Ugh dont remind me. I wasn't even gonna get this shit but I was boooooooorrrrrred.Can’t imagine you going through this whole thing without getting to hear that trophy chime
The Shattered Elden Ring Thread: Tarnished Edition - (Shadow of the Erdtree p. 85)
- Thread starter hanselthecaretaker
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He has a new video now -
I only watched the first couple minutes because I’ve barely touched half the map yet, but enough for an idea of what he's getting at. IMO it depends on how much mileage people get out of open world design for the sake of itself; ie getting lost in it and letting it speak for itself. ER/SotE oddly remind me of RDR2 in that way, where it isn’t about giving the player a steady dose of gamey dopamine hits like the 30 second rule or whatever Luke Stephens’ magic number is. It’s also a given they’ll be a bigger time investment than something with smaller, more self-contained levels regardless. So expecting them to be as dense with that stuff is already setting oneself up for disappointment.
The thing is, even the older games were never full of stuff any given player was going to find useful either. It’s just there was less space along the way, and the path forward had less margin for error. There was also a lot less room for experimentation and player agency, which to me are both pretty much the point of ER and the dlc from a gameplay perspective. The lore aspect and questing are simply there for added context.
I've decided to go into the DLC again, this time with my STR/FTH build. And wouldn't you know it, i'm having such a better experience this time.
There is the factor me now knowing what to come, but all the mobs and bosses I've struggled with INT build all of a sudden now feels such much easier; I'm using Blood Greatsword +22 w/ Lion's Claw, and even without spamming LC I seen to break their poise with ease.
There is an annoyance of me having to be in close range and if I'm not careful I take hit, but since I have high VIT and defense I can actually survive huge attacks that used to kill me with my INT build.
While I still need to play more, I think this re-iterates my points from past posts; The DLC is a terrible experience for caster builds, especially INT/sorcery builds. If I beat Messmer with relative ease, it would solidify the sentiment in my head
There is the factor me now knowing what to come, but all the mobs and bosses I've struggled with INT build all of a sudden now feels such much easier; I'm using Blood Greatsword +22 w/ Lion's Claw, and even without spamming LC I seen to break their poise with ease.
There is an annoyance of me having to be in close range and if I'm not careful I take hit, but since I have high VIT and defense I can actually survive huge attacks that used to kill me with my INT build.
While I still need to play more, I think this re-iterates my points from past posts; The DLC is a terrible experience for caster builds, especially INT/sorcery builds. If I beat Messmer with relative ease, it would solidify the sentiment in my head
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There is also a new version of Lions Claw but I haven’t tried it yet. It sounds like the thrusting shields or whatever are pretty versatile in terms of stats, so that might be an option for INT. Otherwise I’ve seen the Carian stave that doubles as a sword which was something people were asking for in base game, since the Carian Knight’s sword description only alluded to this.
I’ve also thought of going back to Strength because I love staggering everything, but I found a great katana last night that’s been working well so far with Dex so we’ll see.
I'm now on the final boss. Have defeated all optional ones as well (well, all main optional ones, probably missed a nameless mausoleum and a bear somewhere). Haven't actually fought the last boss yet, though I hear he's absurd.
On the rest of the DLC:
On the rest of the DLC:
A few of the bosses have been tremendously hard, most notably Rellana and Messmer. Fought Rellana in co-op with mates, but fought Messmer alone & without spirit ashes. Both very difficult but still about on par with Bloodborne DLC bosses like Ludwig, Maria & Lawrence.
Of the optional bosses, Metyr, Midra, Gaius, Putrescent Knight, & Scadutree Avatar are all reasonable and very fun. I usually play quite conservatively but went very aggressive with Midra and it worked out well. Bayle was a little bit silly but manageable, especially with the great katana it gives you on the way to him, with the dragon-killing special move.
Most bullshit boss so far for me probably wasn't even a main one. Golden Hippopotamus. The camera angles, and the hit box for that fucking grab attack he has, are just stoopid.
Of the optional bosses, Metyr, Midra, Gaius, Putrescent Knight, & Scadutree Avatar are all reasonable and very fun. I usually play quite conservatively but went very aggressive with Midra and it worked out well. Bayle was a little bit silly but manageable, especially with the great katana it gives you on the way to him, with the dragon-killing special move.
Most bullshit boss so far for me probably wasn't even a main one. Golden Hippopotamus. The camera angles, and the hit box for that fucking grab attack he has, are just stoopid.
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- Apr 1, 2009
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I'm at the consort, not sure if the last boss but hes being kind of a pill, so he might be. Not hard getting past the first phase but all the holy of the second is kinda trixy.
And what do you know? I just beat Messmer. The dude was still hard, but not counting the botched set ups, it only took about 10 attempts. Turns out applying bleed to now-25+ Greatsword is a great way to take a chunk out of his HP.
I am now tempted to try out other STR weapons, but it looks like the decent ones are all pretty late game?
Not sure if you mean base game or dlc, but there’s a Greataxe in Limgrave on one of the carriages, I think the south one closer to Weeping Peninsula. Good for charged attacks and also fire infusion. You can also get the Pickaxe from miners in Limgrave tunnels, which is technically considered a greathammer for some reason but power stances with greataxes. Zweihander is at a merchant in southern Weeping Peninsula. Never really used it myself but kinda curious since has good range and decent speed for a colossal sword. There are also two Great Stars pretty early in Altus that have passive bleed and get health regen per hit. Really fun to put Wild Strikes on one with the Ironjar aromatic to just tank stuff. Cold infusion is good too. I like resetting it with volcano pots.
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As someone who beat the DLC day 2 and has beaten it again on a different character I have to say it is just more Elden ring, for better or for worse.
Exploration again feels like a waste of time, riding your horse around huge empty areas only to be greeted with the most lacking pickups (smiting stone 1 lol)
The main reason you want to explore is to get the Scadutree fragments but for some reason to get max (20) you have to find every single one of them. Something they already solved in the base game by having more golden seeds on the map than you needed.
As for the difficulty we've been headed this way for a long time. I was already getting tired of the multi phase bosses with 10 hit combo spam where you can get 1 hit in and then back to dodging by DS3. I think the fact that you have professional souls players (people who have made a living playing these games for 10+ years) taking several hours to beat one boss speaks for itself.
Of course you can just use one of the more meta weapons and mimic tear to clear the game easily, heck day one someone was one shotting every DLC boss. The problem is 90% weapons and builds are not very viable or fun to use unless you enjoy doing something close to a hitless boss fight.
I was able to do dagger only play throughs for every past souls game and had fun doing it. But with Elden ring and it's DLC I'd never consider it.
Exploration again feels like a waste of time, riding your horse around huge empty areas only to be greeted with the most lacking pickups (smiting stone 1 lol)
The main reason you want to explore is to get the Scadutree fragments but for some reason to get max (20) you have to find every single one of them. Something they already solved in the base game by having more golden seeds on the map than you needed.
As for the difficulty we've been headed this way for a long time. I was already getting tired of the multi phase bosses with 10 hit combo spam where you can get 1 hit in and then back to dodging by DS3. I think the fact that you have professional souls players (people who have made a living playing these games for 10+ years) taking several hours to beat one boss speaks for itself.
Of course you can just use one of the more meta weapons and mimic tear to clear the game easily, heck day one someone was one shotting every DLC boss. The problem is 90% weapons and builds are not very viable or fun to use unless you enjoy doing something close to a hitless boss fight.
I was able to do dagger only play throughs for every past souls game and had fun doing it. But with Elden ring and it's DLC I'd never consider it.
- Apr 1, 2009
- 14,879
- 3,754
- 118
- Gender
- Whatever, just wash your hands.