Elden Ring DLC: Casuals, Hardcore and Backseat Players

[@chasegaetze4507]

I find it funny that the people who find it difficult are the same that don't explore

[@IamDavej]

..Or don't use summons. I tried no summons myself and the original game is fine. It is doable without any summons at around level 80. Then I tried some shadow bosses.... Oh god. That was terrible. Many are way too fast and unpredictable while being doable and easy with summons. The problem is also instant aggression so you don't have time to summon the mimic because it takes halv health and then you get hit without time to roll.

[@AlsoMeowskivich]

The funny thing about people who complain about how elden ring has delayed attacks and roll catches is that...after that, I started paying attention to instances of this. In all the games. And yes, they are in *all* the games. Things like Demon Fire Sage likes to wind up and has two different combos it can go into. And other examples I'm too tired to think of. But yeah, it feels like another complaint by people who don't want to accept the simple fact of "skill issue"

[@lordofchaosinc.261]

I also see in streams people insist to roll (usually naked) when they don't have the skill for it. So bosses become like RNG runs and at the 30th try they just happen to roll perfectly.

[@zeroattentiongaming820]

Nameless King in DS3 was so hard for so many because he was built around delaying his attacks to bait you into dodging too early.

[@AlsoMeowskivich]

@@zeroattentiongaming820 he is easily dispatched by just staying away from him also one of his attacks are bugged causing his attack to hit far wider than it looks for like one frame.

[@anonisnoone6125]

The problem isn't delayed and AOE attacks, the problem is that almost every boss has them. And it's just stupid cos they feel so unnatural on a lot of bosses. If only Margit/Morgott and Godfrey had them, then it wouldn't be a problem cos those guys r known for their delays, the former especially. Most of the dlc bosses don't have many delayed attacks but they instead have problems of over-aggressiveness.

[@AlsoMeowskivich]

@@anonisnoone6125 true

[@pank3245]

You're not a true souls veteran if you don't spend hours grinding out an enemy for their armor set.

[@definitivelygod]

No-lifed the dlc and it was JUST as fun as the basegame. It felt like when i first picked up the gane again except this time i had an idea of the mechanics and hearing everyone speak out against it was so odd to me. I understand that it wasn't for everybody but DAMN that backlash was immense.

[@BUKUDI]

Yea it was so odd. Its like every day of the 2 years waiting, they became a little more entitled & demanding & their imaginative expectations of what it should / would be grew a little bigger. Manchildren out here acting like their measly $40 is $4 million or something. The godlike OST is worth $40 alone. Suddenly all these nobodies became armchair master game devs & reviewers

[@austin0_bandit05]

​@@BUKUDII mean its took over 2 years and costs $40. I think you mostly get your money's worth but the end product feels rushed

[@sewnmind1786]

SotE has convinced me that people are whiners. The dlc isnt perfect but they make it out like the bosses are far and above the base game bosses but Through either persistent heavies after dodging or parrying I've never been walled for mor than a couple hours.

[@sublimechimp]

The answer lies in the first term you used in your comment. The game has to be no lifed to be enjoyed. Instantly cutting enjoyment from anyone with-lifed

[@sublimechimp]

@@austin0_bandit05to me it’s not about the money at all. That all went out the window when I saw $20 call of duty weapon bundles. We get over 100 weapons in this dlc, that alone is hundreds of dollars worth of stuff potentially. But the gameplay itself felt so hollow it’s crazy.

[@gtocool99]

I have always found it odd, that people say the fromsoft games are hard and they do not have a difficulty slider but the difficulty slider is built into the game. Certain builds, mechanics, and leveling have always existed in these games and they in turned made the game less difficult. Enjoy the game anyway you want, dont be a try hard and dont brag about how you beat the game.

[@albert2006xp]

A difficulty slider would be better than those things, because they ruin the feel of the game. Other than leveling obviously but people just want to melee, simple melee, no summons, no magic. So I understand when some of them can't do it and would be better served by a difficulty setting. But then Myiazaki wouldn't get to pretend his game doesn't have difficulty settings.

[@aureateseigneur5317]

​@albert2006xp He's not pretending. They don't have difficulty sliders. They have tools that aid you in co.bat and a buncha morons are ignoring them then blaming the game. Itt doesn't have a difficulty slider of any kind. It has tools. Use them or don't, but don't whine when your choice not use the tools makes the game too hard for you. From did not spend thousands of hours programming all these tools for you to ignore them.

[@albert2006xp]

@@aureateseigneur5317 From spent thousands of hours to make them so that they can fool players into thinking they're playing a hard game while using tools that make it super easy. I never needed any cheese and the game was easy enough. Even if I was bad, I would've sooner uninstalled than use that stuff. It makes the game unfun and I'm not dumb enough to think I am playing a hard game if I use spirit ashes.

[@aureateseigneur5317]

@@albert2006xp No they spent thousands of hours making them so you'd fucking use them instead of spin fairy tales in your head about why they exist. The game is hard. Use the fucking tools, just like every other fucking Souls game. Christ.

[@albert2006xp]

@@aureateseigneur5317 Game is not hard at all. The spirit ashes are there to help the average person who might not have a lot of gaming experience. It's purposeful to make sure they can complete the game. Which is a nice thought but it should've just been an easy difficulty setting because it robs them of experiencing the good gameplay where the boss doesn't spaz out and focuses on something else. It's a pretty basic game about dodging and then attacking like a rhythm game. Reducing the difficulty of that for people to keep up with shouldn't be that hard. I don't think players like me should be playing on the same difficulty in a game as someone that only occasionally plays games probably on their couch. And I shouldn't play on the same difficulty as some guy that's played only Elden Ring and souls game for the last 5 years and can do this RL1 no hit blindfolded. That guy needs a higher difficulty than this game can provide.

[@helvijs100]

My first entry into fromsoft games was Sekiro. Then Edlen Ring came out. Beat the game 3 times - 2 times with no summons and each playthrough was with a new character. Then I finally decided to give a try to DS3. Got steamrolled by NK, Gael, Midir, and Frieda at least 30 times each. On average the same amount of attempts it took me to take down Messmer and Relanna with no summons. Exception is Radahn, that took a lot more. Anyone who complains about boss ballance in ER DLC and pulls out "I'm a souls veteran" card, is clearly NOT a souls veteran.

[@CineGameAV]

The only thing cooler if Bloodborne was the first game for u ;)

[@kindlingking]

You probably just grinded down patterns for every ER boss until you could trial and error a response to each of their attacks. So naturally when you were given another set of patterns, you got washed. In other words, you mastered bosses rather than combat, which is another issue with ER's artificial difficulty compared to older titles.

[@coasteraddict10]

@@CineGameAV The coolest thing is if you're og with Demon's Souls 😉

[@tliotlio]

bruh I have more than 2500 hours on all 7 souls games made by from software, I got a platinum trophy on bloodborne, ds3, sekiro and elden ring, I beat elden ring and sote in solo-melee and I still think that elden ring boss design is bullshit and artificially difficult, especially when compared to older titles, even ds2. what do you say to this? lmao. and it's not about difficulty, I like playing ds3 sl1 for fun, it's about being able to consistently and naturally read a boss, elden ring has none of it.

[@aureateseigneur5317]

​@@kindlingkingSo he learned how to fight the boss? Funny how that shit works huh?

[@cosmic2750]

Lmao let me remind y'all of the time when Bandai Namco had to officially put out a statement reminding people to use Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes because people kept running headfirst into bosses without anything. Miyazaki warned us that we'll feel weak but apparently the majority of the fanbase just thinks they're "built different". Everybody's built different until two guys in a costume smack their heads into your skull. And also let's not forget ego that people have regarding Soulsborne. They just refuse to use any of the mechanics the game provides you. "Oh, using summons is cheating!", "oh, using overpowered weapons is cheating!" if the game gives you the means to be overpowered then be overpowered. This is the reason why people dislike the NPC boss fight near the end, because if you've done the questlines and stuff it is the single most epic fight Fromsoftware has ever made. But no people won't summon and then complain because it's a gank fight. Until the newbie community learns how to actually engage with the game, all the difficulty complaints are just stupid.

[@CineGameAV]

About summons (including NPC). I remember the words from one streamer when he was doing the Radahn Festival. He said something like - "This is gonna be a gang party, and I won't fu*k alone." I liked those words :)

[@cosmic2750]

@@CineGameAV agreed. The Radahn Festival is meant to be experienced as the Tarnished from the Lands Between giving a proper send off to their beloved General. Idk if you’ve finished the DLC or not, but towards the end of the DLC there is an NPC fight where you can summon your own NPCs whom you’ve helped throughout the course of the DLC. I’ve seen people be like “oh I’m not gonna need summons” and then go in and absolutely HATE the fight because it’s a gank. EVERYONE hates the fight because they just refused to summon their allies in that fight. But, if you do that, the emotional stakes, the epicness, and the difficulty all get exponentially better. Is it easier? Yes. But it’s SO MUCH more fun than doing it alone because of how high the emotional stakes are in the fight. It’s probably my favorite NPC fight in all of Souls.

[@austin0_bandit05]

4:31 Metyr's laser is undodgable, Rhadans follow up slash is undodgable, Rellana has several frame traps. And this isnt just random people saying that. Its speedrunner and challenge runners like Ongbal You're objectively wrong. And this is part of the reason that the discourse sucks. Because you deny it AND defend bad attacks like Waterfowl. If you need to follow a KZbin guide to dodge an attack thats just bad design. Why is the srat to break her AI's tracking. Again not even counting unreasonable attacks like Gauis charge, golden hippo grab, Godskin Nobles belly attack, margits sword and staff attack. And then comes things like VFX obscuring the screen and camera issues. Its reached a point of absurdity. Divine Beast epitomizes this where there are times where your whole screen is a mass of twirling fabric. Rhadan flashbangs you with VFX literally obscuring the followup creating more articificial difficulty. Rellana jerking the camera around so you can't tell whats going on or jerking the camera right as she dodges so you dodge the wrong way. This is the most uncharitable and misrepresentative of the "whiners". I know this because you project rationales onto them. And the ONLY problem you alnowledge is performance issues. Thats when you know someone isnt interested in having a good faith argument. Fucking really

[@ziabyapah]

Great video! I’m currently in the middle of my first run trying to do everything I can around the world. I’ve been playing with vyke’s warspear and loving it so far. After exploring for a little while everything has felt completely fair to me, but I have yet to progress past messmer. Good points and good video!

[@CineGameAV]

Appreciate) Messmer is the best and most beautiful boss in the DLC. So, enjoy the fight!

[@joelraynor15]

In terms of how difficult I make the game for myself I set two goals/handicaps: for each NG+ level run I change the armor and weapon I use. NG was Ordovis Greatsword, Beast incantations and crucible armor. Currently on NG+ running the Solitude set and the Smithscript Greathammer. Trying to decide what to go with in NG+2. Torn between Dane's punch/kicks or base game radahn swords

[@CineGameAV]

The answer is daggers, like Thorfinn from Vinland Saga :)

[@regi5165]

Great video. Your confidence, voice, and editing make it feel like you've been making videos for a long time. Keep it up :D FromSof games have always been full of detail. It's why there is a whole subculture of videos, art, and memes dedicated to the lore of the games. It baffles me then, how many players ignore the details put into the gameplay aspect and assume that the developers don't intend for you to use bleed, summons, frost, stagger, shields, and whatever else in order to beat the game, and to only use rolls and parries. I feel that the players that perpetuate those sentiments are the same type of player that whines for an easy mode without exploring the map; those players just want a hard mode instead, where there are less tools to fight bosses against. The difficulty, in my opinion, has always been something that was scaled by the player themself.

[@CineGameAV]

Thank you, it's nice to read that) Regarding the difficulty. Yes, that's the point I wanted to convey. The concept of "difficulty" (especially evident in Elden Ring) is regulated solely by the player. If you chose daggers, it will certainly be harder for you than for someone with scimitars. But you also have ashes, weapon sharpening effects (like blood loss), buffs, potions, and consumables. All these give you even more options. But it seems that some people actually dislike having 10 ways to win instead of just 2, like in Sekiro.

[@McDudes]

22:16 actually holly damage works really well in the DLC even Radahn is weak to it in his 1st phase (which is his only other weakness the main being thrusting/piercing attacks which works for phase 1 and 2)

[@antobatta1551]

You make great arguments for Scadutree blessings tbh

[@wr0ngel]

Amen. I bought the ER+DLC to play it with my kid. I knew what I was getting into, w/ my crappy reflexes, glasses and zero experience with soulslikes (played a space sim b4 ER). It was fun through and through, I couldn't give a flying f*ck about this boss or that boss or this thing or that, I just wanted to progress and duo the bosses for fat laughs Togethaaa . And we did exactly that, with lots of build-crafting and such. Of course I overleveled the sh*t out of it. It was an interactive movie for us, and it was and still is a blast. Am I a trading scrub? Yeah baby. Did I Fingerprint shield-poke Consort with triple-Aids Antspur while kid scraped at his ass and acted as bait? Hell yeah, we clapped him 3rd try. I couldn't really see tho, the holy lightshow was intense for me. I have also learned some stuff, and on my 2nd playthrough, I'm actually solo things as well. Just play the game, however you pretty please, but don't let it be your personality, or turn into a gatekeeper. It is for fun, not bitching and whining. The rest is just noise. Edit: yes there is ample bullshit in the game, Camera Boss, input reading, etc, mad combos. But it is very far from unfair or hard. I do hope Fromsoft uses the money they raked in and improve upon it in their next installment, keeping true to their ... soul.

[@heyguyslolGAMING]

lol that opening editing w/ Homelander is legit, nice job. If you want a good laugh you should listen to "Jester of Juice" video on the DLC. I've never heard anyone sound so salty as his commentary brought me to tears from laughing.

[@NAWWMANNN]

The thing is though, my build IS better, I AM the most skilled and everyone else IS a casual. Sorry, but that's just how Miyazaki intended it 🤷‍♂️

[@duckchen2676]

homelander

[@oskarpernak7858]

Amazing video. Exactly captured my thoughts on this matter and some of these redundant discussions. thank you

[@CineGameAV]

Appreciate it, glad u liked it!

[@Cold_Zero_The_Wise]

​@@CineGameAVhey Cina my buddies and I have been hosting a Podcast live on Saturday nights, we talked about elden ring and difficulty, new vsnold school games, would you be interested in joining some time, I really liked the Video and especially how you present your points.

[@ryfowler754]

for a first video this was awesome !!!:)) i was thinking about this exact topic a lot, so im glad i found a video about the exact discussion

[@milenpetrov2217]

The Dark Souls trilogy felt more realistic in a sense. The enemies weren't that over the top - you were a guy with a sword, fighting against a big demon with a mace. It felt kinda cooler than all the AOE attacks of Elden Ring, the over the top bosses and so on. Furthermore, I think that the older games were indeed more fair towards the player. Recently I managed to finally play Bloodborne and I never died more than 4 times to any of the bosses. Managed to even beat the final boss on my first try with only 1 healing item left for the Moon Presence but I died I don't know how many times to the Godskin Duo or Radagon.

[@elliotyourarobot]

Same feeling here.

[@liszt646]

Bro, Sekiro is harder than most ER bosses, but that game is really fair and gives you the tools to overcome the bosses. There are no AOE bs spam attacks

[@elliotyourarobot]

@@liszt646 And the player character was made for that kind of combat.

[@hiramesensei3112]

my biggest problem is ER feels completely two games in one, but the enemies are playing a game with much better mechanics. like you said, in Dark Souls, everything meshed together. yeah, the bosses were bigger and stronger than you and maybe faster but it still felt like you were in "the same game" as them. you could see that their attacks had wind up and logical weight to them, cost stamina, could get locked into a certain direction, etc. in ER, LMFAO. most of the bosses (and ESPECIALLY most of the DLC bosses) feel like they are from a completely different game than the player character. they're out here spamming attacks endlessly, unleashing flurries of AOE strikes, track PC infinitely and instantly, etc. while you've got the same toolset as DS1, and your best tool is just abusing s from rolling.

[@anonisnoone6125]

@@liszt646 Exactly. Sekiro's the only Fromsoft game I ever played up to ng+2 (For the endings and extra bosses) cos the mechanics r so fun to master and regardless of which ng ur in, you'll always be on par with the bosses.

[@rogerkotun8145]

Love this video wish it got more exposure, then it did will be sharing for sure

[@TheSoulsGuru]

The hardest bosses in these games are always the ones you learn so well that you can no hit them such as sword Saint isshin, malenia, nameless king etc we spend so long on these bosses that you basically learn every attack that they have to throw at you

[@codyshaffer8714]

Wait I don’t know where these rose tinted goggles came from, but even after the community figured out melanias waterfowl (which the way you dodge it is super aids btw), I don’t think anybody is saying she suddenly became a good boss. Abilities being dodgeable does not make the abilities “good” or even “fair” Also, you state there aren’t any undodgeable attacks in the DLC, however this is a bit disingenuous as Radahns quick slash combo can really only be dodged via the back step ring, or fat rolling since your body is kept so low to the ground for so long, so yeah you “can” dodge it, but it certainly isn’t good game design lol.

[@botondkunos1774]

Honestly, this video has a severe lack of nuance. The most aggravating one is the fallacy that difficulty is a core feature of these games.

[@codyshaffer8714]

@@botondkunos1774 yeah foreal, it’s never been about the difficulty as much as the unforgiving world, where death is the norm, the difficulty has always been just a byproduct of that. And on top of this, the previous games difficulty was heavily spread throughout the actual levels, and not just overloaded into the bosses like in ER, where the enemies are essentially just fodder until you hit a boss.

[@botondkunos1774]

@@codyshaffer8714 where most of this DLC's boss roster falls apart is when you ask the question: Did it make sense? For example: Does it make any sense to dodge Metyr's lasers by going in close when the whole boss arena is practicly swimming in flashy energy vfx?

[@codyshaffer8714]

@@botondkunos1774 yeah similar to that you jump the fucking lazer that’s waist/chest high instead of rolling it for whatever reason lmao shit makes no sense.

[@botondkunos1774]

@@codyshaffer8714 No, it's worse than that, you have to find the small gap between the black hole and the laser. It makes even less sense.

[@ETBrooD]

The initial "mixed" Steam rating didn't come from legit players complaining about balance. It came from review bombers in the Asian hemisphere. Most likely it was a subgroup of people who hate it when a game doesn't allow them to cheat. The current rating on Steam is mostly favorable and it's been this way for weeks. That's because the legit players had time to rate the game and overcome the review bombing habitual cheaters.

[@averagesoul8256]

heres the thing. im gonna talk specifically about radahn. can you dodge all his moves? technically yes. are they obnoxious to dodge ? absolutely. most of his combos even if dodged perfectly leave no room for you to punish afterwards because of how quick his follosups can be , he only has a few attacks/ combos that are absolutely safe and even then you have to hug his right side immediately just in case is about to do the cross slash which is the most bullshit move in the game by far, even more bs than waterfowl cuz at least waterfowl gives you enough time to run away. that move alone from radahn ruins his fight and turns it into an absolute slog of a boss since you can barely safely punish. also hes attack windows arent equeal to a healing window, for the grab you have enough time to hit once after wards than back to his right side, but for the same grab you dont have time to pop a heal , just adding artificial difficulty to an already full of artifcial difficulty boss with his particle effects, blinding nukes and frame rate damage. not to mention that get hit once in the second phase, often times by the cross slash and you get stunlocked by multiple attacks. thats what the community is complaining about thats the bullshit. a lot of these bosses just arent safe to punish a lot of the times making the fights drag and drag , even a boss like the putrescent knight which i think is fine has a lot of attacks that just arent safe to punish cuz he can do another one the next second. as for your argument about from being known for hard games. thats a fucking disease. its bandais fault for marketing them as is. they were never about the difficulty, they were about a harsh world that doesnt care about you to get lost in and explore and to understand mechanics that are barely explained to the player. dark souls is an easy game, the hard part is learning what the game wants from you. elden ring and the dlc especially just misses the mark and is indeed hard for the sake of being hard. because from is bullied by morons and bandai themselves to keep this marketing tool of "haha hard game" , thus ruining what the franchise stood for. dark souls 2 developers also misunderstood this thats why the game is bullshit just to be hard and games like bb or sekiro are tough but fair. also you know why noone really complained back then? because the bosses were fair and didnt rely on aritficial bullshit. they also didnt have the numbers to drag the fight to infinity. so they were just about learning patterns with even the harder bosses like ludiwg or orphan not being that hard. gael is also a very chill boss. the learning experience is a very important part of a boss, if i cant learn properly cuz the boss is always raping me from all angles then ofc ppl are gona complain and rightfully so. and i dont know where youve been 2 years ago but yes everyone complained about never ending combos and delayed attacks back then to, ppl hated margit and i think from nerfed him and heres the difference between collecting fragments and seeds. 1. theres more seeds than you need to max out your flask, theres exactly as many fragments as you need 2. seeds dont affect a boss, they are only your mistake amount. your damage and the bosses nubmers stay unchanged. if you are good at the game you dont even need that many heals. yes you can beat the dlc with no fragments but this time you are at an outright disadvantage, its a stupid mechanic that nerfes the players instead of making you go stronger. you want another solution? heres 3 of them 1. add more fragments than you need like the seeds, or have only 25 or so be required for max upgrade , and also place them in more obvious spots since only 10/50 can be gatheres at miquellas crosses which is the "story" progression. as it is know you have to bump into every wall and corner of the map to find a fragment and if you miss one well fuck you itll be missed forever cuz you sure aint going back there 2. make the upgrade system more interesting, as in use the fragments to upgrade specificl playstyles or builds, like maybe fragments that can used for lighning upgrades, or bleed upgrades whatever, something that can be understood and useful to the player. the system now is only a borig flat increase that literally has no downsight so you would be a fool to not use them, thats the thing build crafting needs ups and downs for it to be interesting, outright having a dominant strategy sucks . even leveling up has a downsight. the fact that you cant level up every stat you want unless you grind for hours, so you have to choose what type of build you go for. 3. just not use them at all, what does it matter if a guy with lvl 400 is gonna steamroll the dlc, its his money. most players that love these games will enter the dlc at the recommended level because we enjoy the challenge. who cares about ppl that wanna finish it as soon as possible with 0 challenge. it wasnt a problem with previous dlcs, why is it a problem now. just say its balanced around 150 and most ppl will enter it at 150.

[@aureateseigneur5317]

The upgrades idea just sounds like the obnoxious grind chore that was making elemental weapon in DS1.

[@t-mango2491]

I love dark souls 2, so your opening comment made me extremely happy

[@High_Rate136]

My only complaints: 1. The AOE attacks of bosses (including main game) are difficult to figure out because of how close the camera is. It isn’t until I do them in co-op, that I truly figure it out because I can actually see what the eff they are doing. 2. The scardutree fragments are not laying on the ground in obvious places like sacred years (big ass church buildings) or golden seeds (bright golden trees that stand waaaay out) or by specific bosses. Scadutree fragments are literally found scattered randomly, not in intuitive places like said above, on basic enemies, and on specific enemies that are in specific locations you can easily miss… It’s a great idea that was poorly executed

[@BUKUDI]

Really weird that they didn't consult you during the executing phase. They probably hit you up but you had a full schedule already

[@david_kingori]

I got to level 17 naturally. You only need lvl 12 to complete the dlc, which is easy. Yes, they were in obvious places...miquella graces, Marika statues, bosses. Similar to base game

[@High_Rate136]

@@BUKUDI Really weird that you take everyone’s opinion as fact.

[@High_Rate136]

@@david_kingori I didn’t realize your singular experience is anecdotal for everyone. Besides you can beat the DLC at Fragment level 0 if you’re patient enough

[@chancetherappersburner6338]

Your second complaint doesn't make sense, the fragments are easy to find because there's like 50 of them, they encourage you to explore the whole map. If you wanna get to lvl 20 then you're gonna have to put some effort in exploration but even then it's not that hard. I've completed the dlc twice as of now and both times I've managed to get to lvl 19 on my own without looking up any guides.

[@belcomet27]

4:52 ok while im with u on this mostly, there is NO WAY the radahn doublecross slash isnt insanely overtuned. i know theres ways around it like deflect, backstep talisman, lightroll, or extremely precise left knee positioning and near predictive timing, but that is the one move that deserves every bit of hate and should honestly be nerfed to have the second hit of the cross slash not roll catch u (widen the timing on that move)

[@geckowins9652]

I recently finished my first SOTE playthrough on my "main" character in NG2, and it was incredible. Aside from Radhan that has too much visual clutter, I really love what Fromsoft have made. As for the difficulty, it may be because I've put more than 500 hours into the game at this point, but I wouldn't say it's very difficult. There's 40 weapon categories, hundreds of weapons, among which there's at least 50 that are overpowered. Even when not using op weapons you can still overtune most other weapons with the right build, or just use some incredibly strong spells. Add summons to that, and some tools that allow you to avoid damage better than rolling (jumps, ashes of war like vow of the indomitable, raptor of the mists, dynast's finesse, or just greatshield tanking) and the game really becomes pretty easy. People who don't want to adapt their strategy or use what is perceived as "cheese" mechanics, are just doing a challenge run and complaining it's too hard. Anything that's in the game and intended by the developers, should be used to beat the game.

[@Mattutius]

i assumed you had like 50 to 200k subs! crazy quality!

[@pvkpixell3015]

For a first video i really love it

[@Drunk_Souls]

I am a dedicated invader in FromSoftware games. I've been doing it since the launch of Dark Souls 1. Got destroyed in undead parrish and decided it was the coolest thing ever and I wanted to do it. My primary reason for playing these games is PVP. My entire channel is kinda based on it now. But I do enjoy PVE as well, albeit to a lesser extent. Shadow of the Erdtree has positive and negative qualities. Let us go over the issues. Big, empty world with good loot and genuine points of interest being so spread thin that exploring is kinda lame a lot of the time. Reuse of enemies and bosses. Massive splash damage attacks that are so anime you can't even tell what's going on. Never ending combo attacks from bosses that feel more like cutscenes than actual gameplay. Entire sections of the world mostly unused, or used for one single thing that isn't all that interesting. Limited number of classic dark souls style levels (legacy dungeons). There is a lot, and I am forgetting some. But despite all of this, I still find shadow of the erdtree to be very good. Not quite as good as the Old Hunters from Bloodborne, but likely second best. It is not too hard. It has never been too hard. Even if some things regarding the design are kinda lame. What really bothers me is what they did to PVP. Being an invader these days is maddening. They just straight up decided to go full anime now. We have unbeatable ash of war spam like swift slash and blind spot, tons of projectiles that grant free pressure for gankers, infinite poise 10 second long ash of war spam like messmer's spear, invasion spawns are even worse than base game, fogwalls will happen at least 50% of invasions due to level design, and damage in general is literally out of control. PVP is the real thing fromsoftware messed up with this time. They went full anime and did not consider how badly it would damage the experience. It is far from unplayable. Still fun. But when it gets bad, it gets really really unbearably bad.

[@JD-ix9hv]

I had these same anime type experiences in the base game so a bit confused by that pvp critique... I mean people spammed horah loah ash of war, waterfowl dance, etc. PVP in this game was never balanced but at least patch 1.06 helped a bit...

[@CineGameAV]

Wow... Honestly, I'm surprised to see who left the comment. The listed issues are more related to the debate that has been ongoing for three years-whether open worlds are needed in Souls games or not. I actually wanted to discuss more about how difficult and "unfair" boss battles are. Speaking of PvP. Maybe it’s just my luck, but whether it's Coliseum or during invasions, 8 out of 10 times I encounter either someone with the GREATSWORD OF DAMNATION or someone spamming Miriam’s Vanishing with Impenetrable Thorns. I’m not great at PvP, but, to put it mildly, it’s become incredibly frustrating. Due to input lag, it’s barely possible to dodge the endless spam. Problem is they one shot me most of the time, despite 60 vigor. A little weird to be honest. Nonetheless, thank you for the detailed comment and for time spent!

[@antobatta1551]

Your experience as ivader doesn't give you any leverage on arguing game design. Combos and aoe are good because they force direction input and diversify attacks.

[@ETBrooD]

"Big, empty world with good loot and genuine points of interest being so spread thin that exploring is kinda lame a lot of the time." Enemy density is the same in the base game as it is in the DLC. So you'd have to criticize the base game equally if you want people to agree. "Reuse of enemies and bosses." Not true for bosses, but enemies in general are being largely reused indeed. So this point is 50% true and 50% false. "Massive splash damage attacks that are so anime you can't even tell what's going on." For Radahn this is true, but generally false. So this claim is mostly false. "Never ending combo attacks from bosses that feel more like cutscenes than actual gameplay." Is that supposed to be criticism? You need to explain why you consider it a problem and not a plus. How it "feels" to you is only your personal taste. I like the long attack chains, I think they're well designed and not overdone (in 80-90% of cases). "Entire sections of the world mostly unused, or used for one single thing that isn't all that interesting." That is also just your opinon, and it's also something that was done in the base game. There are plenty of areas that may seem "unused" or have a singular purpose. Whether or not you find that interesting is up to you. Did you criticize this in the base game, too? "Limited number of classic dark souls style levels (legacy dungeons)." There are 3 main legacy dungeons in the DLC and 3 minor legacy dungeons. The base game contains 6 main legacy dungeons and 10 areas that are similar in style to a minor legacy dungeon. Furthermore, the DLC's open world is more intricate than that of the base game, and some of the open world is designed in a dungeon kind of way. So in terms of numbers, the DLC delivers.

[@reiswoodard6630]

saying the game is going full “anime” is the stupidest way to describe these games.

[@gileadbot19]

Every problem people have can be overcome with patience and paying attention. Literally every challenge in the game can be beaten if you're willing to practice and get good enough. I don't understand why they're saying it's too hard. It's very hard, this should not be a surprise, but *_TOO_* hard? Nah. I still haven't beaten Erdtree yet, but I definitely don't believe for a second it's too hard. People just don't feel like learning and practicing.

[@NeedsContent]

It's always easier to blame someone else.

[@karayi7239]

Double slash into cross... If that simple combo.. can make it into the FINAL BOSS.. Then, you can NOT dispute that they prioritize killing the player at the cost of ANYTHING. You in fact, can NOT dodge it with a medium roll, from a neutral position( facing the boss melee range) unless you get lucky with wonky geometry making the second slash go over you model..

[@aureateseigneur5317]

You in fact can dodge it with a medium roll, but it easier with light or fat roll. And yes of course the developers want to kill you. That's why thebgame is hard.they want you to die. Why are do many players so flabbergasted the hard game wants you to die? Did any of you do any research into what you where buying? How did you see Dark Souls 1 was named "Prepare to Die Edition" and walk away thinking "Ah, the Devs don't want me to die." DS2 starts with a fire keeper telling you will die over and over and over and you walked away thinking "The Devs aren't trying to kill me at every turn." Mimic chests must send you over the fucking falls

[@jamesmiller6294]

I think FS created the perfect community for itself, being that the reputation from start is that the games are based in their difficulty that no matter what they’re shielded by this reputation now and are immune to true critique, I’ve played every souls bourn game from FS, I played base Elden ring 8x, and the DLC completed once and currently am in my second go round, I do believe the game is beatable but it’s not fun it’s a chore now, before when I would lose to a boss I understand and genuinely felt like it was my fault there was a dance and I misstep and subsequently was punished, but in this DLC I genuinely believe there is straight up BS at every turn, but because of the shield of difficulty being the FS formula anyone that critiques the difficulty is made to feel inadequate and invalidated but there is no reason you should be one or two shotted by any boss let alone normal enemies. Yea you can run from most AOE attacks but that doesn’t mean they aren’t BS and to large in the area they reach, so we end in a stalemate because no matter how difficult and unenjoyable the DLC may feel we’ve been conditioned to believe there is no such thing as too difficult. And ppl either speak out and get ridiculed or they stay silent and believe this is how it should be. But I do believe the enemies and bosses should be scaled back just a little bit, not everyone knows how to or wants to take time to stack buffs and they shouldn’t have to to have a reasonable chance fighting a boss. But like I said a large group of the community have been conditioned that even if it’s unenjoyable it’s how it should be or that it being unenjoyable is what makes the game fun and that’s not true. Losing to a boss you should clearly be able to see your mistakes and be able to learn from them but when every single boss can one shot you with 60 vig how do you learn from that how do you learn a bosses moveset and than they can spam a 8 hit combo endlessly while you’re given one hit and have to pray the bosses doest do a certain move on pure luck I think we need to really analyze this that just cause the game is supposed to be difficult doesn’t justify any and all difficulty

[@albert2006xp]

You'll never be one shotted by any boss or even two shotted, what are you even talking about? You must have failed RPG mechanics 101 and aren't wearing armor or have all your points distributed logically with the good defensive talismans. Like yeah you are right, the trick that these easy games appear hard make people project a shield around them because average dudes think they're good gamers now but come on, you're also either exaggerating or failing RPG mechanics 101.

[@jamesmiller6294]

@@albert2006xp actually I played it on new game +3 at level 150, and apparently I was supposed to play it just new game, and like I said I did beat it, so I’m actually looking to just start a new game and see if there’s any difference cause I assume at NG+3 maybe I shoulda been like level 250-270ish. But still 60 vigor and I was getting one shotted

[@albert2006xp]

@@jamesmiller6294 Actually according to the wiki the DLC doesn't start scaling until the NG+ after you beat it. So even if you did it in NG+3 it was still baseline. Also yeah 60 Vigor but that's base minimum, were you wearing Bullfrog Armor or at least like Tree Sentinel armor?

[@jamesmiller6294]

@@albert2006xp interesting 🤔, I wore a lot of different armor I did wear the bull armor though, I think I just need to pace myself more and think more calculated about how I’m going about my second play through

[@MikeRavia-xp5ig]

Im pretty sure there is an item or tear to get past mogs transition.

[@CineGameAV]

Even with a tear you will still take small dmg. The only way to get past him with no hit is to kill him before the second phase.

[@Messmer-The-Impaler-n8i]

The scadutree buff was for a slightly different reason tbh. Like b4 it scaled linearly, so u would need 20 Scadu levels for balancing purposes. They buffed it so that the old 20 Scadu Level was now 16 Scadu Level. So you can just do most of the all rememberences path and have a balanced experience. Then the extra levels are for the explorers, to make their life easier.

[@DrFeelgreat]

The Scadutree fragments are fundamentally different from Golden seeds. First of all, Seeds are not mandatory, I was glad when I found them but I've never went out of my way to go look for them, while you can't realistically tackle even the first boss without like a dozen of Scadutree fragments. Secondly, Seeds are always near the Erdtree sprouts, which glow brightly and are easily seen from afar. But you can never tell if an item is a Scadutree fragment, untill you go and pick it up, thus you are forced to scour every inch of the map to find some. But most importantly is not how Scadutree fragments differ from Golden seeds, but how they differ from runes. When I got stuck on Margitt, I could go and do whatever and still come out stronger, ready to tackle Margitt, but when I got stuck on Dancing Lion there was only one thing I could do to progress - look for Scadutree fragments. Also, my main problem with the DLC is not difficulty as such, but it's poor balancing. It may be anecdotal, but here is how it went for me. I spent a lot of time on Dancing Lion and Rellana, which is a bit more, than I wanted to. Then I spent a lot less time on Messmer, who is the best balanced boss, in my opinion (and has the most enjoyable moveset). Then for all the other non-main remembrance bosses it took a few attempts, but not too much (except for Metyr and Hippo, both died on the second attemt). Then Romina was a complete pushover, dying on the first attemt. And after that I spent 15 hours on Radahn, a quarter of all the time I spent with the DLC. I would prefer a more even difficulty curve (and a leveling system different from Scadutree fragments, it suck as it is now)

[@CineGameAV]

Well, shards are mostly scattered near bonfires, aren't they? Of course some drop from bosses (and a few are found separately after Gaius). But most are right in plain sight, with rare exceptions. But your point about difficulty makes sense. The next game from FromSoft is rumored to be "linear," unlike ER (I’ve read a few times that all the balance arguments stem from the presence of the open world). So we’ll see how they handle difficulty balance there.

[@aureateseigneur5317]

Scadu Fragments aren't mandatory either. Oops so much for that argument.

[@KinomotoAkito]

if someone can no-hit speedrun Lords of the Fallen (2014), does that make it a good game? you don't need to have a hard time with an enemy to notice something is wrong, because the vast majority of ER's unique bosses weren't hard for me. And more and more people are noticing

[@antobatta1551]

Lords of the Fallen isn't good because it's top easy and the enemy design is too poor, with passive unreactive bosses. Putting aside the awful animations and gap in production quality (which isn't the point of your comparison clearly) It's quite literally the opposite. It shows why Souls games can't have stupid and basic enemies and bosses.

[@anonisnoone6125]

@@antobatta1551 The game has gotten way better since launch apparently.

[@antobatta1551]

@@anonisnoone6125 I doubt that considering I played lotf 2014 3 years ago and it was awful

[@mannypaul7369]

Honestly this is probably the most well-detailed explanation behind why the DLC had so many complaints at launch. As you said it’s definitely calmed down over time. But yeah it was so hilarious seeing certain streamers expecting to smash right through the dlc and getting their ass handed to them! From what I’ve seen, it’s been the judgmental and “veteran” players who have complained about the difficulty of the dlc. Failure is a stepping stone to victory! Anyone who can’t see that is going to encounter a lot of trouble in life. Awesome video!

[@HeyTarnished]

Really great video! Older Souls fans do not like Elden Ring (nor even Sekiro but many of them try to hide that just so they don't get called they're hating on a game that functions differently) and that is majorly due to their mental hang-ups & expectations that were set by the older Souls bosses that don't require more than very little positioning & just -roll everything. Elden Ring's bosses function on a much more complex level, they prioritize strafing, jumping, ducking follow-ups after jump-attacks, and now positioning is paramount against them, they have so many combo-branches & positional-based combos, while also having delayed attacks that punish panic-rolling which is absolutely amazing (some DS3 fans hated that because they thought panic-rolling your way throughout DS3 was what they thought as a “skillful way” to beat the game or whatever), Elden Ring wants you to treat its bosses differently, and that is highly evident from Margit, the “tutorial” boss, use those delayed attacks by replenishing stamina, heck even healing, or use them as punish windows, now with bosses attacking more frequently compared to BB/DS3 bosses, you have to figure out punishes in the middle of their attack strings, which not only increases the pace/tempo of the combat, it increases the depth, complexity & dynamism these fights can create. If you didn’t know, Messmer’s delayed spear attack combo finisher where he drags it into the ground then hits you is an attack that you can either evade it by rolling, or circling around him, or jumping it, yea you can jump it & then punish him on your way down, you can use Ashes of War that lift you into the air to avoid it & deliver a big punish onto him, there are so many examples like this I lose count of how many there are in the game. Rellana has plenty of punish windows in the middle of her combos, she prioritizes jump-attack mixed in with ducking follow-up after executing those jump-attacks, she's the perfect boss. Many bosses had little flaws or ones that some would call "unfair", Gehrman has moves that can't be 'd through, making the fight FEEL unfair, but they're mechanically not, Orphan of Kos literally has unfair mechanics, wonky hitboxes, 1 or 2 nigh-unreactable combo-starter moves, and the ability of unpredictably cancelling staggers into a flying attack that he does, but here's the thing, the problem is "KZbinr critique essayists" wasn't a trend back then so we didn't hear much about them, while also Elden Ring's boss designs messed up with the older Dark Souls 3 fans that loved just iframing through every attack by panic-rolling and then they thought they were skilled enough for those games, Elden Ring upped the ante, it now requires good positioning, creating punish windows, utilize jumping-attacks as a form of evasion, utilize those delayed attacks by either replenishing stamina, attacking them or finding a good position, and...from the looks of it, they didn't like that.

[@albert2006xp]

What the... the guy at 16:40 is fighting Romina with a health bar size that's appropriate for like level 40-50. What. But yeah anyway, this is what you get when you try to make a game series the average player is beating seem hard. Mess up the details on how to make sure they beat it just once, like putting the fragments behind exploration and suddenly those average players are no longer beating it and you seem confused because you thought everyone agreed game hard. But nobody wants game hard that they can't beat, they want game hard that they can beat. That's the whole trick, make an easy game seem hard through tricks and certain victory mechanics (RPG power level, learning timing, nothing too complex to make sure average person can learn it, multiplayer, cheese strats, spirit ashes). Then they beat it and think they beat something hard, so they praise the "hard game".

[@fws88]

Spent 5 hours on Radahn+Miquella. After beating it, i got a feeling of achievement, in addition i can look back and feel good about my determination, persistence and skill improvement. As someone who has been playing since DS1, elden ring and the dlc needs to be this challenging to capture the feeling of the previous titles. For me, the biggest struggles are the ones I remember the most fondly. R+M will be up there with Malenia, Friede, O+S and Gargoyles (I didnt have an upgraded weapon and i was cursed from a hacker invasion)

[@jador9641]

This self imposed delusional fantasy in which the From Software cultists (To be distinguished from the actual From Software fans) stubbornly keeps living in, by firmly believing in blissful ignorance that this dlc is completely devoid of any flairs, is lowkey one of the most disturbing things i ever stumbled uppon this year. The hypocrisy of who condemns the artificially inflated difficult designs in other games, while at the same time praising the design of PCR just because this is a FS game will never know any limits.

[@TastyTardis]

It's also weird that they all sound the same and make almost identical videos, haha.

[@thedoomslayer5863]

They oddly tie some sense of their own identity to this game. So when you critique it they see it as you attacking them. It's some truly no life, fatherless and pathetic behavior but all too common nowadays. An even bigger shams that if you are a normal, sane, rational gamer you are grouped with them under that same term.

[@antobatta1551]

Awful lots of projection and hypocrisy, considering every Souls game since Demon's Souls had the same "it's bad and clunky and hard" reception.

[@albert2006xp]

That's what happens when a developer purposefully perpetuates a scam that an easy game is hard so that they build a fanbase who's unearned egos are tied to the game franchise. You cannot criticize the game. That said the problems in the DLC are the same as problems in the base game. Cheese and summons exist to excuse not putting a proper difficulty select for people that should've always existed, so other can experience a pure melee smack down even if they're unable to do the precise dodges something like PCR needs. And all the other problems like the bad map which hides content instead of marking it because we're sooo pretentious and cool. A lot of these are fixed with mods fwiw. The game is already unplayably bad without mods.

[@reiswoodard6630]

a little dramatic..

[@scootboot69420]

I think you overract to criticism thinking everyone wants stuff removed or nerfed into the ground. Most of the nerfs people call for are just "hey i dont think radahns 1-2 cross swipe should be able to frame trap you if you arent perfectly positioned or are using a specific ash of war" No one called to remove malenias waterfowl dance or her healing, just to tune it down so she doesnt heal when she hits a shield or to give water fowl an extra 2 seconds of windup Just because something is doable doesnt mean its good. Godskin duo is still hated to this day because theyre 2 hyper aggressive enemies that can and will frametrap you if youre one of the players who likes soloing bosses. I can stick a toothpick under my foot and kick the wall with all my force but does that mean its good or beneficial? No. Fromsoft isnt perfect, their games are good but not perfect either, people are dissapointed with the dlc, get over it.

[@cartergammage1540]

I gotta disagree with a couple points. There are people to this day asking for waterfowl to be taken out of the game and I personally think her healing off shield hits is a necessary evil for how overpowered shields are in this game (you can still shield poke her and out damage her with her healing). Overall I disagree with your characterization of the criticism. Its not a perfect dlc and I think there’s definitely stuff in it that should be called out but so much of the criticism is pretty bad and similar to the garbage criticism the base game bosses got at launch.

[@brandonsopinion8904]

Players complain about soloing ylthe Godskin Duo? Guess those players never heard of sleep pots.

[@scootboot69420]

@@brandonsopinion8904 Using sleep pots to cheese the boss as the most common way to kill said boss is a bandaid for them sucking ass to fight.

[@scootboot69420]

@@cartergammage1540 Yeah of course some people want it removed, thats a given, but thats a small amount if criticism towards waterfowl, the majority of people who do complain about waterfowl would rather it just be tuned down a little bit over actually removing it.

[@reiswoodard6630]

difficult comment to read. Is english your second language?

[@hhowdy]

Amazing video man, I basically agree with everything

[@ChicanerDiMarty]

Not a perfect DLC obviously, yet, I enjoyed tf out of it since I just played it my own way and didn't have anyone from this absurd community telling me that FromSoft has gone too far. It makes me glad the community has no say in what design choices they made. FromSoft just kinda makes the game they want to and if someone can't get into it, they can either go into it with a new mindset or play something else. Problem now comes from people who thought they were "souls veterans" and think they know all about game design and difficulty because of that , having a bad time with the game. Totally fine to not prefer what SOTE brings to the table, but man, Elden Ring and it's expansion is different from Dark Souls, that's all, no need to get your boring vanilla greatsword build in a twist.

[@rileyp1506]

golden seeds and scadutree fragments are very different in the fact that it isn't apparent where the fragments are. golden seeds and sacred tears are in very out in the open at Marika Churches and baby erd trees. I had to look up guides to find fragments after level 14 when I had already beaten Radahn

[@bwaka9178]

The only change i would definitely change is the amount of scadutree fragments you need to level up. When you replay the dlc it's really tedious to have to find them before going into certain areas. In the original game you could do a lot of stuff early to get to yourself ready to fight a certain high level boss. Because you need a fuck ton of scedutree fragments just to be able to stand a chance in later areas of the dlc.

[@azamat6765]

I'm 99% sure people aren't complaining about bosses like Messmer, Midra, Romina, Bayle. Shit like Hippo's grab before the fix and PCR's Cross slash combo are frustrating tho. You also have to consider that Elden Ring sold more than DS3(25 million copies vs 10 million copies), so it's absolutely fair to assume that many negative reviews were written by newcomers to FROM games. I've also played previous souls games and I don't like skibidi fragments(and ER being and open world) at all P.S. I wish they've kept PCR's Cross Slash being a true combo as it was in the reviewers' version of the DLC(as stated by Scott Jund). The discussion around this boss would be much funnier(I think he's mid)

[@CineGameAV]

Yep, two swings and double attacks are very tough. Even knowing the timing and direction to dodge, it's very hard for me to react in time.

[@TheSoulsGuru]

I think they still need to go back and fix comander giaus charge attack or at least fix his AI so he can't go straight into the charge right after another attacks when he 2 feet away from your face

[@Shyguystar-ex9qh]

What ever build you use you still beat the game and yeah the perfume bug was a big problem and backseating are mostly people who try to hard and forget fun exist great video

[@jeff3221]

The Perfume Bug A.K.A. the only thing that made them usable lol

[@CineGameAV]

Thanks, glad you liked it

[@TheSwolethatwasPromised.]

I don't care what anyone says, Commander Gaius is the worst and cheesing him should be actively encouraged.

[@CineGameAV]

In my first playthrough, Gaius gave me more trouble than Radahn (especially his charge attack). The Boar in Messmer’s castle taught me to dodge to the LEFT or RIGHT. Until I realized that it's easier to roll TOWARDS Gaius's charge, I had already died about 30 times. But on the second playthrough, he didn’t cause much trouble. I don’t know if you’ve played a second time or plan to, but you’ll see that on the second playthrough (knowing the pattern), he’s not as difficult as he seemed. Even hitboxes seemed "adequate" the second time around)

[@abeon8151]

@@CineGameAV I agree with you. He is not that hard. BUT. There is something wrong with his charge. When he charged me the first time, it dealt like a quarter of my health. Cool, I thought, perfectly normal. Annoying to avoid, but whatever, everything else is fine. But then, On my fifth or so attempt, he charged at the beginning again, as he always does, and it one shot me. From full health. I dodged it the exact same way as before. But somehow it dealt 2000 damage this time? Not sure if that's been fixed, but when I first fought him, it was complete bullshit. But other than that, I don't understand the hate towards Gaius. He is actually pretty fun to fight imo. I do have some issues with some bosses and enemies, but those are very specific, and don't really have anything to do with the difficulty overall (like for example Radahn's epilepsy inducing light show. It's hard to see what he's doing sometimes, and therefore annoying and hard to learn, and also the 3 hit combo with the cross attack that is way too inconsistent and nearly impossible to avoid normally with a dodge and comes out way too fast for the player to run away. Other than that, he really is not that hard. People are way too overreacting, it's honestly insane). Just like you, I was very unpleasantly surprised to see people shit on the difficulty, when I thought it was perfectly fine. Difficult, yes. But not so much that it's unfair. People also seem to forget some of the bullshit that can happen in the older games. For example, Quelaag has an explosion attack where she hugs the spider head and then explodes without any indication that she's going to do that (unless you already know about it) and is very easily capable of one shotting you at full health. How is it that people complain about bad animation telegraphs and high damage in this game, but not in Dark Souls 1? Has also everyone forgotten how sudden and out of nowhere some boss attacks in Bloodborne can be? A lot of them will lift up their arm, wait for a second, and then instantly smash the ground. And Bloodborne is considered as a masterpiece. Why is Bloodborne getting a pass at this and Elden Ring, which actually has better animation btw, doesn't? And I love Bloodborne, I think it's gameplay wise better than Elden Ring. But people just ignore the exact same "flaws", as they call it, in the other games, and say that Fromsoft has lost their way with Elden Ring. It's so fucking stupid.

[@geordiejones5618]

Gaius is the only boss with broken hitboxes

[@highlord2841]

Ever heard of the Bed of Chaos

[@IvoryVer]

Genuinely don’t get the complaints with Gaius, already played through DLC like 3 times and loved his fight everytime.

[@electriclott]

The fun of ER and souls games for me is running into a hard boss with difficult to master mechanics. After banging my head for hours it's such a great feeling to finally beat that boss. I got stuck on Radahn for 8 hours. Yes, I was frustrated, but damn did it feel good to finally beat him.

[@Blood.exe01]

You earned a subscription big boy

[@CineGameAV]

Thanks) It was a big surprise for me that the KZbin algorithm didn’t throw the first video to hell. This is not how it usually works, as far as I understand. And now there are more than 1k views. It is more than I expected in the best case scenario.

[@argirissgr4448]

Very good video i subscribed keep it up

[@CineGameAV]

Thanks. Almost finished working on the second one. It's not quite related to games though. Rather to a popular TV series... I don't know how it will turn out, but, anyway, I want to give it a try.

[@eldenringpvpenthusiast1710]

you can cheese this game basically passively by making a healing build and healing your mimic or favorite ash summon. You could crack a beer and finish it while sending a heal every once in a while. I highly recommend doing it on another character, if you want a character for the challenge of doing it the normal way. I just last night beat Radagon on Ng10 thinking it was ng2, because he boss barely aggros me when I stay back and heal. And your mimic can use healing spells and any incants/spells you have, and they can use items like lump of meat to heal, if its equipt, and it wont expend the item as long as you dont use it. I mix blackflame with heals, because on NG7 the damage over time does over 1000 damage each hit, and your mimic has infinite mana. Its RNG bur your mimic will either shred the boss using blackflame, or full heal using its own items/incants. All you have to do is send an extra heal if the mimic sticks to damage, and the boss will almost never look at you, unless you feel like also doing damage. But doing this will let you study how aggro works, you'll see the boss awkwardly turn around at whoever is attacking rite before it attacks. Some bosses like godfrey, will never go after a long range ash if its farther then you and you keep attacking, but if you pull the boss even further away from someone like Lettena, she will nonstop dump dps, and if you run from the boss and ust make sure you dont attack, youll get plenty of time to heal funny story someone in arena had a similar idea with their mimic in summons allowed, and it was like fighting a lightning god, the mimic just kept using crazy lightning spells

[@lucifox8506]

i think the bosses need a longer window between attack combos, and i think every boss should drop 1-2 shadow tree fragments. also i think the max fragment level should be increased to 25. this way there are more fragments than you need to reach max level, AND you get rewards from bosses that will make the DLC a bit easier just like leveling up in the base game. and i think the bosses need longer cool down periods between combos because the players heal/buffs/weapon arts etc... are so much slower than the bosses and if theyre gonna be so aggressive they need longer openings between 7-8 hit combos to make them feel more fair and balanced. also promised consort radahn is bullshit, they were clearly setting up godwyn throughout the main game so why the fuck was the final boss a rematch with radahn but now he has a twink cape? total bullshit

[@TheWorkingRobot]

Nothing had to be balanced. Mohg is a late game boss. They should've kept the scaling flat. I detest the scadutree fragment system, as it plugs the "lack of progression in late game" but then completley negates itself on ng+. It's not a progression system, it's another item for the checklist. If they wanted to motivate players to go and explore, they already did enough by scattering new weapons to try, talismans, armors all over the new locations. Fuck artificial progression. FIX THE FUCKING CAMERA, FROM.

[@Pedrintavs]

It was horrible to explore a lot and find a hole, just to pick up a fucking smithing stone 7 tho.

[@CineGameAV]

Smithing stone 7...It's almost jackpot. What about redflesh mushroom or sunflower? :)

[@Pedrintavs]

@@CineGameAV not to mention the fucking ghost gloveworts...

[@antobatta1551]

You could say the same about seeds and stones then, and any game. Doing what you want in NG+ (and most lilely finding stuff you missed) is the intended experience, mot a progression flaw

[@TheWorkingRobot]

@@antobatta1551 Edit: Was wrong, no reset on NG+ for fragments. Weapons don't get reset to 0 on ng+, neither do the flasks etc. Bell bearings carry over too. The only point where the stones and seeds become a problem is when you start new characters. And that problem is limed to the amount of stat-optimal starting classes and meta level caps. After you make one, you can buy all the stones you need to get to +24 from the twin maiden husks for testing a build, and max out only the items you need (even though I'd prefer a slab farm from original Dark Souls). I grant it this is not perfect, as I've aluded to before. It's not a new problem either. You had to go on the hunt for flask upgrades and stones in other souls games for every build you made. But this was made much more of a chore thanks to the scale of the game world. And now that's the problem. For every character, on every ng cycle your progress is reset in SotE. And this big beatiful world becomes a time sink, instead of a challenge or a beatiful vista.

[@McDudes]

There where people complaining about the game being to hard when the base game released back in 2022 and same thing happened with Armor Core 6 in 2023 and I remember people saying Sekiro was way harder then anything before it as well. Same thing with Bloodborne, I too thought so until I got familiar with the combat and gameplay mechanics (besides AC6 that game is pretty straight forward and easy if you just use your brain to analyse boss encounters and make a counter mech or have a generally good build that works for 80% of the encounters you might face)

[@Typher_]

I wouldn’t die on the waterfowl hill. Yes the community eventually figured out how to dodge it but if it takes millions of people until after the games hype has died to figure it out then it’s a shit move objectively. No one who sees that is going to learn how to dodge it without a guide

[@ImNotFine44]

It makes lock on unusable. I dont care what anyone says. IT IS OBJECTIVELY BAD GAME DESIGN IF THE ATTACK MAKES A CORE GAMEPLAY MECHANIC GO APESH*T. It is not intended and therefore i dont intend to excuse it.

[@albert2006xp]

No way was I learning how to dodge that, I just learned I can take her out of the animation when she first goes in the air then just zerg her down.

[@albert2006xp]

@@ImNotFine44 Lock on shouldn't exist. But there is a combo to dodge it with lock on just like there is one with lock off. In fact I think the lock on one is simpler, if you can stand the motion sickness and terrible lack of camera control with your mouse that shouldn't exist in a video game.

[@ImNotFine44]

@@albert2006xp it’s just so hard because she’s starts going spastic mode and I either try and find her before she starts her next barrage in a second or I use tracking which can barely track her as she’s doing circles and all this crazy shit whilst reading my inputs. Other than this move, very easy to read and dodge boss but this move is so busted. I literally beat every boss, did every cave, every dungeon, explored every crevice of the game totalling me at 180 hours and this is where I noped out. Just wasn’t worth my time. It’s not fun and that’s what I play for. When I beat boss like this like the tree worms that have the worst tracking known to man, I don’t feel triumphant. I just think “thank god I don’t have to do that anymore.” And it’s even worse here. If the dlc is like this I’m going to be very disappointed. I might try that knocking her down strat though.

[@albert2006xp]

@@ImNotFine44 You don't actually need to dodge Waterfowl to beat Malenia, I can vouch for that. You just zerg her down and eat that L. As long as the rest you do moderately well, waterfowl won't end you. You just need to keep up the pressure on her and not play it slow. DLC has no Malenia. It's either stat check or obvious dodge patterns. Just one is a very unforgiving on the dodge timing.

[@EvilFuGuru]

Great video🏆🥂 Unfortunately most players just want instant gratification and don’t want to work for results. The work/journey, is what makes the end/destination worthwhile for me. Nothing compares to that sense of accomplishment in From Soft games when I overcome a challenging boss.

[@CineGameAV]

Appreciate it! Thank you for watching.

[@Al_Anon_Marly]

This was my first souls game. I platinumed It and was the most proud I had ever been in gaming. This game is by far one of the greatest and my favorite for sure. I feel the difficulty was tough but extremely fair, I came from the Destiny 2 community which was a much less fair game at high levels, meaning sometimes things would just happen that weren’t a skill issues, bad RNJesus. Elden Ring never feels like there is nothing we can do to improve or approach a fight differently

[@CineGameAV]

Great to read that! I highly suggest you try Bloodborne and the Old Hunters DLC after ER. You will enjoy it, no doubt :)

[@alexanderalvarez3496]

Great video

[@highlord2841]

My first time beating Radahn, was naked with a jar on my head, the bloodhounds fang in one hand and the Morgotts curved sword in the other, and I beat him, but I didn’t actually get a bleed off on him

[@KNGDDDE]

That's bs lol

[@highlord2841]

@@KNGDDDE no it isnt, it did take 38 hours though

[@albert2006xp]

Ain't no way, you can phase him in like 6 hits and the bleed procs on the 3rd or 4th I forget. 6th he gets staggered.

[@highlord2841]

@@albert2006xp my build wasn’t focused on bleed, it’s focused on pure melee damage

[@McDudes]

Mythir moder of finger beem attack is actually undodgable though

[@giovaniconte1860]

If catharsis was a video...

[@apharys8921]

Imo a lot of the complaints early on were because the skibidi fragments weren't helping much (or people just didn't get them). I had +4 on the lion and it still felt over-tuned. Then Fromsoft adjusted the blessings. The only boss that gave me trouble after that was phase 2 of the final one and that was more due to mechanics than numbers, the rest felt good to fight even if they took me a number of tries. Scooby snacks are a fine design, especially after the adjustment since the second half doesn't do nearly as much as the first half making them less important to find.

[@paullogan5627]

If people who played a lot of from soft games complained about the dlc , then it doesn’t matter if their specific arguments don’t hold truth. They are conveying an emotion that the dlc left them with. You can’t fully argue with an emotion. What this signifies is the that something didn’t click with the people who played the dlc. Also Melania is a great boss, she just has an unacceptable move (waterfowl). If you are okay with this, you are encouraging from soft to develop enemies that don’t mesh with the combat mechanics of the games they are in. Future from soft games need to innovate , the stamina based combat , lose your souls on death mechanics have run their course. Time for innovation again, and they can start by developing more complex world system like world tendency and insight, and of course they have to improve the quest design. Otherwise, stagnation has already set in and the next game will face even more harsh criticism from their fans .

[@paullogan5627]

Also shadow fragments suck as a system because you have no idea what the proper level for each area in the game is.

[@cartergammage1540]

People can feel however they want to about a game and you can’t argue with that but if those feelings come from misinformation and a shitty mindset then it’s hard to take it seriously. A vocal minority of “souls veterans” think that ds3 was peak boss design and when r1 roll spam doesn’t work they complain that from has done somthing wrong. It was the exact same thing when the base game came out and I’m realizing that this is just going to be the norm going forward unfortunately.

[@duvetboa]

WFD is fine. It's a wall type move, one most players are going to run face first into and prompt them to go into problem solving mode: do you climb over it, under it, go around it, break it down? LupineOS has a video about the various ways you can avoid the attack. The game gives you so many tools- not to mention you can literally just block whatever you can't dodge as most late game builds can put DPS her healing anyways.

[@paullogan5627]

@@duvetboa that is not what normal players did at all. Most just looked it up after a few attempts. Whatever from soft intended didnt happen , because it was so ridiculous and no one could organically figure it out .

[@duvetboa]

@@paullogan5627 Considering the simplest method is to literally just run and jump, the same method that is used against a variety of bosses in both the base game and now the DLC, I'm honestly what sure how I should feel. I don't deny that most players didn't figure it out organically and that is reflective of the game design, but idk. The game really does give you so many tools to deal with it. I'm willing to bet a non significant number of players did find it out organically and we just don't hear about it as often.

[@petersomogyi7245]

Great video, man! You are so right! Thanks for your words of rationality and wisdom in a mad and toxic discourse! You have my sub! S-Tier video! ❤

[@CineGameAV]

Appreciate it! I'm surprised by the high engagement and over 1k views. The next video will most likely be about Star Citizen. Will see how it goes.

[@justasinglesummon3912]

Basically agree with everything

[@theroguerider]

Well, if you weren’t just dropped into my algorithm. I have been playing these games since Demon’s dropped on the PS3 and I have platinum’d all the Soulsborne games (Not a brag as many have but to add my credentials). I’m not sure why this was your take where the game has items to gather of unknown numbers and unknown areas and absolutely no idea how much it helps so that you can end up where you started. THIS is called ARTIFICIAL DIFFICULTY. It isn’t about you learning, fighting and getting better through the same means as the base game, you just collect bullshit. Ask most people if after they defeated a boss in the DLC, if they felt the same sense of elation and accomplishment or if they were just relieved it was over. Why? Relentless attacks which often meant you are waiting VERY LONG (by Soulsborne time) for your opening. Gaius has severe hit box issues, Messmer has a 360 degree tracking with his attacks. This is up there with the DS2 community saying it’s the best Dark Souls when it is fundamentally and objectively worse in its use of an analog stick. And that’s ONE thing of dozens. I want to say, I still love the game, but FSoft will need to really hit the white board for the next because SotE only leaned into the lesser qualities of the base game. I strongly urge you to look at the more specific reasons why the game isn’t as good, and no offense, but people who just stepped into the arena and in an around about way say “git gud” can “git lickin”. I say look at the DLCs in the past and compare the differences and I think if you genuinely look with an open mind, you will see this is NOT their best work.

[@KNGDDDE]

Agree with a lot but honestly, I gotta give props to ds2. Idk but the movement feels the best to me. Something about the turn rate and lack of traction males it feel real game-ey and fluid. Ig it's to compensate for the actual slow aas attacks.

[@theroguerider]

@@KNGDDDE DS2 has only an 8 way analog stick which to this very day boggles my mind. Ever notice when you walk to the Lost Sinner sometimes you can’t just walk a perfect straight line across the cart narrow walkway? It’s because of essentially poor stick calibration within the game. Seemingly something we have had no issue with for decades was a problem in that game. Don’t get me wrong, I have beaten DS2 twice and platinum’d it. It’s a good game, but not a great souls game.

[@KNGDDDE]

@theroguerider ds2 is hot garbo but i disagree on the movement. It feels the nappies to me but I only played sotfs so take it with some salt

[@CineGameAV]

About the loot in the DLC, I agree with that. I can only explain this as "Japanese humor". When, after 5 minutes of jumping exercises, you find a +1 smith-stone. BUT! Sometimes, i wish it was stone. Because othen it’s a flower, a shrimp antenna, or similar stuff. By the way, because of this, I missed out on some good items on my first playthrough (like weapons or armor) lying RIGHT IN FRONT of me. Because I already thought, "It's flower +1, no thanks." So, of course, DLC has its downsides. For example Lore or rather...interaction with other NPCs. The first time I got into the DLS was before Melina burned herself. I needed a spell from Farum Azula. And as I sat at each bonfire, I kept waiting for Melina to say something. But no. No interaction or information about her, except for a 3-word description in Messmer's Kindling. It felt like being deceived. Or Miquella Rune. So, what's the point of it? Has anyone ever used it in their right mind during the second phase to remove a debuff? Of course not. And the rune drops from an optional boss. It would have been great if, upon finding the rune (which could perhaps be restored), the player could access a secret ending, like with Renni. But, again - missed. So the rune is useless, and the connection DLC to the main game, to put it mildly, is weak. Those were the downsides for me. But, in this video, I mostly talked about the difficulty of boss battles. Yes, I agree that the DLC is far from perfect. But it was still a good run.

[@thedoomslayer5863]

Elden Ring traces its combat and general mechanics from all the way back to demon souls. It's time to take this formula out back and retire it permanently. Innovate and do something better whether it being going the route of a Sekiro 2 or something else entirely different. The bosses at this point (looking at you consort Radahn) are stretching what this old demon souls combat and mechanics can handle to it's breaking point. An easy way to imagine this in your head is take Malenia as she is in Elden Ring. Then put her in Sekiro (there's even a mod for that) you'll find she fits in Sekiro so much better than she does in Elden Ring. This is because the mechanics of Sekiro are far better to accommodate these insanely fast, nonstop aggression spammy bosses. It goes from Elden Ring's "when is it my turn" to how these games used to be "fight flows so well it's like a dance"

[@dragonknightleader]

People have been complaining about various bosses in Elden Ring since its inception, from the first Tree Sentinel all the way to The Last Fire Giant, and of course Malenia Blade of Miquella. Also to me, it seems that everyone, despite being told otherwise from the very beginning, expected the DLC to be set at the same level of difficulty you get between mid and late game, seeing as how you have to beat both Radahn and Mohg to enter the DLC. This I think set up people's expectations for the level of difficulty they would face, and thus when they suddenly met a wall, it caused them confusion because sure, they should be struggling a bit because its a new boss, but they are also not doing the damage they think they should be doing, as well as taking more damage then they thing they should be taking. Thus, when they hear its because of the fact that they have to explore the world in order to get stronger, they do not react well because in some way they have forgotten the amount of exploration they did in the base game, because this is most likely their fifth to tenth playthrough and thus they don't need to explore in order to find what they need to progress through the main game. This instills in them I think a idea that they should not need to explore this new area in order to grow stronger, because again they have forgotten the amount of exploration they did in the main game to progress and get stronger during their first few playthroughs.

[@ColtonGamingTV]

scadutree fragments should have had a lot more in the open world like golden seeds and take less to upgrade, would have done wonders in terms of difficulty and enjoyment. Also, Radahn has the one attack and while yes, it is dodge able I have only done it by pre-dodging it, not to mention being clipped by the holy attacks or his afterimage where if you aren't up close you just die (don't know how to dodge it at distance).

[@ExSuPiO1]

Haven't seen it mentioned in the comments yet so figured I'd do it because I know audio can be a b*tch sometimes: There's a low echo in your voice at some points in the video. Just as a heads up for future videos, enjoyed this one.

[@CineGameAV]

It's impossible to get more out of a standard $20 microphone. So, hope your ears are intact :)

[@AiviTos]

Exactly my opinion. Good video man 👍

[@BrySquatch]

It is super hard. Sometimes frustratingly so. But I do get why FS designed it this way. They need to keep each game a bit more challenging than the last. If they didn’t people would say they got stagnant or went too mainstream. I thought most of the bosses were within reason, albeit extremely difficult. I beat the base game with summons, bleed, etc. so I came into the DLC determined to beat it solo with a basic melee build. And other than the gank fight and Bayle (mostly just wanted Igon’s dialogue as my soundtrack 😂) I did take down every boss solo. Radahn was probably too over the top, and I probably could have figured him out after 10 hours, but I ended up just going with the shield and poke meta option as I just ran out of motivation to spend all week on him. But in the end, I beat most of the bosses “fair and square” and I’m an average gamer with a full time job and family, so it’s certainly not impossible. Just gotta be willing to sit down and patiently learn the more difficult bosses and check your ego. I probably took 50-60 tries on Messmer but it was satisfying as hell when I beat him. I do think fighting the game solo is the new hard mode however. Summons are the new normal mode. And summons + meta is the easy mode. There are many options to approach/beat the game. My wife isn’t really a gamer and is beating it just fine with summons and magic. It was an amazing expansion, and could have almost been its own game. My biggest complaint was more about the empty areas/bad loot more than anything about difficulty. That’s what I want from these games.

[@SeireiYura]

great video

[@FuriousMaximum]

I got a video up where I beat Malenia, Gaius, and Radahn. It was tough as hell for me, but I did it. I knew what I was getting myself into. I don't whine about spicy when I eat a bowl of jalapenos.

[@CineGameAV]

That’s a serious statement... :)

[@Xdori23]

That intro with Homelander was FYRE 👌🏾🔥

[@CineGameAV]

Honestly, it came out naturally :)

[@user-ww1gk5ku1w]

Finally someone spittin’ facts the DLC was amazing both gameplay wise and lore wise(yeah I care about the lore too), if you consistently level your Scadutree blessing and explore it’s not harder than the base game’s endgame, bosses are aggressive and have long combos true but saying that they have zero openings and are unfair is total bs. I have beaten both the base game and the DLC with a Guts cosplay character, no summons and without needing to respec, was it easy? Not always but I never once thought it was impossible not even with Malenia(she’s actually my favourite boss in the base game), I had my ass beaten multiple times but I got better with each try, learned the bosses patterns and prevailed. Radahn was hard, sure but after learning that his move set is mostly the same in phase two I locked in and defeated him. I started with Bloodborne, it seemed crazy hard, bosses like Gehrman or the Orphan of Kos seemed impossible but now I can first try them multiple times, I then played DS1 and DS2 and soon I’ll get my hands on DS3 too. I love these games and I acknowledge their difficulty but if you don’t like them then just play something else, it doesn’t mean they’re bad games🤷🏻‍♂️

[@Smabbott]

I mean to talk about every attack can be dodged when the Radahn cross move exists is mad. Yes it can be dodged. But to do so you need either a specific talisman, specific ash of war, the terrain to be low enough or be right next to his knee when it happens. Meaning the RPG aspect to the game is negated because you have to play a specific way or have that tool. Also the clip you show of finally dodging Waterfowl Dance is very disingenuous, I’ve talked to the man who did this and he said you need to position your camera at this exact spot and roll at the pin point accuracy to dodge the move. That’s busted. That’s not a good response. Any move can be dodged yes, but if you have to do mental gymnastics to get there. That’s a bad move. Not trying to be mean here. But it’s a bit bad to state stuff like this and then show points which are very hard to do and not the intended way of dodging.

[@ime4rth434]

It took me 12 hours to kill maliketh. Now I Happily use his colossal black blade :) and im pwning everything

[@Tneal78]

Every complaint about the DLC I'm seeing is just people frustrated that they can't faceroll bosses with their RL300 character.

[@CineGameAV]

Well, not all, but some seem that way.

[@RykardTheYoungScholar]

It was worth all the money i paid. The effort i put in The only thing that i can complain about is the inappropriate activity detected when summoning So i had to force myself to learn each boss. Beat all bosses 2nd try, Bayle first try(DHGK AOW). Midra took like 20 tries cause i wanted to do it with backhand blade. Beat Messmer after like 12 tries en Romina 4th attempt. Backhand blade just makes the dlc so much easier with blind spot. So im finally at PCR and i wanna do it with backhand blade even if it takes me 200 tries. Love this game and all these negative comments are so irrelevant its not about getting good its about persistence and learning from mistakes. I have not encountered an attack that was unfair. Maybe Metyr hand crawl to the side but just dodge into it. Anyway I just wanted to say, great video. Btw i did bosses without summons if it wasn't clear.

[@CineGameAV]

"Btw i did bosses without summons if it wasn't clear". I wanted to say a few words about spirits at the end, but decided not to. :) And thanks! Glad you liked it.

[@normanbates7373]

It's funny how different the experiences are. For example I died a ton at gaius but the later centipede boss I got 1st try cause it felt much like tree bosses of main game, but could not understand why so many got mad about centepede... But then radahn 2nd phase I hit a wall and after 3 days I gave up, watched guides and cheesed him.... Felt not good, but to be honest... That flashlight calaidoscope encounter was to painful to watch... Malenia took me 2 weeks but I had no patience on this eyeburster... 1 week later I learned that he's much easier without the 2 npcs ( but I was sure it must done with to keep the lore as intended... I think they should buff the 2 npcs - it is not logical that the player gets punished because of the afford of doing additional site quests - and they are there to assist not to make it even harder... That's my opinion

[@jfp4life]

I'm just glad that the only content creator that I watched was enjoying the dlc and didn't give AF about using ashes and cheesing the dlc because the FF14 expansion was coming out a week later lol Really made me also just take my head out of my butt and say "eff it" and experiment with the new content instead of stubbornly using my old gear Radahn made me go back to my old sword and board play style from the old DeS and DS1 days and it felt good thanks to the physic that gives you the sekiro block

[@CineGameAV]

I already writen somewhere below that I wanted to say a few words at the end about spirits (whether it’s cheating or not), but decided not to :) Maybe I’ll do it here in the comments and pin it so others can join in the "brawl." Anyway, thanks for watching!

[@covetousclub910]

After beating the DLC, I only really dislike the Curseblade enemies that appear multiple times and last boss phase 2 being too blinding with all the lights.

[@daleodorito]

The thing is... the difficulty by just using the game tools (so no Rocky no arms or dancepad or no-hits, lvl-1 or whatevers), like you just using the tools the game gives you by base varies not just a little, it varies DRAMATICALLY. Like if you pick the bestest possible build and optimal strategy for every single encounter, the game becomes an absolute joke, like, not even fun to play at all. But if you use just some below average shit, you are superfucked, it difficulty scales exponentially. Prior games were significantly more readeable in the sense of... you could exactly know how to dodge 95% of the stuff by just seeing it once, they barely tricked you into superdelayed attacks mixed with ones so quick that basically negate supposed oppening or have a telegraph branch into 7 different combos. And they didn't have this absurd amount of tools for you to pick from. The experience you got from the game, was although still somewhat different depending of your build, much more contained, like you could tell how a figth would go and fights could be tuned accordingly. You cannot do that on ER. It is impossible to have a balanced figth when there are hundreds of different ways of fighting the same guy. You just can't. So it feels like, since they have this reputation of being hard, they need to at least make it somewhat hard for the top builds, letting the ones that are somewhat mediocre in a terrible possition. There was never such an inmense gap between builds on previous games. You don't want to use summons cause you think they break the IA of the figth and make it less enjoyable for you? Well congratualtions, you just tripled the difficulty of most fights just cause you don't want to use mimic tear. What's that? You are using a spell you like instead of the optimal one? Well, I guess you would be lucky to have enough mana to kill the boss, or to even find a opponening for such a slow spell. You want to use quick dex weapons? Well, I guess you never ever going to break any posture, and you are not really get much more hits in anyways cause the bosses barely leave time for a single hit of punish even after the hardest of their attacks. Like... it feels like you sometimes have to look the other way to not use an obviusly better way, it is not fun when one random guy that is not even good beats the bosses first try with a broken build, and you are there trying with the thing you like. It breaks the purpose of the game for me. Like imagine playing an mmo, and you are playing you favourite class, but there is a CLEARLY better one that is doing triple damage with no effort. What do you do? Well, you can either ignore that knowing you are playing basically wrong or betray your priciples and go for the obviusly better choice. None of them feel satisfying. It was never about difficulty for me, it is about... I am even having fun breaking my head against a wall when I know there is a door after turning the corner?

[@thedoomslayer5863]

This is why games like Sekiro and lies of P prove less is more. Especially Sekiro. The fact you only have your one katana allows the game to be balanced perfectly around it and thus the fights felt infinitely more engaging. It also just had better new mechanics like it's posture and deflect based combat. They even got rid of stamina entirely. It was amazing. Lies of P while having a sizeable amount of weapons is no where near the absurd 400 or more found in Elden Ring. Thus they could do cooler things then what is possible in Elden Ring with their weapon head and weapon handle mixing mechanic. Bloodborne also had far fewer weapons but their trick weapons had much more depth then the Elden Ring weapons do. I'll give fromsoft one more game to show me if they are willing to innovate and get better with time or if they decide to stagnate. If they stagnate and say just do Elden Ring 2 I'll move on to other better games in the genre like those such as Lies of P.

[@aryabratsahoo7474]

​@@thedoomslayer5863 what about your opinion on Lords of the Fallen and Nioh 2? Also Rise of the Ronin since it uses the Nioh 2's combat?

[@vergilchair9517]

​@@aryabratsahoo7474Nioh 2 is great and I haven't tried LotF but haven't heard anything good about it

[@VonBoche]

"You are using a spell you like instead of the optimal one? Well, I guess you would be lucky to have enough mana to kill the boss, or to even find a opponening for such a slow spell." Who uses a single spell ?! I know it's a nitpick but it still sounds really whingy. Do people not use multiple weapons ? Switch talisman, flasks and weapon arts around ? Who's out there using a build that's so limited there's NOTHING they can do to improve their survivability or damage ? I can only speak for myself but seeing people winning without struggling doesn't make me envy them at all. Understanding what you need to do to win and slowly seeing victory arrive is far more exciting than just walking in, winning, leaving.

[@aryabratsahoo7474]

​@@vergilchair9517 For LotF it's kinda difficult know about it from videos before 1.5 since the devs did a lot of balance changes in 1.5, including adding bunch of needed qol features, decreasing enemy density, adding modifiers for each playthrough and boss rush modes.

[@proper2979]

I have beaten all souls games multiple times. I have thousands of hrs in invasions and build making in dark souls 2 and dark souls 3. The problem with your video is your not co sidering going through the game with none OP builds. Many people like to have a sane SL and not be overleveled or used meta builds. I beat the final dlc boss at SL 120(which is higher than most of my builds) with no summons and without respecing. Without a doubt the final dlc boss is the most horseshit inciherent experience I have ever had the misery of suffering through. After finally beating it I wasnt even satisfied. I was just relieved to finally be done with such an unfair incoherent experience. Post your build while going through the dlc. I highly doubt it was anything I couldnt have used to first try the final dlc boss.

[@jeff3221]

I thought this was an excellent first video. You should be proud. I would like to offer up some criticism, mainly around the skibidi fragments. I thought your arguments against suggestions of alternatives were in bad faith. I don't think you did it maliciously or anything like that, just that they weren't fair. Allow me to explain. To the suggestion that the DLC should be balanced around the endgame, you shot this down and gave the argument that you can get to the land of shadows at level 75, as a hypothetical. I think this is extremely unrealistic and definitely was not the level range the DLC was designed around. Yes, a player who's lucky or is following a guide can get to Mohg early on, rather than taking the portal from Snowfields. But let's be so for real here. Most players are not fighting Mohg at level 75. Come on. Most players are getting to the land of shadow at level 125-150, and in my honest opinion, I believe that the level the developers intended you to get to the yugioh shadow realm is somewhere in that range. Imo, and this is genuinely just an opinion, I would have set the DLC to be endgame narrative wise. Do away with all this skibidi nonsense and just make level 150 entry. Let's be frank; Fromsoft does not GAF about NG+ balancing (I say that as someone who's played through the DLC on multiple NG+ cycles). So, I really believe just having normal level progression would have mitigated a lot of frustration around the difficulty. Scadutree Fragments are horrendously boring. They just make number bigger. LAME I don't get to try out a new spell or weapon by increasing my Scadutree Blessing, like I do when I level up. And in the DLC, I'm still leveling up while I'm here so wtf is the point in trying to preserve the balance of fighting the late game bosses? Base game Elden Ring did not GAF in attempting to keep the player at a balanced level to fight the bosses. It's incredibly easy to overlevel for even the mandatory fights like Morgott and Malekith. So, idk why we're suddenly acting like we need to preserve the balance of the base game. To add to why I think that base game balancing is nonsensical; the best weapons and spells are still found in the base game. It's not like the DLC was bestowing upon us a new Blasphemous Blade. We got a big bleed club and tbh, that's pretty much it for the broken weapons (well aside from the formerly broken perfume bottles). I think too much emphasis has been put on defending the faults of the DLC by framing it around balancing. The bosses are more "unbalanced" than ever, with Rellana being able to zip around the player with endless sweeping sword combos, Lion Dancer shoving the camera up one of its asses, etc, etc. Here's a way to genuinely maintain balance: USE SEKIRO'S SYSTEMS Best of both worlds; you get your alternate leveling system to maintain the balance of endgame base game, but you get to intentionally design each boss of the DLC around how many bosses the player will beat before reaching them. You want an even more balanced system? The same thing but just scale the remembrance bosses off of how many other bosses have actually been beaten so far. Now you can't accidentally show up under/overleveled. There are numerous ways you could go about balancing the bosses without using the awful "find number in world" system that we got. Welp, rambled for a bit there. If my thoughts are incoherent... well... let's just say... Elden Ring 😎

[@CineGameAV]

Thank you, it's nice to read such comments) As for balancing, the open world, and shards... Your words do make sense. But it is what it is. Personally, I was satisfied with everything. I wouldn't say I'm a very "advanced" player, but I did collect enough shards to reach levels 15-16. I liked the boss movesets, especially when the fights are dynamic and you almost never have the chance to stand still or drink Estus. I don't know, overall...) The next game, as far as I understand, will be smaller in size and probably more linear, like everything they've done before. Personally, I'm curious, after Elden Ring and its DLC, how FromSoft's approach will change for a "linear" game format and how everything will be balanced in terms of difficulty. P.S. Thanks again for the detailed comment.

[@JustZhekai]

Ngl gaius peeving me right about now ☠️ no WiFi for update

[@Tarnished_Onryo]

I'm emotionally attached to these games. Even if there was something objectively bad about it, I wouldn't stop. The lore, music, world building...all of it. I can feel the sense of love and passion put in to making these games.

[@reblaw89]

The thing that upsets me the most is people resuming their whole experience by a single tiny point of frustration, i mean, did you know the game os much more than Boss fights right? There's a ginormous exploration, npc Quests, lore to Discover, itens, weapons, armors to try It out and on and on, but in their First wall of progression fighting a hard Boss..."yoo this DLC is trash, not Fun, too hard". Dude for god sake, patience, adapt, think, test other things, call for help If necessary, dont let your ego be the wall that stops you from that great experience. And If you feel too overwhelmed by the Challenge...stop, rest, give yourself a moment of releaf, try later with a fresh mind, eventually you Will succeed!! In the end you Will be Glad for not dropping the game and allowing yourself to have an awesome history to tell later.

[@robrobbins]

I summoned other players to help me with all the boss fights. A really hard game is Lies of P where you do not have this option.

[@brandonbryson3317]

As a totally mediocre Souls player….I’ve managed to solo every boss in every single game they’ve made since Demon Souls. I don’t use any summons or Spotify ashes and I’m legit not very good…illy point being, the game is not too hard if you are are determined and learn the mechanics. There are always builds that will help make a boss substantially more manageable. Not to mention, you CAN summon. I just prefer not to.

[@deathandrebirth-y8x]

the dance pad was actually easy. i saw someone do it with the frost stomp. it was broken

[@CineGameAV]

Or playing PC and PS5 game at the same time with a dance pad and a dualshock. But wait a minutе...

[@willangove2653]

This is just my thoughts I don't want to start an argument I'm not trying to be rude and there are probably going to be spelling mistakes. The scadutree fragments are a bad bad system, I understand why they did it but still. I do not want to run around for 30 minuets going on a collect-athon on repeat playthroughs it is tedious, just because collecting the golden seeds are often a required part of a playthrough does not make it fun and making them the primary way of increasing strength is worse. Golden seeds give you healing which is used when you make a mistake. Even if I dont make a mistake the insane HP of the bosses (which is meant to be countered by the Scadutree fragments) makes it painfully slow without collecting the scadutree fragments. Saying you have to go collecting items in the base game as if its not the worse part about it in defence of this mechanic makes no sense. Exploring becomes a checklist ,It only has the possibility of being fun on your first playthrough this is not aided by the large distances you might need to ride torrent. The primary way to increase you strength in the base game is through runes which are obtained through most activities most importantly killing bosses which means you don't need to go exploring for more runes when playing again. Runes are not the primary way to increase strength in the DLC the DLC is end game content as you need to get pass an endgame boss to do it, mogh is an end game boss given the difficulty of the area and using the number of runes dropped as a way to measure Dev intended difficulty/ place in the game Mohg would come in after Godfrey/hora luxe and just before malania. You will more that likely be a high level (recommended 120-150) and have already made a build meaning most bosses will give you a few levels at best not to mention you will have likely already hit the hard cap making those levels less valuable in comparison to the first 12 scadutree blessing levels which give an overall 41% increase in all damage dealt and reduction in damage negation making this a far super way to obtain power in a far less interesting and fun way when playing through the game a second time . I am sorry I just really don't like this mechanic. I also think many of the hit boxes in the DLC are broken but that's a different thing all together apart from this its a great video

[@Adrianstilley]

I used the carian dueling shield to fight Radahn and it was quite fun.

[@CineGameAV]

It's rare to see a build like this these days :)

[@Cold_Zero_The_Wise]

I've beaten Every Souls Game, no Shields cause I don't like them, no Parry I never could get that, no summons on the first play through or for main bosses, I've been running Shadow of The Erdtree for 26h no Scadu Tree Blessings, I'm having fun, not hard enough to force me to use them, bosses are more Complex but not Unfair, Rellana was Definitely not as aggressive and more forgiving than many said she was.

[@ETBrooD]

Asmongold did the exact same thing as the people who relied on bugged perfumes to one-shot every boss. He used a different, but equally broken build. He looked it up online, used a cheat and set up his character. He whines and complains all the time. He's not someone to look up to. If I had to pick an admirable person to have beaten the game, it would be Emiru. She doesn't have many hours in ER. She beat the game two years ago and hasn't touched it since (as far as we know). Then she played the DLC and beat it with a simple build. Completely legit, no shortcuts, nothing broken. Just a normal playthrough. She never complained. Emiru is a champ.

[@PlayerUnoYT]

Hasgonebald doesn't knows about videogames, he's just a WoW addict.

[@anonisnoone6125]

@@PlayerUnoYT Well this is just false. If ur gonna insult someone, at least be correct.

[@anonisnoone6125]

i love how u guys r the same people that say people should be able to play with whatever build they want but then u shit on people for having broken builds eventhough that's how they wanna play the game. Emiru's method of playing isn't any less valid than Asmon or anyone else.

[@9zetsu]

I wish bosses had dealt a little less damage and had more health or whatever. I just want to learn their moves, thats it. Make it punishing, but allow learning it. Magic and summons are a bullshit way of toning down the game dificulty. With those tools, you just skip over the entire fight, and it doesn't feel satisfying at all. Also, i wish random npcs weren't as strong. Some of them feel more difficult to deal with than bosses themselves. Also, i hate encountering two enemies. It's such a cheap way of raising the challenge when the game is clearly designed for duels. I like the game as a whole, though. Exploration and challenge are so satisfying, unlike any other game. In other open worlds, i often felt like exploration is a chore. My point is that if people complain, it's something worth looking into, instead of dissmising it.