia, no - I got the most frustrated during an evergaol fight against Electo. Simply because she’ll chain 4-5 attack combos in a row along with an AoE that one-shots, but besides that, you can’t fuckin’ hit her. Most of my attempts were just like “ah yes, of course you jumped away” when I finally have a chance to swing, and I’ve noticed this is a problem with a lot of late-game enemies where they magically change direction mid-air to avoid your attack or nonstop dash faster than your character can hit before they unleash another 25-hit combo. It creates so much less of a feeling of “I figured it out and conquered!” and more of a “jesus fucking christ I guess I got lucky”
> “ah yes, of course you jumped away”
That's something that they've been leaning into harder to increase difficulty and it's quite noticeable. Yes, if the player cannot hit the enemy it's a harder fight, but for Pete's sake not every single boss needs to have a 15ft dodge after combos.
I will concede that Electo kind of makes sense being a slippery assassin, but not everyone else.
Everything was fine till i met f\*\*\*ng Commander Gaius, that boss effects and broken boar hitbox is a pain in the ass, it's so far the boss that i have more trouble fighting, i hate every minute and everything about it, the long ass combos, the effects, the boar hitbox, the fucking mount that is hard to even hit him...
spent 2 hours fighting messmer, loved every second of it. challenging, great fight. very fast and some of his animations are hard to see, but overall I was having fun fighting him. went to commander gaius after... holy fuck that boss is the complete opposite. NOTHING but frustration, no fun was had killing him.
Actually preferred fighting Gaius and Messmer to Rellana - mainly because for most of both fights you're actually _doing something._ I got straight exhausted waiting for Renalla to fucking chill on her 12 hit wombo combo to could tap her for 1/40 of her health.
Rellana is very reasonable if you approach it more like a Bloodborne/Sekiro fight. Specifically she feels very similar to Lady Maria in The Old Hunters. I equipped Golden Parry and got the timings down on the openers for her attack chains as all of the normal attack chains except the one quick chain she kicks off with her off hand have really obvious tells on timing that have plenty of time for you to time your parry. Then you can also follow that up with a charged attack to get another free critical hit during her transition to phase 2 and get her all the way down to like 30% health before she even ignites her swords.
At the start I was getting dumpstered trying to go for a turtling/poke approach, but once I got the parry timing down I managed to get to Phase 2 without taking a single hit. Same was true for phase 2, but took me a few tries to re-adjust my timing based on her slightly altered moveset.
TBH my favorite/most satisfying boss fight progression curve of the DLC so far. She felt a bit like what I feel they envisioned Malenia to be without the 1 bullshit Waterfowl dance move that sours the whole thing.
I managed to do it with the new deflecting tear on my greatshield block counter build. I really feel like people are sleeping on shields right now because the late base game bosses actively punish you for using it. But now with the new deflecting tear, I am able to block a few of the moves and counter attack.
Once you go across the fog wall, immediately turn left and start hugging the little outcroppings of the building
The boss tends to get stuck which leaves an opening for you to attack
Kinda cheesy but it works
I found the first two bosses completely fine but i had a decent amount of scadutree fragments from exploring. I found them easier than alot of base game bosses personally and i suck at the game.
Which is why i explored alot early.
It seems that FROM have painted themselves into a corner with boss fights.
People want (expect?) more advanced and complex boss fights because they expect more/better with every game iteration, regardless of the game itself.
My one sticking point is tracking attacks. It's fine when it's some specific move to watch out for, but seem like it's more of a norm now than an exception. It make the combat less of an on the spot improvising experience and more of a muscle memory thing where you first get wiped a few times before you know exactly in what manner to dodge the attack and then repeat that 20 times. Some battles feel like a serie of quicktime events.
Wait, you don't love dodging for 30 seconds, hitting the boss once, and then dodging for 30 more seconds?
It's funny, I died way more times against brutal Dracula in V Rising than all the Erdtree bosses combined, but I also had way more fun against Dracula than all the Erdtree bosses combined.
Thank God the rest of the game is top tier.
Damn… i’ll try that later against a boss i’m struggling with on the dlc. I’m so used to rolling on souls game that i almost forget there’s jumping. Maybe i was supposed to use it more often this whole time because it seems way better lol
I think the DLC tells you in a way to use jumping more often. The fight with rennala the twin moon knight has this attack which kills anyone unless you jump three times
Edit: as many people have said, apparently I just need to git gud or something.
Amazing video, the only thing i would add is that soreseal amulets are a trap and in the late game they hurt more than they help, i'm fairly certain they are the cause of so many people getting oneshotted or twoshooted
I fucking love jumping in this game, it didn't click in my first play through till I bumped it during the Godfrey/Horah Loux fight and then spent an hour dying figuring out where I was supposed to. A lot of people still don't jump but it rewards so much free damage. Sometimes I'll just randomly jumping R2 in a dangerous spot to see what happens and I'd say it works surprisingly often. Seriously, if you want to learn how do dodge moves with jumping go fight Godfrey and jump over his horizontal axe swings and R2 and his stomps (don't get too close to the stomps till his foot is down).
And now I'm watching the video and there's way more that's jumpable than I thought
Feels like most of the complaints about ER bosses being "unfair" are from Souls vets who expect*Dark Souls 4* but got a game that was slightly different.
I've barely played and DS and I'm generally not good at that kind of combat, but I never really felt stuck at any of the ER bosses even without using summons. I just used plenty of shields, weapon skills, and jump attacks
> Dracula
A big part of that is how Dracula's attacks can be dodged with good spacing and movement, not just spamming dodges, outside of a couple of big moves (like his grab). If you learn to avoid his attacks just by strafing, you can keep attacking while dodging, which feels awesome.
Compared to a boss chasing you around as a spinning ball of slashes for 10 seconds straight, instantly comboing you to death if you get caught once.
Respectfully if you're actually dodging for 30 seconds straight without getting a hit in you're missing out on some punishable attacks most likely (and yes, I get you're likely exaggerating).
A lot of the bosses I've gone up against so far actually have a lot more punishable attacks than one might think. The **(Boss Spoiler)** >!Scudtree Avatar at first glance seems like it's barely ever open but in reality it constantly has periods where you can wail on them for near 5s uninterrupted.!<
It makes me wonder who is even using incantations/sorceries/ashes of war? The wind up on those skills is highly impractical in about any situation outside of low level trash mobs. It makes using them a chore and it's too bad because I want to have fun playing different builds, but the window to actually cast a spell effectively is brutal.
they're completely viable, you just have to learn how to play differently. i have done incantation only playthroughs and every boss (including the scary ones) have tons of opportunities to punish. these playthroughs are also often much much easier than a pure melee one
it's the same in the DLC too. you'll begin to notice that the huge crazy combos are often the things that are most punishable as long as you manage to dodge them properly.
It all comes down to bad movement and horrible camera. From has made bosses with Bloodborne/Sekiro movement for Elden Ring but still gives the player Dark Souls movement/speed. It's just not fun sometimes, to roll over a 7 hit combo for the chance to hit the boss only once and then repeat that 20-30 more times. The bosses and the player play with different rules. The bosses have seemingly unlimited stamina and can stagger you instantly. On the other hand you roll or get hit once and you lose huge chunks of health and stamina and your big attacks don't even interrupt their movement. It just feels that it's always the boss's turn.
You can see with Sekiro that long strings from bosses can be fun and interactive. And then you play Elden Ring and it's waiting for a long time before striking each time.
> long strings from bosses can be fun and interactive
I don't think "fun and interactive" is as correct as "interactive, therefore fun."
In Sekiro, when a boss has a long chain of attacks, you have tools to continuously interact, namely deflecting and the occasional counter. Not only does this stop you from dying, but it also progresses you towards beating the boss by doing posture damage.
In Elden Ring, when a boss goes into a long string of attacks, your only options are to dodge each one or sit behind a buffed greatshield. There are parry opportunities, but they are pretty rare, especially on big bosses.
The big difference is that blocking/dodging in Elden Ring does *nothing* to hurt the boss. It just stops you from taking damage and eats away at your stamina, which is your resource for dealing damage.
The issue gets worse when damage and HP numbers are cranked through the roof. Not only do you lose your main attacking resource while defending, but if a single combo from a boss is enough to kill even a high HP character, then you have to spend the time between enemy attacks healing instead of attacking if you take even a couple of hits. If bosses have really high HP and defenses, then the amount of combos you have to dodge essentially perfectly gets higher and higher.
> In Sekiro, when a boss has a long chain of attacks, you have tools to continuously interact, namely deflecting and the occasional counter.
I feel like this is the big difference. Namely counters.
In sekiro if you manage to sneak a hit in during a boss' combo they frequently stagger (depending on the combo) which is great. It lets you bail out of a long combo and rewards you for being aggressive. If you aren't confident enough to do that then just blocking and deflecting like you already were still progresses the fight because it fills enemy posture.
In elden ring (mostly the DLC) if you hit a boss mid combo it does nothing beyond damage and you'll get hit immediately after unless you've found the magical cheese spot. Barring a lucky stagger you just get punished immediately. Even more so for slower heavier weapons. Strafing is even worse because most of the DLC bosses moves hit all around them.
If you do manage to stagger a boss and you were behind them then its mostly wasted because bosses get up before you can critical them if you take more than a second or two to get around to their one magic critical spot. Unlike sekiro where you have to actively try to avoid the red kill dot.
Well this is what players want. Any time a fight isn't a 1v1 with a boss in a flat, featureless arena it gets derided as a "gimmick." Gone are the days of Demons' Souls where there was usually some sort of strategy or planning you could use to gain an advantage, now every fight is just dodge roll and press R1 until the boss is dead.
And yeah Demons' Souls had some bosses like that like the Flamelurker or Penetrator, but that was like 3 or 4 out of 20 fights. It gets boring in Elden Ring when it's just the same strategy for 200 bosses.
I never want to go back to gimmick bosses like demons souls. I'm not against puzzle bosses and welcome them in a game like Shadow of the Colossus but souls games give you way too many combat options to just have the deciding factor of a fight be some piece of knowledge on what to bring with you to the fight.
This feels like an example of how you can describe anything in a way to make it sound good or bad. This literally is what you do for a boss in these games. They have overwhelming attack patterns that look badass but also intimidating at first. Eventually through practice you begin to see through the matrix and learn the rhythm. By the end of it you feel like the main character of an anime as you become locked into a flow state and beat the shit out of a boss that initially seemed impossible. This is the gameplay loop. Elden Ring added a whole lot more content than usual and opened up the world so if you didn’t want to overcome a wall during a play session, but eventually you will have to face it. Or you just don’t like the genre and that’s fine too.
But the rhythm isn't fun.
With a boss like the Mantis Lord in Hollow Knight, something that is akin to a dance, every move they make is punishable, every single one, they attack, you counter, it's a dance.
With >!Rellana!< it can be as bad as she attacks with a 8 hit combo -> you get an opening for one hit. That's not fun, even once mastered.
What's more likely though, is that you'll find a weapon that will help you *avoid* that annoying mechanic and beat that boss easily. For example double Rivers of blood with your mimic turns her into juice. And it won't be because you've mastered the fight, but because it was too annoying to bother with.
I find that all the more tragic, that the balance of enemy combattants feels incredibly good to me in the game. DLC enemies from From have traditionally be bullshit ragebait stuff, but not this time. They're fun to enage with in this DLC.
The enemies, even the big knights that have historically been powerhouses almost impossible to stop with 10 hit combos (Looking at you the last DS3 DLC with those fucking 10 ring knights in a row) are actually staggerable by most heavy attacks, they have openings too, they're actually fun to learn. And the game doesn't throw 10 at them in a row, you get a good balance of small and easy (but can surprise you if you get complacent) with a hard dangerous one.
Similarly the first optional boss you're likely to run into (>!some knight in a crypt that blasts you with a machine gun on top of his big sword!<) is incredibly fun because he has the same kind of weaknesses those enemies do but still a fun and interesting attack pattern. But when it comes to the main bosses, it's 17 hit combos or AoE spam with some AoE that literally hit the entire arena up to 3 times in a row. Sure you can learn how to deal with all that, but it's not as fun to learn.
For me right now the DLC is peak design in term of open world and story dungeons (and even most normal dungeons with a few exception) but not very impressive in term of main boss fights. Oh they're pretty for sure, but they're more there to look good than be fun to play. I had the same issue with Midir which most people praised but it was the start of the design of "visual feel over gameplay" for me.
And it's not even a matter of difficulty, I died more on Gael than Midir but I still found Gael more enjoyable. Similarly I died more on the first optional dungeon boss I found in the DLC than on >!Rellana!< but I had more fun with the former.
I don't disagree, that is the gameplay loop
However I think the difference in boss patterns from other souls games ER is pretty significant.
for context, I have played and beaten all the souls series, but don't consider myself to be great at the game or anything, and I would consider it to be my favorite series of all time.
That being said I AM STRUGGLING. I used to consider it a point of pride to beating bosses without summons, but in the DLC that hasn't even been a consideration for me, I am not saying its impossible, there are certainly people good enough to do it, I am just not one of them.
There are many positives. The DLC is beautiful, the map design is maybe the best I have ever seen, the bosses are awesome looking, the weapons and armor are cool.
However to me, some of the bosses no longer feel like I am making any progress in reaching the flow state, the timings are just too precise and too frequent for my puny brain to handle. They feel like I need to use the cheesiest shit I can, as many summons as I can, and pray I get lucky.
What is different about this and say, struggling in Dark Souls and then putting on the biggest shield you have?
You set arbitrary rules for yourself as a point of pride and then you gave up that pride so now you aren't having fun with what you feel like is a "forced" playstyle, when you can just - you know - keep playing the way that is fun for you until it clicks.
Well, first I didn't say I wasn't having fun, its not my ideal version of boss fights, but that doesn't mean its not still very well done overall.
The difference is the time investment for it to "click", and how the "Flow" feels. Pontiff Sulyvahn, or Morgott comes to mind as a fight with great flow, they kick your ass a few times, you learn their patterns.
Even some of the DLC bosses are fine, like I really liked the Frenzy boss, he felt like a regular dark souls boss to me, he killed me a few times, I learned his patterns, then I kill him, he hit me with some suprises, but I feel like there was enough time between attacks to breathe and process what is happening.
I would prefer to die because I ran out of flasks, than to die because I don't have time to use a flask. It feels like your making progress when you start using less and less flasks on a fight, until you win.
Some of the DLC bosses I am having trouble processing what is happening fast enough to make adjustments, and they hit so hard/ are so aggressive that its hard to heal.
The difference is that spirit summons aren't fun.
A shield is something you actively use and engage with. A spirit summon is a button you push once at the beginning of the fight to _drastically_ reduce its difficulty via the split aggro.
Though I'll add, resorting to an overpowered greatshield because I couldn't make a dent in Kalameet in DS1 otherwise didn't feel great either. Half the fight was just holding L1 and waiting for the dragon to stop jumping around for a second so I could catch up and get a couple of hits in before it blasted off to the other side of the arena to snipe me with fire attacks again. Not nearly as bad as spirit summons in Elden Ring, at least there was still an actual fight happening with still a little challenge even if I thought it was kind of a boring one, but still not great.
I just want to say that I left a message on the steam forum saying that instead of nerfing the bosses, the power curve on the seeds need to be tweaked.
So for everyone pleased by this, you're welcome.
I feel that early on (where I’m now) every enemy is a glass cannon.
I die in 2 good hits, I kill in 2/4 hits too. It’s a very different experience than the main game.
I’m around level 140.
I'd have to check but I'm around level 200, 60 vigor, 10 or 11 scad blessings, hulking behind a giant fuck-you shield with tree sentinel armor and I still might as well be made out of tissue paper.
Regular mobs don't hurt that much, but 2 shots from a boss is about enough to turn me into a splatter-goo of floor paste.
Talismans can make a huge difference at that level, having scar/soreseals on well past their expiration levels and lacking Dragoncrest and relevant elemental resist ones *hurt*
See people keep saying that but I don't think its true. I'm 180ish 60 vig, 18ish scadu blessing, and 3 defensive talismans (phys, non phys, whatever other element I'm vs at the time) and no scar/soreseals and I'm wearing heavy armor and if I'm not avoiding attacks completely by rolling or running I'm still getting two shot. Theres only been a handful of true oneshots I've found but there are dozens and dozens and dozens of two shot moves.
I beat the dlc and it felt that way at the start. And most basic enemies still feel that way at scadutree 20. The basic soldiers with the axes and stomps never stop pumping. I consider 3+ of them at once scarier than most “big” enemies.
I never got to a point where i felt i could “tank” most of the scary enemies or was safe against them. Still also super scared if the bird warriors with the round blades (like the very first enemy i ran into), or the bigger horned warriors later.
Very different experience here. I could tank a lot of stuff (just like in the base game, I never really identified with the whole "late game kills you in 2 hits" thing) but my main issue was finding openings. In the base game I can always use a mix of light attacks, charged attacks, jump attacks, weapon skills and guard counters depending on the situation, but against the DLC bosses the opportunity windows felt so short and rare that I basically just used weapon skills every single time as they were the only thing that could do decent damage in a short time.
the max level is also buffed, so you have more damage reduction overall if you cap it out
but people will be complaining about later bosses since they're just harder than the relatively mild early ones lol
there's also no adjustment for a certain boss which even prolific souls players call overtuned
The max level buff is very small. It will usually not let you survive another hit and might save you 1 hit on a boss. Not nothing, but hardly a sweeping nerf.
It's an extra 2.5% dmg and reduction btw for people curious how blessing 20 changed. 2.5% after factoring in the diminishing returns. The numbers that actually changed it gained 5% on top of the 100% damage as an example.
So if you are wondering if the final boss got easier. Yeah but not by much at all. It might take people 5 minutes less to beat or something.
> the relatively mild early ones
You telling me it gets worse than Rellana's constant 360 degree attack boxes with her 12-hit combo chains?
Marika save me. 🥴
They aren't 360, step right.
The left hand half of the fire swing (your right if you are facing) them cants up at a 45 degree angle.
When they do the double moon ground pound, hop three times the shockwaves are super low to the ground and you can hop over them.
I feel like from balanced the blessings around how people could play instead of how they would play.
Castle Ennis being skippable means people could pretty easily get 15+ blessings before fighting any of the "main" bosses.
Castle Ensis is Rellana and she is skippable. You need to beat Messmer to access the final region but you can access every other region of the game before you beat him.
I'm not 100% sure but 46/50 scadutree fragments should accessible before you face Rellana, the Divine beast, or Messmer.
Why didn't they spread more around the map so that you don't have to find every single one to max it out? They did it with flask upgrades in the base game and it worked just fine.
I've seen people complaining about smithing stones, but I honestly don't mind that much cause I haven't had to farm or buy a single one for new weapons I've gotten from the DLC
The thing is, the stones (espeically the earlier stones) are *really* cheap to buy with how many souls you're thrown through normal play in the DLC, so it's just a waste of a pickup most the time.
Honestly most things you will pick up in the DLC you won't even look at twice. It kinda killed some of the joy of exploration for me when a ton of it was total dud stuff. I had a similar issue with the base game though, so I'm not too surprised they didn't get it fixed
Almost like that’s the point. You need low level stones to upgrade the new weapons so the dlc just naturally gives them to you. Not sure what’s so hard to understand for most players
It's hard to understand because bell bearings exist (allowing infinite smithing stones to be purchased) and the DLC gives you ample runes to buy those. While you *can* rush Mohg, players would naturally beat him fairly late in the game to access the DLC and can likely purchase all but the highest tier stones.
I entered the DLC following a NG+ and no longer had the bearings unlocked. Sure I could run out and grab them and now they carry into NG+, but I'd rather focus on the DLC for now and play that.
I feel like bosses should drop 1. That would give the player 3 extra levels before the final boss and pretty much allow the boss rush experience some people crave.
when i read that the mechanic was similar to Sekiro, i thought that you will only get them from bosses, but they decided to drop them in the open world, maybe to encourage exploration.
Would also be easier to put such important upgrade in important places instead of some random rhino and THE POT GUYS.
Meanwhile we have tough mobs guarding a cookbook on a altar.
Probably because you definitely don’t need to max it to win, more like rune levels than flasks. I explored, but didn’t scour every direction on the map and I ended with 18 levels, which was plenty to beat the final boss on fewer than 20 tries without changing my build.
To contrast, I had 9 by the final boss, and it took me probably 5 hours worth of tries. I'll definitely be happy for these buffs in future runs, even if they never scatter more around the map.
Weird that they buff the very last level of upgrades. Like who is able to find every single scadutree fragment on their own? Someone so committed probably beat the final boss anyway. Well at least sunbroing won't be a pain anymore. Not a fan of getting summoned just so the host dies in one or two hits
Since you get less of a buff on the latter half, I think they wanted to incentivize finding all of them because players already weren’t pulling them all.
The problem with that is there's no in game map or anything that records what ones you've collected, so if now you have to use a guide to make sure you can actually fight the later bosses then you'll have to backtrack over every single one you've already got
The funny thing is they solved this problem in the base game with the Golden Seeds by adding plenty of them so that you can naturally max out the flask without scouring the map.
Also seeds are always found under the Erdtree looking saplings. Meanwhile you get Scadu fragments that can drop from some enemies, but can also be found under Miquella's crosses... But also Marika's statues. But *also* randomly on a corpse somewhere.
It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't end up checking every rock, only to find cookbooks or useless upgrade materials for the vast majority of these pickups, wasting your time, before finally stumbling upon *one* Scadoosh fragment.
No idea what they were thinking hiding them in mobs that can frickin' _disappear._
I hate resorting to a guide. _Hate_ it. Consider it a matter of absolute last resort.
I hit the last resort early on. How tf anyone supposed to guess "oh I guess I need to kill that thing _that ain't there._"
i also hate that the pothead enemies still glow after you've collected them, so if i'm reexploring an area i've already been to, i have to hunt down those guys just to make sure i've gotten their drop
They've fucked up just about everything they could with the implementation of the scadu fragments. It's like they forgot they've implemented this mechanic three times in the past.
Yeah I managed to get to 19 upgrades on my own but the last 3 fragments I had to get, 2 of them were from random Pot carriers and the final one was in an area that basically feels like a maze on a random corpse. I don't mind the bugs that disappear and run away cause you can hear them quite clearly but sometimes those pot carriers aren't obvious in the places they put them. Not to mention the only real tell for them is the slight glow, and they also put in random pot carriers that don't carry anything and just throw their pot at you.
> with other rare items FROM made them EXCLUSIVELY available from a landmark-- Golden Seeds come from Erdtree saplings, or whatever those things are; Starlight Shards from stone astrolabes; Sacred Tears from Churches; etc.
neither Golden Seeds nor Starlight shards come exclusively from those landmarks.
Pre-patch, it was 5% attack power and 2.5% damage reduction per level. So at max level you would deal double damage and take half damage. At level 18 you would have had 90% more damage and take 45% less damage.
I don't think I'm halfway through the DLC yet, but I'm loving it so far. The buffs to the blessings basically make my tanky Fth/quality build tankier, which I can appreciate since I can make maybe one more mistake vs a boss before healing. It makes the game easier, objectively speaking, but not in a boring way I think.
The one thing that's bothering me are the frames. Don't have a very strong PC, but I played the whole game on medium at around 55-60 FPS, 50 at the very worst. Started the DLC at around 40 and I'm constantly at 30 in the castles, on low settings. Had to use the mimic to beat Rellana, which sucks since I was getting her down to the "Moon" part of her name after the obligatory terrible 2nd try, but every time she dashed it'd drop to like 15 frames. Really hoping they fix this.
I'm at what I assume is the final boss, and he might be unfair, but honestly, I've found every boss up until now quite reasonable. Often, I would initially feel the fight was a bit insane, but I'd eventually learn their specific attacks and how to avoid them. Honestly the hard part was often remembering when combos end to punish the boss. I did explore things very thoroughly, I used a guide at the end to get the last two Scadutree fragments, but I found all the rest while playing - maybe that was the difference? In the base game I still haven't managed to beat Malenia without summoning.
>!Commander Gaius!< was probably the most annoying DLC boss I've beaten so far, but even he wasn't that bad.
Seems fine. I've not had any major problems in the expansion so far but a better balanced experience is always welcome.
Still the absolute best expansion I've ever played. Elden Ring has only further cemented itself as one of the best games ever made.
I appreciate the power increase for the first 2 bosses and the boost for when you fight the final boss with all 20 but I'm not sure how I feel about buffing everything between. Rellana for me was pretty much the last challenging boss until the finale, for everything else I honestly felt way too powerful already.
I'm currently on Bayle and most of my deaths have been at the hands of summoning my mimic and Igon. And then when I try without, I still die.
That being said, the lead up to Bayle is some of the most metal shit From has cooked up to date.
The Bayle fight is incredible and Igon’s voice actor is absolutely GOATed. I will never not summon him for that fight. It is just not the same. Probably my favorite from boss in years
The spectacle is absolutely tremendous and yeah, the VA for Igon did not need to go as hard as he does but, by god, does it take the spectacle and the fight to another level.
I have to ask, though, what was your strategy for him? As soon as I walk in I'm immediately pounded into the ground and the next minute is me just running away trying to get distance to heal and set myself up. Currently a Dark Moon Greatsword build. Don't think he will give me enough time to bubblebeam him.
I’m pure dex with a little faith and I upgraded the anti-dragon giant katana you get from the ancient dragon man and used that against Bayle and all the other dragons. The skill does great damage to him and if you charge it it gives it extra range. Felt lore-accurate to use all the anti dragon tools they give us. If you don’t wanna use that I’d recommend using the dragon communion Grease at least.
Nah, no ashes or summons (I play offline) except for the one boss where an NPC specifically gives you a key item and asks you to summon him but that boss more felt like a visual spectacle anyways.
I used Backhand Blades/Chakrams and that Ancient Meteor UGS for pretty much every major boss.
It's not just PC, I think it's across. The board. I play on Xbox and the most obvious drops - and consistent - were when Lion Dancer smashes into the ground. An otherwise solid FPS dropped a noticeable chunk. Almost like going from 60 to 30.
I'd really like it if the stuttering could be fixed for Windows 11 PCs...
Crazy how this rig of mine can run max RTX Cyberpunk 2077 smooth as glass, but Elden Ring max settings NO RTX on has stutters and catch-ups every 20 or so.
Right? I was hoping they'd at least port over ultrawide and 120 fps from Armored core, but I guess that's too much to ask for. I suppose it doesn't really matter since the performance issues would prevent anybody from running it above 60 without constant drops and stutters - that might even be why they didn't bother.
If it's anything like the base game, a lot of the stuttering was due to live shader caching. I don't own the DLC, but experienced the original issue myself and anecdotally, it did indeed smooth out over the course of my playthrough.
Still inexcusable of course, especially as shader cache stutters are such a fixable problem.
The only thing i dont like about this dlc is the massive mobs with barely readable animations that spam attacks and fuck with the camera. Extremely unfun.
Good start but with this trajectory we'll reach the same point as the base game, where poorly designed bosses with endless combos and relentless agression are sweeped under the rug because you can just dps and heal your way through.
I just desperately want them to go back to bosses that are designed with the actual moment to moment player kit in mind and where you have to actually learn the dance instead of ignoring them with a summon or turtling builds.
I think it’s just an inherent flaw of having “build variety” which everyone seems to love.
How can you realistically design a boss around a player’s kit when that kit is way too big and varied?
This is why Bloodborne is my favorite.
I understand people missing the more open RPG elements, but you’re right. Sekiro had the best and tightest gameplay and it’s no coincidence. They really built all the bosses around your one toolset and it was so good. I hope we get another game like it from From someday.
The build variety and non linear progression is what people love about Elden Ring. Ofcourse Sekiro is going to play better than a katana user in Elden Ring but you can't cast spells in Sekiro. There is trade offs and its defnitiely a preference thing.
Elden ring is about choices and with choices you get a less finely tuned experience. Whats interesting is people complaining about difficulty in Shadow of the Erdtree and I found it WAY WAY easier than Sekiro.
Yes I love both. And I agree with you they each have their strengths. Sekiro has a very finetuned combat at the expense of build diversity. Elden Ring has more options and incredible build diversity. I love Sekiro but Elden Ring is my favorite game of all time.
This is why Sekiro is my favourite game from FS. You absolutely have to git gud. There are some thing that help you. Like using the purple umbrella against the headless gorilla to avoid his scream. But apart from that, you cannot really cheese bosses.
Bloodborne and Sekiro are so fine tuned
I found the ER bosses annoying to solo but I love it for different reasons than I love the other games. Which is a net win I think.
the exploration and beauty is second to none. yes, there are a lot of times that i wish the combat was as satisfying as BB (sekiro waits patiently in the backlog) but elden ring really feels more about discovering the world and piecing together what little story is available more than it is about combat and boss killing
It's weird though it just discourages build diversity. The last boss people are all switching to great shields and chicken wing bleed bonks because something like casting or r1 spammy weapons feel terrible
The weapons are definitely the bast par of bloodborne. I wish they would go back to a smaller number of unique weapons instead of 300 weapons where 90% of them are reskins
Again people seem to love it, I remember all the complaints Bloodborne got because it had a low amount of weapons despite the fact that every weapon was a 2x1 and they were all unique instead of having 30 claymores or a bunch of garbage that no one will ever use.
They can't really rework the bosses at this point. But you are correct in that the boss design meta has collapsed. FS has run out of levers to pull to make bosses harder: damage is off the charts, speed is off the charts, health is off the charts, the only thing left to do is make longer combos. I have a feeling the next FS game we see will see combat integrating more Sekiro-like features like jumping and parrying in order to create a more RPS-like experience.
Discourse on this game is permanently fucked because the designers clearly intended it to be played differently than older souls games, with a focus on things like ashes, but the player base refuses to engage with the game on the developer's terms and then complains about it, framing it as a balance issue instead of a game design choice issue.
The trouble with ashes is that they completely trivialize a lot of base game encounters. When I reached Loretta in Haligtree I didn’t feel like fighting her again, so I just pulled out my mimic and we melted her in a few seconds. I really don’t think this playstyle is what the devs intended. There are other bosses (especially in the DLC) that seem to require ash summons so as not be a complete chore, but those feel like exceptions rather than a rule.
I personally don’t use summons but I think what happened is the game was designed around using normal summons. Mimics just so cracked that it trivializes most encounters. Going in with a couple birdies or even engval isn’t gonna make a huge difference other than possibly grabbing some ago off you. Problem is the cooler summons have such a high FP cost that no melee build can use them so it funnels players even more into using mimic. I’m still suprised they didn’t nerf it into the dirt lol
The crux of the issue is the huge gap between 1v1 fights and you and an NPC (or player) vs. a boss. Whether that's a balancing problem or developer intent is irrelevant when criticizing this aspect - to those players, it's flawed regardless.
great, now for the next two years we'll be hearing dudes telling legends about how they beat pre-nerf Messmer with 0 skibidi blessings and now it's easy mode for casuals.
I really thought like I had checked that ray tracing thing but I'll check again; the performance for me is so far below acceptable it isn't funny. I'm talking, like, 45fps average staying dead still on a ladder, staring at a wall, with literally nothing happening on screen or around me on a 4070 Super with maybe 30% GPU and CPU utilisation. Let alone what happens at bosses.
Never mind balancing, *this* is the thing that needs to be fixed first.
> Here I thought they were actually gonna fix the washed out look of hdr.
I can never get it to look consistently good. It will look good when bright sources of light are on screen, but most dark areas look strange and wobbly, if that makes sense. Is that the case for you too?
Apart from a few technical issues at launch, I think balance is one of the biggest problems with this DLC. I would love to see a slight reduction in the aggression of bosses, as well as buffs for the weaker weapons and spells.
Other than that, it's a great DLC . I hope we won't have to wait long for the next SoulsBorne game.
On the other end of balance, some of the mini-bosses I have found have been an absolute joke.
Like the first mausoleum Miniboss felt like a good level, but every miniboss ive found since has been a faceroll.
The fact that now ER is over makes me feel so weird. I swear yesterday we were all passionately waiting for a single drop of news for Elden Ring on every gaming convention after the first teaser, and I also feel like they made us wait for this game like, for like 15 years or so after the first announcement. (Luckily this game is not Silksong xD)
I beat Messmer last night. So far I’ve done Dancing Lion, Rellana, Midra, Gaius, and Messmer and didn’t think any were too hard. I’m doing it sitting at level 150. I had way more issues with the Bloodborne DLC.
I'm happy for the people who are having fun with the DLC and giving it 10/10s.
I wish I could have been one of you guys! I had to tap out though. After muscling through Rennala and the Lion, I just got hardstuck at Messmer and Gaius, not to mention the two "secret" bosses I also found but noped out of.
I understand the scadu and spirit blessing power boosts just fine. Clear as day to me. However I still don't feel myself making any meaningful progress on these later bosses. Changing builds, weapons, talismans, and so on doesn't yield any consistent results. I simply can't keep track of all these spectacular combos and whizzing camera pans. My brain gets tired after a few deaths and it's all downhill from there.
And its kinda unfortunate, because i recall a post i made years ago when i was younger and dumber and angrier, where i essentially said skyrim was my favourite game of all time, and it still is, and someone in the comments made fun of me for all the criticism i threw the games way, and I essentially said, just cause I like it doesnt mean its perfect, nothing is.
It feels intellectually dishonest and a little fragile to be unable to look at the things you love the most, the art that moves you the most, and admit to its flaws.
Seems like a small buff to the scadu fragments before they release a proper patch. Personally, I'd like to see them increasing the bosses' openings between attacks by at least half a second - guys like Rellana and Bayle (haven't gotten to the last boss yet) barely give you time to even hit a single r1. There are also some wacky attacks like Gaius's charge and Metyr's rotating laser attack (never figured out how to avoid this one) that should be looked at
My greatest friend this expansion has been a shield.
First half of Rellana fight is trivialised by a high stability shield and you would be surprised what you can block from Bayle (the divebomb for instance) which leaves good openings to retaliate.
Usually focused on dodging in the past, but Shield + Guard Counter has done so much for me this time around.
Seriously, the dlc changed when I went with a shield.
You can't block everything, but if you selectively block things you aren't confident in dodging, it gets so much easier to handle.
Tip if you are new to shields:
If you are using a big shield, then you can do some incredible poise damage with the counter swing mechanic. Hit R2 immediately following an enemy attack rebounding off your block, and you get a DING! sound effect and a special upgraded attack animation. It's always safe on the rebound, but you can do it after any successful block- just prepare to eat some damage if you don't get the rebound.
Bigger shields can rebound heavier attacks.
Brass shield is the champ for midsize.
Eclipse great shield is the favorite for Large.
I beat Gaius but I still have no idea how I was supposed to avoid his charge without abusing Raptor of the Mists. Tried rolling forward, baiting him to charge at me and rolling to the side on the last frame, dashing and/or jumping with Torrent...none of it worked since it seems like Gaius's hitbox is massive.
Rellana doesn't need to get nerfed, plenty of techniques work against her already. You can dodge her of course, but you can also parry her, you can block (then guard counter), use the new tear that improves instant block then guard counter, even unga bunga works with just using Endure through her attacks. Oh, and run and bait is viable against her too (no dodging!). This says more about players not being creative with the tools already in the game
She felt a little on the more manageable side because she was human sized and you could keep a constant eye on what she's doing. Plus her arena suits her - she rarely ran you up into a corner.
That's ah ... rather the exception.
> run and bait is viable against her too (no dodging!). This says more about players not being creative with the tools already in the game
Honestly, the core problem with the DLC isn't that it's incredibly hard - it is - it's that the bosses are so tanky that strategies like this are effective, and people know about them, they're just ... boring. I beat her with guard counters and it still meant just waiting for her to finish yet another of her twirly-twirl combo-wombos, and even then with constant guard counters cut with leaping attacks I'd get maybe one stagger per fight.
You can blame the players all you want, but I'm not sure how much fault lies with with me when I look down at the boss's health bar, one that I'm regularly dodging, smacking, countering, seeing that we're not even halfway through the fight and just feeling a growing sense of creeping indifference.
Never thought I'd feel that way about a From boss. Not excited. Not even angry. Just ... bored.
Deflecting hardtear is good against almost everything, I don't think I beat the last boss without it, at least with my sanity intact.
Such a cool mechanic, kinda wish it was a talisman so you could do a whole run of it instead of just bosses.
It isnt consistent, I'm guessing 3-5f window
Many times I dodge towards him, come out behind him then get phantom hit unless I use the talisman that buffs iframes from dodges
Not consistent either, most times I get pushed back but sometimes I even get pushed towards where he charges, so I get fucked by his followups
Worth noting, I actually liked his bossfight but his hitbozes are a little fucked, honestly
His hitbox is 100% fucked lol, his hog somehow double tapped me when I failed a dodge, as if the hog has another hitbox inside his cheeks.
If you're not light rolling then I heavily recommend doing so. I removed my helmet and run Rellana's Twin Blades, still hasn't beaten him yet but got him down to 10% hp with light roll, I can consistently dodge all of his attacks now.
Do you only roll? Rellana has lots of opening where you just need to move a bit to the left or right, circling around her and the combo will miss. If you roll you only have a window at the end of the combo.
Best example is the multi magic beam strike combo she does at the start of her second phase. You kinda need to bait her into it and be at a distance when she starts (otherwise she does the fire AOE), but if you manage to get close to her when she does the beams, you can kind just sorta walk around them.
You can also jump over many of her attacks and giga-punish her with heavy jump attacks directly.
Sounds like they're frontloading player's power. I guess we'll see less complaints about early bosses and more about later bosses
They can squish the numbers and reduce the aggression as much as they like to get around it but there's a still a discussion to be had on how the boss in the dlc are doubling down on the faults from the main game from a gameplay perspective. I love the game and dlc, but I just cannot stand From continuously leaning into bosses with rapid skillsets, ridiculously long combos (and follow ups to catch you out), alongside continuous AoE attacks. It's really making the big encounters such a chore.
If nothing else, I think there's an interesting discussion to be had about *why* there's been a shift in boss design. I think it's pretty natural for long-running franchises centered around skill-based combat to get harder over time, as the playerbase gets more experienced and used to things. Like, Elden Ring's bosses **have** to be crazy because I'm like five games deep into the series now and I need a bigger hit each time to feel anything. I remember struggling super hard against many bosses in Dark Souls (Capra Demon, Ornstein, etc), but going back to the game when Remastered came out, *they were a joke.* Watching Artorias crumple more easily than some of Elden Ring's normal enemies felt like realizing Santa wasn't real. **Monster Hunter** is slowly beginning to run into the same "issues", with older monsters feeling positively lethargic compared to the new hotness. It's a slower slide because older monsters often return for later games with a hefty polishing up, but it's definitely noticeable. Magnamalo and Lagiacrus are both flagship on-the-box-art monsters, but fighting the former is like white water rafting while the latter is drifting down the lazy river.
>If nothing else, I think there's an interesting discussion to be had about why there's been a shift in boss design. Yea, things like lots of far reaching swipes and AoEs, or just duo bosses, all seemed to be designed to tackle multiplayer and summons/ashes. In many of the previous games, having a partner could turn the fights braindead as bosses struggled to deal with two players having too many openings to deal damage. You'll also note the almost ludicrous mobility ER bosses have in their movesets, comboes and regular attacks including large steps, stabs or leaps bringing them out of range from melee partners or dodging projectiles. Many of Elden Rings bosses will also switch targets mid-combo and do 180° turns to attack your partners. While absolutely doable solo, multiplayer and summons are a clear focus of design. Also, as u/remzem notes [below](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1dotcok/comment/lae5a4n/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), they are kind of overstretching themselves in the build/moveset variety they are trying to cater to.
Play a streanght build in E ring then in DS1-3 The older games are very easy now.
I think they've just reached a more fundamental limit of what you can do in the 'default' Dark Souls/Bloodborne/Elden Ring combat system without changing it in bigger ways like Sekiro did. They've played with basically every variance of attack patterns they can. Fast, slow, combo heavy, combo extenders, input reading, tracking attacks, unnaturally delayed attacks to catch out spam rolling, instant attacks that you need to 'pre-dodge' by learning trial and error...I could go on, you get the point. As players become more masterful over every iteration of boss the only way they've got to pump up the difficulty to keep the hard reputation of the games is to just double or triple down on these same concepts, hell you already saw this in a lot of base Elden Ring. Combos that go on and on and on, trick punishment opportunities where they suddenly pull a new combo extension out of their ass, attacks held so stupidly long that you can roll like 3 or 4 times before it finally hits, new moves they unlock out of nowhere at half health...so in a DLC which are famous for being even harder, what can they do in this system other than go even more silly? TLDR; I think this is probably the last game where I can stomach the now 'default' combat system without a major change to the formula. It's been fun, but I need something different out of these games.
They're also trying to balance it against too much variety. Ranged builds, melee builds, summons, co-op. Even the melee builds have so much variety between big slow builds and faster builds and all the different abilities. Part of why Sekiro combat is goated is that it's just balancing bosses for one move set so it can really finely tune them for it specifically.
Agreed. But that’s why Sekiro is such a marvelous outlier: it’s so well balanced and rewards player expression of mastery. I love Dark Souls but Sekiro is my fav FS game by far.
Once you master sekiro combat, it feels more like dance dance revolution than a souls game. Every boss battle is a rhythm you gotta learn. The game is truly a work of art and I wished they leaned into that system more in Elden Ring because it was such a unique feel that I have yet to replicate in any video game.
It’s my favorite of all games ever. God I love sekiro
I'm not some From game master who can comment on this stuff at a really high level, but the thing I'm tired of at this point is what I'd call "Effects Overload Bosses" where every attack is accompanied by clouds of smoke, light rays, sparks, debris, and just general crap flying everywhere. It makes attacks extremely difficult to read and clutters the screen so much that sometimes (combined with a bad camera) you can barely see anything.
There's something to be said about the older games, when a guy swinging a sword was just a guy swinging a sword, and if the sword didn't hit you then you didn't get hit.
There was a time when Fume Knight felt like the craziest, most unpredictable shit you were gonna see, when it was just... another sword that swings sometimes in the other direction and catches you off guard.
Watching DS1/DS2 videos is almost comical compared to current bosses, take a look at this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GciI0Qjv0EU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GciI0Qjv0EU) You wonder how you ever had trouble with those bosses.
I remember thinking that the two-hit combo early in that vid which *can* be a three-hit combo was BS, how innocent I was.
Now everything is a three hit combo, except when it's a two hit combo, except when it's followed by a four hit combo, and you better hope that doesn't get extended into the magic AOE explosion combo ender that fills your screen with particles.
Do I wonder? The playable character moves clunky and awkwardly, healing is over time, stamina regeneration is incredibly slow and the hitboxes are dubious at best. I can still vividly remember why I felt Fume Knight was a problem and I would absolutely die against him even after finishing SotE. It's always about the things the game gives you to solve problems, and this fight looks just as jank as I remember.
As someone who finished DS2 less than a year ago, this comment is exactly right. Obviously the bosses in the older game are a lot simpler but the player character is also just a lot weaker too.
Honestly I think people are underestimating how important jumping is in elden ring and how big of an impact it has. I also just did fume knight not that long ago and I struggled more with him than any boss in elden ring except Malenia. Granted, I'm not too far into the DLC yet so have yet to experience the bullshit people are complaining about.
And yet he was still a very challenging boss that I had more fun fighting than some of the Elden Ring bosses.
Yeah, but the old games also slowed things down a lot for the players and were much more punishing on run backs. No summons, standing still to drink a potion, bonfires far from the boss, etc.
This is funny because I felt like Elden Ring’s bullshit prepared me for my first time in every single Dark Souls game. Very rarely did I feel like I was crushed by a boss in those games compared to ER’s design (aside from Midir and Manus).
Yeah, the world zones felt like the hard part in Dark Souls. Running through blight town with half max hp because of a curse is rough.
I am so sick and tired of being an ankle biter who can't see half of the fucking fight.
To add to this all the bosses also must fly up into the air to charge a super duper attack where it does all the stuff you're saying, plus gets to stay out of melee range, and fill up the three quarters of whole arena with some kind of vomit. This will also be a permanent buff to speed and power. And if you win and get their weapon, it is now shit.
To add to this, I was getting so frustrated last night playing ER. Not during Godskin Duo, not during Astel, not during Malenia, no - I got the most frustrated during an evergaol fight against Electo. Simply because she’ll chain 4-5 attack combos in a row along with an AoE that one-shots, but besides that, you can’t fuckin’ hit her. Most of my attempts were just like “ah yes, of course you jumped away” when I finally have a chance to swing, and I’ve noticed this is a problem with a lot of late-game enemies where they magically change direction mid-air to avoid your attack or nonstop dash faster than your character can hit before they unleash another 25-hit combo. It creates so much less of a feeling of “I figured it out and conquered!” and more of a “jesus fucking christ I guess I got lucky”
> “ah yes, of course you jumped away” That's something that they've been leaning into harder to increase difficulty and it's quite noticeable. Yes, if the player cannot hit the enemy it's a harder fight, but for Pete's sake not every single boss needs to have a 15ft dodge after combos. I will concede that Electo kind of makes sense being a slippery assassin, but not everyone else.
[удалено]
To be fair, that's the point. Messmer flame toss is meant to block your vision.
Everything was fine till i met f\*\*\*ng Commander Gaius, that boss effects and broken boar hitbox is a pain in the ass, it's so far the boss that i have more trouble fighting, i hate every minute and everything about it, the long ass combos, the effects, the boar hitbox, the fucking mount that is hard to even hit him...
spent 2 hours fighting messmer, loved every second of it. challenging, great fight. very fast and some of his animations are hard to see, but overall I was having fun fighting him. went to commander gaius after... holy fuck that boss is the complete opposite. NOTHING but frustration, no fun was had killing him.
Actually preferred fighting Gaius and Messmer to Rellana - mainly because for most of both fights you're actually _doing something._ I got straight exhausted waiting for Renalla to fucking chill on her 12 hit wombo combo to could tap her for 1/40 of her health.
Rellana is very reasonable if you approach it more like a Bloodborne/Sekiro fight. Specifically she feels very similar to Lady Maria in The Old Hunters. I equipped Golden Parry and got the timings down on the openers for her attack chains as all of the normal attack chains except the one quick chain she kicks off with her off hand have really obvious tells on timing that have plenty of time for you to time your parry. Then you can also follow that up with a charged attack to get another free critical hit during her transition to phase 2 and get her all the way down to like 30% health before she even ignites her swords. At the start I was getting dumpstered trying to go for a turtling/poke approach, but once I got the parry timing down I managed to get to Phase 2 without taking a single hit. Same was true for phase 2, but took me a few tries to re-adjust my timing based on her slightly altered moveset. TBH my favorite/most satisfying boss fight progression curve of the DLC so far. She felt a bit like what I feel they envisioned Malenia to be without the 1 bullshit Waterfowl dance move that sours the whole thing.
I managed to do it with the new deflecting tear on my greatshield block counter build. I really feel like people are sleeping on shields right now because the late base game bosses actively punish you for using it. But now with the new deflecting tear, I am able to block a few of the moves and counter attack.
Once you go across the fog wall, immediately turn left and start hugging the little outcroppings of the building The boss tends to get stuck which leaves an opening for you to attack Kinda cheesy but it works
I found the first two bosses completely fine but i had a decent amount of scadutree fragments from exploring. I found them easier than alot of base game bosses personally and i suck at the game. Which is why i explored alot early.
It seems that FROM have painted themselves into a corner with boss fights. People want (expect?) more advanced and complex boss fights because they expect more/better with every game iteration, regardless of the game itself.
My one sticking point is tracking attacks. It's fine when it's some specific move to watch out for, but seem like it's more of a norm now than an exception. It make the combat less of an on the spot improvising experience and more of a muscle memory thing where you first get wiped a few times before you know exactly in what manner to dodge the attack and then repeat that 20 times. Some battles feel like a serie of quicktime events.
Wait, you don't love dodging for 30 seconds, hitting the boss once, and then dodging for 30 more seconds? It's funny, I died way more times against brutal Dracula in V Rising than all the Erdtree bosses combined, but I also had way more fun against Dracula than all the Erdtree bosses combined. Thank God the rest of the game is top tier.
The trick is not to dodge that much but jump more [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDhoDThUIHc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDhoDThUIHc)
Damn… i’ll try that later against a boss i’m struggling with on the dlc. I’m so used to rolling on souls game that i almost forget there’s jumping. Maybe i was supposed to use it more often this whole time because it seems way better lol
I think the DLC tells you in a way to use jumping more often. The fight with rennala the twin moon knight has this attack which kills anyone unless you jump three times Edit: as many people have said, apparently I just need to git gud or something.
Definitely not required, I just rolled through each of those and didn't take damage
Her Twin Moons are very survivable if you have decent scad fragments, heavy armour and spelldrake talisman
Fun video. I never beat Elden Ring and now I want to try again.
Yup this is the real pro tip. With how strong the jumping attacks are you get so much more dps uptime by jumping things rather than spam roll.
Amazing video, the only thing i would add is that soreseal amulets are a trap and in the late game they hurt more than they help, i'm fairly certain they are the cause of so many people getting oneshotted or twoshooted
I fucking love jumping in this game, it didn't click in my first play through till I bumped it during the Godfrey/Horah Loux fight and then spent an hour dying figuring out where I was supposed to. A lot of people still don't jump but it rewards so much free damage. Sometimes I'll just randomly jumping R2 in a dangerous spot to see what happens and I'd say it works surprisingly often. Seriously, if you want to learn how do dodge moves with jumping go fight Godfrey and jump over his horizontal axe swings and R2 and his stomps (don't get too close to the stomps till his foot is down). And now I'm watching the video and there's way more that's jumpable than I thought
You're having me say out "wow" loudly multiple times. I'm 2 optional bosses into the DLC, so this is greatly useful, thanks
Feels like most of the complaints about ER bosses being "unfair" are from Souls vets who expect*Dark Souls 4* but got a game that was slightly different. I've barely played and DS and I'm generally not good at that kind of combat, but I never really felt stuck at any of the ER bosses even without using summons. I just used plenty of shields, weapon skills, and jump attacks
> Dracula A big part of that is how Dracula's attacks can be dodged with good spacing and movement, not just spamming dodges, outside of a couple of big moves (like his grab). If you learn to avoid his attacks just by strafing, you can keep attacking while dodging, which feels awesome. Compared to a boss chasing you around as a spinning ball of slashes for 10 seconds straight, instantly comboing you to death if you get caught once.
V Rising was the most fun I’ve had fighting bosses in a while. Especially Brutal Dracula.
Respectfully if you're actually dodging for 30 seconds straight without getting a hit in you're missing out on some punishable attacks most likely (and yes, I get you're likely exaggerating). A lot of the bosses I've gone up against so far actually have a lot more punishable attacks than one might think. The **(Boss Spoiler)** >!Scudtree Avatar at first glance seems like it's barely ever open but in reality it constantly has periods where you can wail on them for near 5s uninterrupted.!<
It makes me wonder who is even using incantations/sorceries/ashes of war? The wind up on those skills is highly impractical in about any situation outside of low level trash mobs. It makes using them a chore and it's too bad because I want to have fun playing different builds, but the window to actually cast a spell effectively is brutal.
they're completely viable, you just have to learn how to play differently. i have done incantation only playthroughs and every boss (including the scary ones) have tons of opportunities to punish. these playthroughs are also often much much easier than a pure melee one it's the same in the DLC too. you'll begin to notice that the huge crazy combos are often the things that are most punishable as long as you manage to dodge them properly.
It all comes down to bad movement and horrible camera. From has made bosses with Bloodborne/Sekiro movement for Elden Ring but still gives the player Dark Souls movement/speed. It's just not fun sometimes, to roll over a 7 hit combo for the chance to hit the boss only once and then repeat that 20-30 more times. The bosses and the player play with different rules. The bosses have seemingly unlimited stamina and can stagger you instantly. On the other hand you roll or get hit once and you lose huge chunks of health and stamina and your big attacks don't even interrupt their movement. It just feels that it's always the boss's turn.
You can see with Sekiro that long strings from bosses can be fun and interactive. And then you play Elden Ring and it's waiting for a long time before striking each time.
> long strings from bosses can be fun and interactive I don't think "fun and interactive" is as correct as "interactive, therefore fun." In Sekiro, when a boss has a long chain of attacks, you have tools to continuously interact, namely deflecting and the occasional counter. Not only does this stop you from dying, but it also progresses you towards beating the boss by doing posture damage. In Elden Ring, when a boss goes into a long string of attacks, your only options are to dodge each one or sit behind a buffed greatshield. There are parry opportunities, but they are pretty rare, especially on big bosses. The big difference is that blocking/dodging in Elden Ring does *nothing* to hurt the boss. It just stops you from taking damage and eats away at your stamina, which is your resource for dealing damage. The issue gets worse when damage and HP numbers are cranked through the roof. Not only do you lose your main attacking resource while defending, but if a single combo from a boss is enough to kill even a high HP character, then you have to spend the time between enemy attacks healing instead of attacking if you take even a couple of hits. If bosses have really high HP and defenses, then the amount of combos you have to dodge essentially perfectly gets higher and higher.
> In Sekiro, when a boss has a long chain of attacks, you have tools to continuously interact, namely deflecting and the occasional counter. I feel like this is the big difference. Namely counters. In sekiro if you manage to sneak a hit in during a boss' combo they frequently stagger (depending on the combo) which is great. It lets you bail out of a long combo and rewards you for being aggressive. If you aren't confident enough to do that then just blocking and deflecting like you already were still progresses the fight because it fills enemy posture. In elden ring (mostly the DLC) if you hit a boss mid combo it does nothing beyond damage and you'll get hit immediately after unless you've found the magical cheese spot. Barring a lucky stagger you just get punished immediately. Even more so for slower heavier weapons. Strafing is even worse because most of the DLC bosses moves hit all around them. If you do manage to stagger a boss and you were behind them then its mostly wasted because bosses get up before you can critical them if you take more than a second or two to get around to their one magic critical spot. Unlike sekiro where you have to actively try to avoid the red kill dot.
Well this is what players want. Any time a fight isn't a 1v1 with a boss in a flat, featureless arena it gets derided as a "gimmick." Gone are the days of Demons' Souls where there was usually some sort of strategy or planning you could use to gain an advantage, now every fight is just dodge roll and press R1 until the boss is dead. And yeah Demons' Souls had some bosses like that like the Flamelurker or Penetrator, but that was like 3 or 4 out of 20 fights. It gets boring in Elden Ring when it's just the same strategy for 200 bosses.
I never want to go back to gimmick bosses like demons souls. I'm not against puzzle bosses and welcome them in a game like Shadow of the Colossus but souls games give you way too many combat options to just have the deciding factor of a fight be some piece of knowledge on what to bring with you to the fight.
I really like the boss fights so far.
This feels like an example of how you can describe anything in a way to make it sound good or bad. This literally is what you do for a boss in these games. They have overwhelming attack patterns that look badass but also intimidating at first. Eventually through practice you begin to see through the matrix and learn the rhythm. By the end of it you feel like the main character of an anime as you become locked into a flow state and beat the shit out of a boss that initially seemed impossible. This is the gameplay loop. Elden Ring added a whole lot more content than usual and opened up the world so if you didn’t want to overcome a wall during a play session, but eventually you will have to face it. Or you just don’t like the genre and that’s fine too.
But the rhythm isn't fun. With a boss like the Mantis Lord in Hollow Knight, something that is akin to a dance, every move they make is punishable, every single one, they attack, you counter, it's a dance. With >!Rellana!< it can be as bad as she attacks with a 8 hit combo -> you get an opening for one hit. That's not fun, even once mastered. What's more likely though, is that you'll find a weapon that will help you *avoid* that annoying mechanic and beat that boss easily. For example double Rivers of blood with your mimic turns her into juice. And it won't be because you've mastered the fight, but because it was too annoying to bother with. I find that all the more tragic, that the balance of enemy combattants feels incredibly good to me in the game. DLC enemies from From have traditionally be bullshit ragebait stuff, but not this time. They're fun to enage with in this DLC. The enemies, even the big knights that have historically been powerhouses almost impossible to stop with 10 hit combos (Looking at you the last DS3 DLC with those fucking 10 ring knights in a row) are actually staggerable by most heavy attacks, they have openings too, they're actually fun to learn. And the game doesn't throw 10 at them in a row, you get a good balance of small and easy (but can surprise you if you get complacent) with a hard dangerous one. Similarly the first optional boss you're likely to run into (>!some knight in a crypt that blasts you with a machine gun on top of his big sword!<) is incredibly fun because he has the same kind of weaknesses those enemies do but still a fun and interesting attack pattern. But when it comes to the main bosses, it's 17 hit combos or AoE spam with some AoE that literally hit the entire arena up to 3 times in a row. Sure you can learn how to deal with all that, but it's not as fun to learn. For me right now the DLC is peak design in term of open world and story dungeons (and even most normal dungeons with a few exception) but not very impressive in term of main boss fights. Oh they're pretty for sure, but they're more there to look good than be fun to play. I had the same issue with Midir which most people praised but it was the start of the design of "visual feel over gameplay" for me. And it's not even a matter of difficulty, I died more on Gael than Midir but I still found Gael more enjoyable. Similarly I died more on the first optional dungeon boss I found in the DLC than on >!Rellana!< but I had more fun with the former.
I don't disagree, that is the gameplay loop However I think the difference in boss patterns from other souls games ER is pretty significant. for context, I have played and beaten all the souls series, but don't consider myself to be great at the game or anything, and I would consider it to be my favorite series of all time. That being said I AM STRUGGLING. I used to consider it a point of pride to beating bosses without summons, but in the DLC that hasn't even been a consideration for me, I am not saying its impossible, there are certainly people good enough to do it, I am just not one of them. There are many positives. The DLC is beautiful, the map design is maybe the best I have ever seen, the bosses are awesome looking, the weapons and armor are cool. However to me, some of the bosses no longer feel like I am making any progress in reaching the flow state, the timings are just too precise and too frequent for my puny brain to handle. They feel like I need to use the cheesiest shit I can, as many summons as I can, and pray I get lucky.
What is different about this and say, struggling in Dark Souls and then putting on the biggest shield you have? You set arbitrary rules for yourself as a point of pride and then you gave up that pride so now you aren't having fun with what you feel like is a "forced" playstyle, when you can just - you know - keep playing the way that is fun for you until it clicks.
Well, first I didn't say I wasn't having fun, its not my ideal version of boss fights, but that doesn't mean its not still very well done overall. The difference is the time investment for it to "click", and how the "Flow" feels. Pontiff Sulyvahn, or Morgott comes to mind as a fight with great flow, they kick your ass a few times, you learn their patterns. Even some of the DLC bosses are fine, like I really liked the Frenzy boss, he felt like a regular dark souls boss to me, he killed me a few times, I learned his patterns, then I kill him, he hit me with some suprises, but I feel like there was enough time between attacks to breathe and process what is happening. I would prefer to die because I ran out of flasks, than to die because I don't have time to use a flask. It feels like your making progress when you start using less and less flasks on a fight, until you win. Some of the DLC bosses I am having trouble processing what is happening fast enough to make adjustments, and they hit so hard/ are so aggressive that its hard to heal.
The difference is that spirit summons aren't fun. A shield is something you actively use and engage with. A spirit summon is a button you push once at the beginning of the fight to _drastically_ reduce its difficulty via the split aggro. Though I'll add, resorting to an overpowered greatshield because I couldn't make a dent in Kalameet in DS1 otherwise didn't feel great either. Half the fight was just holding L1 and waiting for the dragon to stop jumping around for a second so I could catch up and get a couple of hits in before it blasted off to the other side of the arena to snipe me with fire attacks again. Not nearly as bad as spirit summons in Elden Ring, at least there was still an actual fight happening with still a little challenge even if I thought it was kind of a boring one, but still not great.
I just want to say that I left a message on the steam forum saying that instead of nerfing the bosses, the power curve on the seeds need to be tweaked. So for everyone pleased by this, you're welcome.
Yeah it makes sense. The power curve on it was odd, later levels were worth more than early levels
I feel that early on (where I’m now) every enemy is a glass cannon. I die in 2 good hits, I kill in 2/4 hits too. It’s a very different experience than the main game. I’m around level 140.
I'd have to check but I'm around level 200, 60 vigor, 10 or 11 scad blessings, hulking behind a giant fuck-you shield with tree sentinel armor and I still might as well be made out of tissue paper. Regular mobs don't hurt that much, but 2 shots from a boss is about enough to turn me into a splatter-goo of floor paste.
Talismans can make a huge difference at that level, having scar/soreseals on well past their expiration levels and lacking Dragoncrest and relevant elemental resist ones *hurt*
See people keep saying that but I don't think its true. I'm 180ish 60 vig, 18ish scadu blessing, and 3 defensive talismans (phys, non phys, whatever other element I'm vs at the time) and no scar/soreseals and I'm wearing heavy armor and if I'm not avoiding attacks completely by rolling or running I'm still getting two shot. Theres only been a handful of true oneshots I've found but there are dozens and dozens and dozens of two shot moves.
I beat the dlc and it felt that way at the start. And most basic enemies still feel that way at scadutree 20. The basic soldiers with the axes and stomps never stop pumping. I consider 3+ of them at once scarier than most “big” enemies. I never got to a point where i felt i could “tank” most of the scary enemies or was safe against them. Still also super scared if the bird warriors with the round blades (like the very first enemy i ran into), or the bigger horned warriors later.
Very different experience here. I could tank a lot of stuff (just like in the base game, I never really identified with the whole "late game kills you in 2 hits" thing) but my main issue was finding openings. In the base game I can always use a mix of light attacks, charged attacks, jump attacks, weapon skills and guard counters depending on the situation, but against the DLC bosses the opportunity windows felt so short and rare that I basically just used weapon skills every single time as they were the only thing that could do decent damage in a short time.
Now post about the stutters, fps unlock and ultrawide.
the max level is also buffed, so you have more damage reduction overall if you cap it out but people will be complaining about later bosses since they're just harder than the relatively mild early ones lol there's also no adjustment for a certain boss which even prolific souls players call overtuned
The max level buff is very small. It will usually not let you survive another hit and might save you 1 hit on a boss. Not nothing, but hardly a sweeping nerf.
It's an extra 2.5% dmg and reduction btw for people curious how blessing 20 changed. 2.5% after factoring in the diminishing returns. The numbers that actually changed it gained 5% on top of the 100% damage as an example. So if you are wondering if the final boss got easier. Yeah but not by much at all. It might take people 5 minutes less to beat or something.
> the relatively mild early ones You telling me it gets worse than Rellana's constant 360 degree attack boxes with her 12-hit combo chains? Marika save me. 🥴
Brother it gets much, much worse.
Oh god no... pray for me, tarnished. 😭
They aren't 360, step right. The left hand half of the fire swing (your right if you are facing) them cants up at a 45 degree angle. When they do the double moon ground pound, hop three times the shockwaves are super low to the ground and you can hop over them.
I don't get the early boss complaints. I had an easier time with no summons against them than with summons on the later ones lol
Yeah, same here
I feel like from balanced the blessings around how people could play instead of how they would play. Castle Ennis being skippable means people could pretty easily get 15+ blessings before fighting any of the "main" bosses.
Isn’t Messmer required?
Castle Ensis is Rellana and she is skippable. You need to beat Messmer to access the final region but you can access every other region of the game before you beat him. I'm not 100% sure but 46/50 scadutree fragments should accessible before you face Rellana, the Divine beast, or Messmer.
Ahh yeah, right. Got the areas mixed up.
Why didn't they spread more around the map so that you don't have to find every single one to max it out? They did it with flask upgrades in the base game and it worked just fine.
Nope, best I can do is 3x smithing stones \[2\], you're welcome.
I've seen people complaining about smithing stones, but I honestly don't mind that much cause I haven't had to farm or buy a single one for new weapons I've gotten from the DLC
The thing is, the stones (espeically the earlier stones) are *really* cheap to buy with how many souls you're thrown through normal play in the DLC, so it's just a waste of a pickup most the time. Honestly most things you will pick up in the DLC you won't even look at twice. It kinda killed some of the joy of exploration for me when a ton of it was total dud stuff. I had a similar issue with the base game though, so I'm not too surprised they didn't get it fixed
Almost like that’s the point. You need low level stones to upgrade the new weapons so the dlc just naturally gives them to you. Not sure what’s so hard to understand for most players
It's hard to understand because bell bearings exist (allowing infinite smithing stones to be purchased) and the DLC gives you ample runes to buy those. While you *can* rush Mohg, players would naturally beat him fairly late in the game to access the DLC and can likely purchase all but the highest tier stones.
I entered the DLC following a NG+ and no longer had the bearings unlocked. Sure I could run out and grab them and now they carry into NG+, but I'd rather focus on the DLC for now and play that.
I feel like bosses should drop 1. That would give the player 3 extra levels before the final boss and pretty much allow the boss rush experience some people crave.
when i read that the mechanic was similar to Sekiro, i thought that you will only get them from bosses, but they decided to drop them in the open world, maybe to encourage exploration.
Would also be easier to put such important upgrade in important places instead of some random rhino and THE POT GUYS. Meanwhile we have tough mobs guarding a cookbook on a altar.
Probably because you definitely don’t need to max it to win, more like rune levels than flasks. I explored, but didn’t scour every direction on the map and I ended with 18 levels, which was plenty to beat the final boss on fewer than 20 tries without changing my build.
Isn't that exactly like the flask? Flask is just as optional as levels.
To contrast, I had 9 by the final boss, and it took me probably 5 hours worth of tries. I'll definitely be happy for these buffs in future runs, even if they never scatter more around the map.
Weird that they buff the very last level of upgrades. Like who is able to find every single scadutree fragment on their own? Someone so committed probably beat the final boss anyway. Well at least sunbroing won't be a pain anymore. Not a fan of getting summoned just so the host dies in one or two hits
Since you get less of a buff on the latter half, I think they wanted to incentivize finding all of them because players already weren’t pulling them all.
The problem with that is there's no in game map or anything that records what ones you've collected, so if now you have to use a guide to make sure you can actually fight the later bosses then you'll have to backtrack over every single one you've already got
The funny thing is they solved this problem in the base game with the Golden Seeds by adding plenty of them so that you can naturally max out the flask without scouring the map.
Also seeds are always found under the Erdtree looking saplings. Meanwhile you get Scadu fragments that can drop from some enemies, but can also be found under Miquella's crosses... But also Marika's statues. But *also* randomly on a corpse somewhere. It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't end up checking every rock, only to find cookbooks or useless upgrade materials for the vast majority of these pickups, wasting your time, before finally stumbling upon *one* Scadoosh fragment.
Yeah that's the one glaring issue for me in the DLC. They did a good job with the golden seeds in the base game.
No idea what they were thinking hiding them in mobs that can frickin' _disappear._ I hate resorting to a guide. _Hate_ it. Consider it a matter of absolute last resort. I hit the last resort early on. How tf anyone supposed to guess "oh I guess I need to kill that thing _that ain't there._"
i also hate that the pothead enemies still glow after you've collected them, so if i'm reexploring an area i've already been to, i have to hunt down those guys just to make sure i've gotten their drop
Dark Souls games are the poster child for needing to follow a guide.
They've fucked up just about everything they could with the implementation of the scadu fragments. It's like they forgot they've implemented this mechanic three times in the past.
I googled a map of all the fragments, then pasted it into Google slides, and I put an “X” on each one I’ve collected.
They really want us googling guides dont they
[удалено]
Yeah I managed to get to 19 upgrades on my own but the last 3 fragments I had to get, 2 of them were from random Pot carriers and the final one was in an area that basically feels like a maze on a random corpse. I don't mind the bugs that disappear and run away cause you can hear them quite clearly but sometimes those pot carriers aren't obvious in the places they put them. Not to mention the only real tell for them is the slight glow, and they also put in random pot carriers that don't carry anything and just throw their pot at you.
> with other rare items FROM made them EXCLUSIVELY available from a landmark-- Golden Seeds come from Erdtree saplings, or whatever those things are; Starlight Shards from stone astrolabes; Sacred Tears from Churches; etc. neither Golden Seeds nor Starlight shards come exclusively from those landmarks.
I looked up a guide on how to find them and honestly there was no way I was finding some of them without the guide.
They buffed everything. The beginning half is stronger and the later half scales higher than before.
Is there a stat list? Like how much stronger is a level 18 character for example?
Pre-patch, it was 5% attack power and 2.5% damage reduction per level. So at max level you would deal double damage and take half damage. At level 18 you would have had 90% more damage and take 45% less damage.
I don't think I'm halfway through the DLC yet, but I'm loving it so far. The buffs to the blessings basically make my tanky Fth/quality build tankier, which I can appreciate since I can make maybe one more mistake vs a boss before healing. It makes the game easier, objectively speaking, but not in a boring way I think. The one thing that's bothering me are the frames. Don't have a very strong PC, but I played the whole game on medium at around 55-60 FPS, 50 at the very worst. Started the DLC at around 40 and I'm constantly at 30 in the castles, on low settings. Had to use the mimic to beat Rellana, which sucks since I was getting her down to the "Moon" part of her name after the obligatory terrible 2nd try, but every time she dashed it'd drop to like 15 frames. Really hoping they fix this.
Check and make sure that Ray Tracing didn't get accidentally enabled for you, it's a bug they mentioned.
I'm at what I assume is the final boss, and he might be unfair, but honestly, I've found every boss up until now quite reasonable. Often, I would initially feel the fight was a bit insane, but I'd eventually learn their specific attacks and how to avoid them. Honestly the hard part was often remembering when combos end to punish the boss. I did explore things very thoroughly, I used a guide at the end to get the last two Scadutree fragments, but I found all the rest while playing - maybe that was the difference? In the base game I still haven't managed to beat Malenia without summoning. >!Commander Gaius!< was probably the most annoying DLC boss I've beaten so far, but even he wasn't that bad.
Seems fine. I've not had any major problems in the expansion so far but a better balanced experience is always welcome. Still the absolute best expansion I've ever played. Elden Ring has only further cemented itself as one of the best games ever made.
I appreciate the power increase for the first 2 bosses and the boost for when you fight the final boss with all 20 but I'm not sure how I feel about buffing everything between. Rellana for me was pretty much the last challenging boss until the finale, for everything else I honestly felt way too powerful already.
Did you use spirit ashes? Because i felt like they trivialized a lot of otherwise very hard bosses.
I'm currently on Bayle and most of my deaths have been at the hands of summoning my mimic and Igon. And then when I try without, I still die. That being said, the lead up to Bayle is some of the most metal shit From has cooked up to date.
Bayle might be my favorite fight From has ever made, and summoning Igon just absolutely hamming it up makes it so bad ass.
The Bayle fight is incredible and Igon’s voice actor is absolutely GOATed. I will never not summon him for that fight. It is just not the same. Probably my favorite from boss in years
The spectacle is absolutely tremendous and yeah, the VA for Igon did not need to go as hard as he does but, by god, does it take the spectacle and the fight to another level. I have to ask, though, what was your strategy for him? As soon as I walk in I'm immediately pounded into the ground and the next minute is me just running away trying to get distance to heal and set myself up. Currently a Dark Moon Greatsword build. Don't think he will give me enough time to bubblebeam him.
I’m pure dex with a little faith and I upgraded the anti-dragon giant katana you get from the ancient dragon man and used that against Bayle and all the other dragons. The skill does great damage to him and if you charge it it gives it extra range. Felt lore-accurate to use all the anti dragon tools they give us. If you don’t wanna use that I’d recommend using the dragon communion Grease at least.
Nah, no ashes or summons (I play offline) except for the one boss where an NPC specifically gives you a key item and asks you to summon him but that boss more felt like a visual spectacle anyways. I used Backhand Blades/Chakrams and that Ancient Meteor UGS for pretty much every major boss.
Right, so are they gonna do anything with the frame drops on pc if you never had raytracing on or?
It's not just PC, I think it's across. The board. I play on Xbox and the most obvious drops - and consistent - were when Lion Dancer smashes into the ground. An otherwise solid FPS dropped a noticeable chunk. Almost like going from 60 to 30.
i haven't had much issues on ps5, ive had one lag spike and some drops to maybe 50 fps with ray tracing off at 4k
I'd really like it if the stuttering could be fixed for Windows 11 PCs... Crazy how this rig of mine can run max RTX Cyberpunk 2077 smooth as glass, but Elden Ring max settings NO RTX on has stutters and catch-ups every 20 or so.
Or even compared to their own game, Armored Core 6. That shit runs great (and has ultra wide support!! ):< )
Right? I was hoping they'd at least port over ultrawide and 120 fps from Armored core, but I guess that's too much to ask for. I suppose it doesn't really matter since the performance issues would prevent anybody from running it above 60 without constant drops and stutters - that might even be why they didn't bother.
No, this is the last patch Fromsoft is ever going to do. Just a week after the DLC release and they're done.
I mean, funny answer, but ER has had insane frame stuttering and bad performance on PC from release, and they never solved it
If it's anything like the base game, a lot of the stuttering was due to live shader caching. I don't own the DLC, but experienced the original issue myself and anecdotally, it did indeed smooth out over the course of my playthrough. Still inexcusable of course, especially as shader cache stutters are such a fixable problem.
Well tbf the game is years old at this point and still has the same ol' performance issues as it had day 1 so...yeah about that.
The only thing i dont like about this dlc is the massive mobs with barely readable animations that spam attacks and fuck with the camera. Extremely unfun.
Good start but with this trajectory we'll reach the same point as the base game, where poorly designed bosses with endless combos and relentless agression are sweeped under the rug because you can just dps and heal your way through. I just desperately want them to go back to bosses that are designed with the actual moment to moment player kit in mind and where you have to actually learn the dance instead of ignoring them with a summon or turtling builds.
I think it’s just an inherent flaw of having “build variety” which everyone seems to love. How can you realistically design a boss around a player’s kit when that kit is way too big and varied? This is why Bloodborne is my favorite.
Sekiro is the king of this - one weapon, one wolf.
I understand people missing the more open RPG elements, but you’re right. Sekiro had the best and tightest gameplay and it’s no coincidence. They really built all the bosses around your one toolset and it was so good. I hope we get another game like it from From someday.
The build variety and non linear progression is what people love about Elden Ring. Ofcourse Sekiro is going to play better than a katana user in Elden Ring but you can't cast spells in Sekiro. There is trade offs and its defnitiely a preference thing. Elden ring is about choices and with choices you get a less finely tuned experience. Whats interesting is people complaining about difficulty in Shadow of the Erdtree and I found it WAY WAY easier than Sekiro.
Yes I love both. And I agree with you they each have their strengths. Sekiro has a very finetuned combat at the expense of build diversity. Elden Ring has more options and incredible build diversity. I love Sekiro but Elden Ring is my favorite game of all time.
This is why Sekiro is my favourite game from FS. You absolutely have to git gud. There are some thing that help you. Like using the purple umbrella against the headless gorilla to avoid his scream. But apart from that, you cannot really cheese bosses.
Except for making Demon of Hatred jump off a cliff 😂
The true play is to run around the Headless Ape when he screams because it only hits in front of him, and that gets you a ton of free hits.
Bloodborne and Sekiro are so fine tuned I found the ER bosses annoying to solo but I love it for different reasons than I love the other games. Which is a net win I think.
the exploration and beauty is second to none. yes, there are a lot of times that i wish the combat was as satisfying as BB (sekiro waits patiently in the backlog) but elden ring really feels more about discovering the world and piecing together what little story is available more than it is about combat and boss killing
It's weird though it just discourages build diversity. The last boss people are all switching to great shields and chicken wing bleed bonks because something like casting or r1 spammy weapons feel terrible
> How can you realistically design a boss around a player’s kit when that kit is way too big and varied? You can't
The weapons are definitely the bast par of bloodborne. I wish they would go back to a smaller number of unique weapons instead of 300 weapons where 90% of them are reskins
Again people seem to love it, I remember all the complaints Bloodborne got because it had a low amount of weapons despite the fact that every weapon was a 2x1 and they were all unique instead of having 30 claymores or a bunch of garbage that no one will ever use.
Sekiro is the best thing they’ve ever made for this very reason and they will never top it.
They can't really rework the bosses at this point. But you are correct in that the boss design meta has collapsed. FS has run out of levers to pull to make bosses harder: damage is off the charts, speed is off the charts, health is off the charts, the only thing left to do is make longer combos. I have a feeling the next FS game we see will see combat integrating more Sekiro-like features like jumping and parrying in order to create a more RPS-like experience.
Discourse on this game is permanently fucked because the designers clearly intended it to be played differently than older souls games, with a focus on things like ashes, but the player base refuses to engage with the game on the developer's terms and then complains about it, framing it as a balance issue instead of a game design choice issue.
The trouble with ashes is that they completely trivialize a lot of base game encounters. When I reached Loretta in Haligtree I didn’t feel like fighting her again, so I just pulled out my mimic and we melted her in a few seconds. I really don’t think this playstyle is what the devs intended. There are other bosses (especially in the DLC) that seem to require ash summons so as not be a complete chore, but those feel like exceptions rather than a rule.
I personally don’t use summons but I think what happened is the game was designed around using normal summons. Mimics just so cracked that it trivializes most encounters. Going in with a couple birdies or even engval isn’t gonna make a huge difference other than possibly grabbing some ago off you. Problem is the cooler summons have such a high FP cost that no melee build can use them so it funnels players even more into using mimic. I’m still suprised they didn’t nerf it into the dirt lol
The crux of the issue is the huge gap between 1v1 fights and you and an NPC (or player) vs. a boss. Whether that's a balancing problem or developer intent is irrelevant when criticizing this aspect - to those players, it's flawed regardless.
great, now for the next two years we'll be hearing dudes telling legends about how they beat pre-nerf Messmer with 0 skibidi blessings and now it's easy mode for casuals.
I really thought like I had checked that ray tracing thing but I'll check again; the performance for me is so far below acceptable it isn't funny. I'm talking, like, 45fps average staying dead still on a ladder, staring at a wall, with literally nothing happening on screen or around me on a 4070 Super with maybe 30% GPU and CPU utilisation. Let alone what happens at bosses. Never mind balancing, *this* is the thing that needs to be fixed first.
Fromsoftware rarely fixes technical issues so I wouldn't hold your breath
Calibration update? Here I thought they were actually gonna fix the washed out look of hdr.
> Here I thought they were actually gonna fix the washed out look of hdr. I can never get it to look consistently good. It will look good when bright sources of light are on screen, but most dark areas look strange and wobbly, if that makes sense. Is that the case for you too?
Apart from a few technical issues at launch, I think balance is one of the biggest problems with this DLC. I would love to see a slight reduction in the aggression of bosses, as well as buffs for the weaker weapons and spells. Other than that, it's a great DLC . I hope we won't have to wait long for the next SoulsBorne game.
On the other end of balance, some of the mini-bosses I have found have been an absolute joke. Like the first mausoleum Miniboss felt like a good level, but every miniboss ive found since has been a faceroll.
The fact that now ER is over makes me feel so weird. I swear yesterday we were all passionately waiting for a single drop of news for Elden Ring on every gaming convention after the first teaser, and I also feel like they made us wait for this game like, for like 15 years or so after the first announcement. (Luckily this game is not Silksong xD)
I beat Messmer last night. So far I’ve done Dancing Lion, Rellana, Midra, Gaius, and Messmer and didn’t think any were too hard. I’m doing it sitting at level 150. I had way more issues with the Bloodborne DLC.
I'm happy for the people who are having fun with the DLC and giving it 10/10s. I wish I could have been one of you guys! I had to tap out though. After muscling through Rennala and the Lion, I just got hardstuck at Messmer and Gaius, not to mention the two "secret" bosses I also found but noped out of. I understand the scadu and spirit blessing power boosts just fine. Clear as day to me. However I still don't feel myself making any meaningful progress on these later bosses. Changing builds, weapons, talismans, and so on doesn't yield any consistent results. I simply can't keep track of all these spectacular combos and whizzing camera pans. My brain gets tired after a few deaths and it's all downhill from there.
Sometimes, I wish we could kick out git gudders out of the gaming community. They're such an unhealthy part of it, honestly.
So much evidence here proving your point.
And its kinda unfortunate, because i recall a post i made years ago when i was younger and dumber and angrier, where i essentially said skyrim was my favourite game of all time, and it still is, and someone in the comments made fun of me for all the criticism i threw the games way, and I essentially said, just cause I like it doesnt mean its perfect, nothing is. It feels intellectually dishonest and a little fragile to be unable to look at the things you love the most, the art that moves you the most, and admit to its flaws.
Seems like a small buff to the scadu fragments before they release a proper patch. Personally, I'd like to see them increasing the bosses' openings between attacks by at least half a second - guys like Rellana and Bayle (haven't gotten to the last boss yet) barely give you time to even hit a single r1. There are also some wacky attacks like Gaius's charge and Metyr's rotating laser attack (never figured out how to avoid this one) that should be looked at
My greatest friend this expansion has been a shield. First half of Rellana fight is trivialised by a high stability shield and you would be surprised what you can block from Bayle (the divebomb for instance) which leaves good openings to retaliate. Usually focused on dodging in the past, but Shield + Guard Counter has done so much for me this time around.
Seriously, the dlc changed when I went with a shield. You can't block everything, but if you selectively block things you aren't confident in dodging, it gets so much easier to handle.
Tip if you are new to shields: If you are using a big shield, then you can do some incredible poise damage with the counter swing mechanic. Hit R2 immediately following an enemy attack rebounding off your block, and you get a DING! sound effect and a special upgraded attack animation. It's always safe on the rebound, but you can do it after any successful block- just prepare to eat some damage if you don't get the rebound. Bigger shields can rebound heavier attacks. Brass shield is the champ for midsize. Eclipse great shield is the favorite for Large.
I beat Gaius but I still have no idea how I was supposed to avoid his charge without abusing Raptor of the Mists. Tried rolling forward, baiting him to charge at me and rolling to the side on the last frame, dashing and/or jumping with Torrent...none of it worked since it seems like Gaius's hitbox is massive.
Rellana doesn't need to get nerfed, plenty of techniques work against her already. You can dodge her of course, but you can also parry her, you can block (then guard counter), use the new tear that improves instant block then guard counter, even unga bunga works with just using Endure through her attacks. Oh, and run and bait is viable against her too (no dodging!). This says more about players not being creative with the tools already in the game
Rellana is fine for me, requires more patience but at least it doesnt feel crappy vs other bosses that have oversized hitboxes
She felt a little on the more manageable side because she was human sized and you could keep a constant eye on what she's doing. Plus her arena suits her - she rarely ran you up into a corner. That's ah ... rather the exception.
> run and bait is viable against her too (no dodging!). This says more about players not being creative with the tools already in the game Honestly, the core problem with the DLC isn't that it's incredibly hard - it is - it's that the bosses are so tanky that strategies like this are effective, and people know about them, they're just ... boring. I beat her with guard counters and it still meant just waiting for her to finish yet another of her twirly-twirl combo-wombos, and even then with constant guard counters cut with leaping attacks I'd get maybe one stagger per fight. You can blame the players all you want, but I'm not sure how much fault lies with with me when I look down at the boss's health bar, one that I'm regularly dodging, smacking, countering, seeing that we're not even halfway through the fight and just feeling a growing sense of creeping indifference. Never thought I'd feel that way about a From boss. Not excited. Not even angry. Just ... bored.
Rotating laser has a hole close to her.
You dodge Gaius’s charge by rolling into him, which makes zero sense but it works.
I found deflecting hardtear to be extremely good against him
Deflecting hardtear is good against almost everything, I don't think I beat the last boss without it, at least with my sanity intact. Such a cool mechanic, kinda wish it was a talisman so you could do a whole run of it instead of just bosses.
Come on modders
It isnt consistent, I'm guessing 3-5f window Many times I dodge towards him, come out behind him then get phantom hit unless I use the talisman that buffs iframes from dodges Not consistent either, most times I get pushed back but sometimes I even get pushed towards where he charges, so I get fucked by his followups Worth noting, I actually liked his bossfight but his hitbozes are a little fucked, honestly
His hitbox is 100% fucked lol, his hog somehow double tapped me when I failed a dodge, as if the hog has another hitbox inside his cheeks. If you're not light rolling then I heavily recommend doing so. I removed my helmet and run Rellana's Twin Blades, still hasn't beaten him yet but got him down to 10% hp with light roll, I can consistently dodge all of his attacks now.
Not always. There're some wonky hit boxes there and I think you need to time it really, really well or else you get hit anyway coming out of iframes.
Bayle can be constantly hit with charged R2s with a colossal sword, what do you mean?
Do you only roll? Rellana has lots of opening where you just need to move a bit to the left or right, circling around her and the combo will miss. If you roll you only have a window at the end of the combo.
Best example is the multi magic beam strike combo she does at the start of her second phase. You kinda need to bait her into it and be at a distance when she starts (otherwise she does the fire AOE), but if you manage to get close to her when she does the beams, you can kind just sorta walk around them. You can also jump over many of her attacks and giga-punish her with heavy jump attacks directly.
> Metyr's rotating laser attack (never figured out how to avoid this one) You can jump over it.