Shadow Of The Erdtree Has A Fatal Flaw

[@OwlPlayIt]

CORRECTION 1: The difference between blessing levels 12 and 20 is actually 10% more damage, not 20%. Point still stands though. CORRECTION 2: The blessing does carry over to NG+ so I was wrong about that, sorry.

[@deadeyedun]

It's a 10.8% increase relative to being blessing level 12, but it's still a 20% increase relative to your base damage upon entering the DLC so you weren't really wrong.

[@mat3393gjh]

Thank you for correction 2, as I didn’t know that.

[@Mewsashi-cz9fo]

Shadow of The Erdtree is a turning point showing Fromsoft is going mainstream / Skyrim, it has bugs and anti s bugs, exploits, and most of all it allow you to become so strong you can eat damage while mashing damage back, making it a very basic "skyrim" or any other rpg like where you can just mash through damage while taking damage if you want to, and they killed the real technicality and precision on the last bosses by laziness, and offering way too many ways of "skipping" the skill test, while also adding unavoidable attacks, by design or by flaw / bug, killing their own design philosophy.

[@johnnyshinespark]

Remember in DS1 if you beat Artorius and save Sif in the dlc before fighting Sif in the base game you get a special cut scene where Sif recognizes you. And if I remember right you can get unique dialog with Princess Dusk after beating Manus. So Fromsoft have connected dlc lore with base game lore. Shame they didn't do it with SotET. Especially with how important Miquella is.

[@LyllianaofMirrah]

the DLC feels like a Mod pack

[@samuel.jpg.1080p]

The dlc feels unfinished, especially the ending and areas like Abyssal Woods that is so large and empty

[@CrimsonBladezz]

Well to bad heres a dlc with reused base game enemies and story that does absolutely nothing….40bucks please

[@LyllianaofMirrah]

guys, guys. Miyazaki once said he don't even planned to make a DLC. but he changed his mind because of the success ELDEN RING Brought. but that kinda has a double edge sword he did the development of the DLC too sudden that he didn't even planned out the lore too well.

[@johnnyshinespark]

@@LyllianaofMirrah apparently the lore for the DLC was already written but they couldn't fit it into the base game. Which doesn't make too much sense cause nothing you do in the dlc effects the base game at all. Seems weird to me. There's not even a cut scene that takes you to the Realm of Shadow. You would think we'd at least get that like in other Souls titles

[@samuel.jpg.1080p]

The problem is that the fragments are put randomly. In the base game, golden seeds are always found near golden branches of erdtree and sacred tear is always found at churches. Scadutree fragments are random, some are just lying in some hidden place, some are inside the jar/basket that enemy hold, some are given by defeating boss, some are behind a tree, it's random and that's why it's annoying. Plus there's no residual of how many they are, meaning that you can get locked out of just 1 fragment because you miss that one and you don't remember where did you get all the previous fragments. I'd say the concept is good but the implementation of the system is bad

[@OwlPlayIt]

Completely agree, if they made the rules more consistent and gave us a surplus it would be tolerable.

[@samuel.jpg.1080p]

@@OwlPlayIt yeah, i fought the final boss with 19 blessing level so i am missimg 3 fragments more to upgrade to level 20 but at this point i don't care enough to look up a guide and check every place because I don't remember which place I got my fragments from. And also this system makes me not want to play another playthrough with my other characters because it's just tiring to find the fragments

[@arsenii_yavorskyi]

I wouldn't mind finding the fragments in random places if they did anything more interesting than just scaling the damage.

[@samuel.jpg.1080p]

@@arsenii_yavorskyi the problem with random placement is that you will forget where are the places you picked them up earlier. I was stuck on the last 3 fragments and because there's no extra fragments and the placements are random, I am confused where should i go to find the last 3. Looking at a guide won't help too because you need to visit each places to confirm whether you got those fragments from those places or not. It's baffling that this implementation of the fragments are really bad compared to base game's golden seed

[@AndJusticeForMe]

I love being rewarded with glass shards and mushrooms while thoroughly exploring an area. 😠

[@tuomaskoskinen6257]

The main reason I hated making a new character in base game was the mandatory run in the beginning to get all the flask upgrades and to start all those tedious npc questlines. This scadu system is just that but multiplied. I had 3 characters ready for the dlc, but after beating it once, I don't feel like doing it again.

[@asterodon]

Most of my additional characters after my first playthrough I've just ran through to grab the items I want/need and maybe leveled my blessing enough to fight a boss if they have something I need and that's it. Oh and unlocking all of the areas just for invasions. I have one character I'm considering playing through the whole of the dlc with but yeah, it's very tedious to say the least.

[@spongbobsquarepants3922]

Thats why cheat engine is so nice. It is as if you had wasted all that time, but you dont actually

[@josephgoddard7438]

Ive done 5 characters after the dlc dropped. It's not hard. Just know basic locations and do it on blessing 11-13 by end.

[@kaipakta817]

@@josephgoddard7438 Heaven forbid you have a full time job and don't want to spend more than say, 45 minutes on this game at a time.

[@effive7817]

@@josephgoddard7438 No one thinks going through a checklist is hard. Its boring.

[@Sleader134]

My opinion is that they should have tied the fragments to progression rather than exploration. Give us 10 or so fragments that you find by killing bosses or minibosses. If I have to look up that I have to kill random looking NPCs with pots on their head, it's not good game design. And I, like many players, like to play multiple characters instead of just respeccing whenever I want to play something different. This means that I am not only forced to "explore" by the game the first time, but the second, third, fourth time as well. Not to mention that if you are stuck on a boss because the game is way too challenging, especially with the amount of bullshit some of the bosses throw at you, and you realize you are being filtered by the fragments, what's going to happen is not that you go out and enjoy exploring, you are going to be frustrated by what feels like a chore.

[@goodusername2497]

First of all, the random looking NPCs with scadutree fragments are different to the rest because of a distinct glowing effect. if you look at that and don't think "Hmm that's weird, I should probably kill that guy to see what they drop" then idk what to tell you. Second of all, if you don't like exploration, why play this game? Literally the majority of the appeal of the game for most people is that it's an interesting open world designed to be explored. Also, whilst that's a good idea to tie the fragments to boss kills rather than exploration, it really defeats the purpose because the whole point of the scadutree system is that, if you're struggling with a boss, then you can freely go and explore and maybe you'll find a few upgrades to make it easier. If they did it your way, you would be forced to try and kill that boss endlessly with no other option, otherwise you can never get stronger. Again, if you don't like exploration, maybe this game isn't for you. Personally i found plenty of fragments in my playthrough, and I actually had to pause levelling up my blessing because I didn't want the DLC to become too easy. Finally, who says you need to be able to replay a game for it to be good? Again, if you don't like games that are less replayable, why play elden ring?

[@dshearwf]

@@goodusername2497 Nah, idk. Here is the thing: If you truly like the games, you'll explore anyway. Even though, I DO love every souls title and ER and Shadow of the Erdtree, if there is one thing I could change, it would really be to make the scadutree fragments tied to specific landmarks (just like with the churches and sacred tears in the base game), mini/dungeon bosses and main bosses ofc. This just makes it so, that if you feel you need an upgrade, you know what to do and where to go organically without the feeling you have to literally comb every inch of the landscape. Letting some shiny trash mobs and some animals drop them and some other obscure hidden locations just felt inappropriate for such a system. Like hide interesting items behind such locations and sources, but not the integral upgrade system of the whole DLC.

[@goodusername2497]

@@dshearwf yeah that's what I mean, you'll be exploring anyway, therefore you will organically find them all over the place. Sure, you probably won't be able to max it out without a guide, which is why I agree that there should be a surplus of fragments, but I still believe the placement is fine. I really don't know why people make it seem like you have to search every little detail to find the fragments, they're honestly really easy to find. If you're exploring fairly thoroughly and STILL not finding any, I don't really know what to say apart from you must have been extremely unlucky or unobservant. About your idea of tying the fragments to bosses, I do understand the idea but at the same time, the whole point of the system existing is so that, if you're struggling with a boss, you can go somewhere else to explore and get stronger. If you were instead forced to beat that same boss to get stronger like you're suggesting, that would defeat the whole purpose. Also, about putting them at landmarks, that's already mostly true. Every cross of miquella has a fragment, every church has a fragment (to my knowledge). It's not like every single fragment is hidden on some obscure glowing enemy - most of the fragments dropped by glowing jar enemies are already in the main dungeons/areas of the game so shouldn't be hard to spot, and the hippos are really easy to find (and there aren't even that many of them so even if you can't find any hippos it won't make a big difference). I don't really understand what the problem is honestly, if you're already someone that likes exploration I don't get why you would be against the fragment system. I apologise for the yap session, I was just kind of surprised to find out so many people disliked the shadow blessing system

[@dshearwf]

@@goodusername2497 You got me wrong, I am perfectly fine with the system itself, but the acquisition of them should have been more streamlined. My first playthrough was 55hrs combing everything and being a souls player for long enough to know "where to look for them" kind off. Still, at Radahn I was blessing lvl 18. There were two options: Ride through every corner AGAIN (although I visited every place multiple times already anyway) or pull up a wiki article, which I never do and never will during a first playthrough. I didn't need the extra blessing levels to beat the game, but it still felt awful to not have found everything after being really careful. To put it in perspective, I found everything else in the DLC minus one weapon. Even every armor set, spell (except multiple playthrough stuff ofc) etc., but there was more than a handful fragments left somewhere.

[@goodusername2497]

@@dshearwf yeah I get what you mean, I just think the way you aquire them is fine for me. Sounds like we had very similar experiences, I'm currently level 18 on radahn, I just don't really care about maxing out the fragments because I partly don't think you're supposed to be able to get every last one by yourself, but also I don't think it will make a huge difference. I can see why it could be annoying if you're a big completionist which I 100% understand, and that's why I think there should definitely be more fragments in the game so you don't have to find exactly all of them to be max. But at the same time I think the way in which you find them throughout the world is perfectly fine. I guess I don't really think of them as a collectible thing like an armor set, more like a levelling item like runes so I don't really care if I miss some.

[@saturn580]

The Scadutree blessings were presented as a buff, but they're obviously a debuff that players spend their entire playthrough trying to remove. Exploration was a great part of Elden Ring's base game, but FORCING players to explore just to have a decent chance of surviving boss fights is essentially FromSoft admitting that they failed to put enough interesting enemies and bosses into the game to make you WANT to explore it yourself. Just take a look around, the DLC is full of empty spaces, reused field bosses from the base game and furnace golems, one of the most tedious enemies to fight in the entire game. Once you've maxed out your Scadutree blessings, why would you ever want to revisit any of those fights and locations?

[@Otakumanu]

Perfect way to put it. It's annoying how people keep using the "it's optional" argument when the game _forces_ the debuff on you unless you engage with the system.

[@arsenii_yavorskyi]

why, though? they created a bunch of new gear - that's should be enough to entice the player to explore.

[@likegarlic5284]

Personally I never rly had to look up a guide for the fragments. I feel like they’re pretty spread out in places that you’re likely to find in a normal play through, assuming you don’t just bum rush the all the main bosses without exploring the world a bit. I never felt like I was being forced to find them so I could progress because nothing was really impossible to do without them. I fought Rellana with maybe two or three blessing levels and it took hours but I still beat her, and I was happy that it was hard. I didn’t want the DLC, which like you said is basically endgame content, to be a cake walk. You say that you’d enjoy the blessing system in a vacuum if it were in its own game, and in my opinion, the DLC feels like its own game. It’s like Elden Ring 1.5 with how big it is. It’s surprising to me that you’re so opposed to progression in something that could be considered a separate game in its own right

[@OwlPlayIt]

It would be fine if we could start the DLC from the main menu, but it's too much after an entire playthrough of Elden Ring. Also I did find a lot of fragments by myself, when I said I needed a guide I meant for all the fragments.

[@likegarlic5284]

⁠@@OwlPlayItThat’s fair. I could especially understand it being too much from the perspective of someone who started their first ever play through when the DLC came out. For me I was just happy to have more Elden Ring after two years of the base game, but I can see it being a little overwhelming for someone whose first play through includes the DLC.

[@S3nCh4n]

I think the point is that people who want to do multiple playthroughs with different builds don't want to spend all their time going around to get the fragments since it's very time consuming, especially the bottom half of the map which is way too big and spread out imo

[@livingwater2510]

The blessing does count over to new game plus

[@tmbfreak_16]

If The Old Hunters didn't need any goofy extra leveling system, idk why SotE needed one

[@NightxofxDarkrai]

Literally this.

[@thepainphantom]

Because that would beat the "hard game" charm. In the base game everyone can cheese their way thru by overlevelling and so on. But it's still quite challenging. If the same thing happen for the DLC what's the difference from the base game? No real challenge.

[@tmbfreak_16]

@@thepainphantom Challenge should come from interesting boss mechanics, not arbitrary leveling systems

[@PiethagorasTearem]

@@tmbfreak_16the problem is levelling trivialises the boss mechanics. Elden Ring was my first fromsoft game and I played it without handicapping myself and steamed through the whole game because I was so over levelled. I beat mohg in 2 tries and beat radahn in one try.I got killed by mohg nihil on first attempt then just killed before he could finish nihil effectively skipping the 2nd phase. I shouldn’t have been able to do that and it felt super disappointing for me. Ever since then Ive only levelled vigor to 22 in every fromsoft game.

[@thepainphantom]

@@tmbfreak_16 If you're already overleveled from the base game, the DLC would be pointless. There will not be anymore of that "first-time feeling of getting beaten down" and git gud (or gud strategy) like when you FIRST playing Elden Ring. I can understand what the devs were thinking. I will gladly pay for that kind of experience: THE STRUGGLES (but still there's hope if you persevere). It's just like life. Who said life would be easy? But yeah, people can still pray and complain to god that life is not fair, "I should've been born this A, this B, give me more money yada yada." Excuses excuses man. Lame. Life's not fair, suck it.

[@boxxrbain]

I just beat Radahn last night. Hidden behind a great shield. Knight claws sending the odd scratch. Rot pots and mimic tear. The boss bullshit was ridiculous. The guy never stops swinging. I felt relieved to have completed it rather than a the sense of accomplishment I felt in previous fromsoft titles. And that was at shado-cheese fragment level 20! The most stunningly brilliant, boring game I’ve played. 10/10 moments littered with 2/10 moments. Hippo hit boxes vs an epic Relanna fight, then empty fields with copy and paste Dragons where the best option is to tickle their toes. It is still better than 99% of games, but I can’t see myself going through all that again. Some of the bosses felt like I had attended a firework display. When tf should I attack? I refuse to go and fight the other dancing lion. Fuck that! We need a completely reworked mechanics system to fight this spin to win pricks. This is a 10 year old fighting system with slight increases to speed and invincibility frames BUT the bosses are x100 faster, stronger, exhibit delayed attacks…I don’t know man, something needs to change.

[@0987ggggg]

I get your sentiment. To me, ever since picking up Dark Souls over 10 years ago, I quickly learned that this genre of game is about overcoming problem with unique solutions. Not every problem can be solved the same way, nor should they because that would be boring. With this mentality, even the bullshit mechanics in the game can be solved if you can just think creatively and figure it out, alot of the 2/10 moments in the game eventually turn to 10/10 for me after realizing I can solve it with multiple different methods that I didn't think of the first time. I love Elden Ring over all the other Souls game because it gave me more tools than I can think of to solve problems, for example your Radahn fight with the great shield w/mimic was definitely one of many solutions to the fight. Radahn took me over 3 hours and over 70 deaths. My Str/Faith lightning build that carried me through most of the bosses did jack shit, my heavy armor backhand blade build that got me through Messmer also did nothing, so did my rot dragon breathe build. It wasn't until I used deflecting hardtear for the first time did I realize how everyone of Radahn's swings are telegraphed and how every attack can be parried, you can even parry the holy nuke from the beginning of phase 2. Deflecting hardtear turned out to be my solution, this almost turned out to be the reworked mechanics system you talked about for me. A friend of mine cheesed phase 2 Radahn with hefty rot pot. Commander Giaus was initially the 2/10 moment for me, it was my most frustrating boss right behind Radahn, over 50 tries. I definitely complained about the janky hitboxes and called bullshit, but it was until I realized I can blinkbolt almost all his attacks and easily stance break him with great katana w/repeating thrust did I start to have fun with him. About the evolutions for the bosses, every new Fromsoft game has also added on to the boss mechanic from the previous games. The delayed attack everyone complained about with Nameless King is found in almost every Elden Ring boss starting with Margeit, bosses that had nonstop multihit combo like Sister Freide or Dancer has also been carried over and even more prevalent i.e. Milenia or Rellana. I can only expect the next Fromsoft game to add onto the bosses from Elden Ring, because it is what the players are used to now. Imagine the next Fromsoft game with bosses that are nonaggressive with plenty of windows to punish just like the older games, that would be very disappointing and boring. I do agree with you that a new combat system is probably needed, but they definitely need to keep cranking up the bosses.

[@boxxrbain]

@@0987ggggg yeah totally agree that there so many ways to kill bosses and overcome obstacles and that’s cool, but surely there’s another way to make bosses challenging without giving them 12 swing combos? I want to take the fight to them in a 50/50 duel to the death. I find myself running away a lot of resorting to blocking. It might be a skill issue on my behalf as I’m not the best at these games, though I’ve completed them all. Also what happened to different boss archetype. Slow, massive poise, lots of windows to punish but if you get hit it’s going to hurt vs quick, less poise, fewer windows to punish. Most of the bosses, no matter their size felt like the same tank. I haven’t got the answers. It’s just less fun for me. Bosses were spot on in in DS3. And think of the dances in even SOTFS. Sir Alonne and Brume Knight. Hell even Dark Lurker was interesting. High stakes, difficult, but you were going toe-to-toe for the most part.

[@0987ggggg]

@@boxxrbain Yeah I do agree, there should be more boss archetypes. Unfortunately I don't ever think we're going back to the days of Gael or Nameless King or Artorias or Sir Alonne. I think those bosses has been perfected and there's no reason for FromSoft to go backwards. Bosses in Elden Ring are for sure more frustrating than previous games for me too, but I mostly blame the fact that they never told us the boss mechanics are not the same as the Souls games. Elden Ring bosses designs are all secretly Sekiro bosses, but jammed into the block/roll combat system from the Souls game. Where in Sekiro the game tells you when to mikiri counter or jump or dodge or deflect, Elden Ring doesn't tell the player anything and relies on themselves to figure out the punishing movesets just like the Souls games. Now players are expected to find their own windows among within bosses' long multicombos with jump/roll and charged attacks with the goal to break their stance. I wish the game did a better job at telling the player this from the start so they can manage their expectation to know that it might look like Soul bosses but actually not Souls bosses, or maybe it's just another of FromSoft's design philosophy to be obscure about everything. I'm guessing Fromsoft's next game will have a totally different combat system. I can't picture them to go back to the Souls bosses formula or keep up this Elden Ring boss design much longer. I think they'll have to innovate, and I have no doubt there will be much more frustration to come.

[@arsenii_yavorskyi]

he stops swinging if you parry him 😎

[@thefarmer6541]

This applies to basically all the upgrades possible, its not a requirement to get any upgrades but you do it to make the game easier. Why do you explore areas, most people do it because the main area boss is to strong and they need to gather more materials to get stronger. Its like if you made it to caleid and got mad because it you had to level up, and said it deligitmized your build because you weren't up to the area level.

[@OwlPlayIt]

The difference is the base game upgrades are easy to find and there's logic in their placement. The fragments are scattered all over the place, you find them at shrines, at crosses, dropped by hippos etc. There's also no surplus of fragments.

[@Cyphu]

@@OwlPlayItnot only this but since it’s the beginning of the game there are so many different ways you can become stronger. Finding new weapons, talismans, weapon arts, upgrade materials, physicks, ect ect all adds up to making your character stronger and helping you with the fight you are struggling on. While you’re doing all that you’ll naturally gain levels. Meanwhile in SOTE usually if you find some sort of gear it’s not really an upgrade, or if it is it’s very very marginal. So because of this the only meaningful way to become stronger is these fragments. Nothing else really matters all that much. For an example in my first playthrough of the dlc I had found a new colossal greatsword and the two handed talisman, but it didn’t even really change anything at all. The only thing that made a difference was scadtree fragments

[@FiindingBalance]

When i bought the game, i die so many times on the first boss that i lost the count on how many times i died, but i never give up, not even once, i was not a Souls player, elden ring was my first From Software game. After that i bought Bloodborne and sekiro, i'm really a fan now, and when the dlc came out i bought it after 1 week. On the bass game i'm NG+3, and when I go to the dlc, and die with literally TWO HITS it felt so much frustrating, getting throw way all that adventure, make a powerful character, explore the imense world and learn the game, fighting the insane difficult bosses it was amazing. But on the dlc all that progress that i have made it was like someone give me a punch on the stomach and with a bat in the balls, it was for nothing

[@giannixx]

But at the same time, you're doing the NG+3 DLC, so who knows how that scales to the regular NG dlc. While I do agree that the blessing system is flawed and they should have just scaled the enemies in a more natural way (like they did in DS1 and 3), the DLC is supposed to be harder than the base game, and you don't want to feel overleveled/overpowered in the dlc because then there is no challenge. It's not about denying your progress, it's about stepping up the challenge. And that's probably the main reason the blessing system doesn't quite work, as it's a very artificial way to raise the difficulty, akin to DS2 tying s to stats. Not to mention that I rather have bosses be mechanically more challenging than being more difficult just because they have more hp and deal more damage. But idk man, I'm playing ER for the first time (I bought the dlc after beating Elden Beast), and so far no boss was more difficult than the likes of Malenia or Maliketh. The ones that are challenging (as in, requiring multiple attempts) do so mostly because of some bs mechanic (Scadutree Avatar's erratic movement + 3 health bars, or the second Dancing Lion summoning 4 basilisks per cycle). The good bosses so far weren't that difficult (Rellana and Commander Gaius, for example).

[@LulzTVx]

My only problem with the Scadutree Blessing system is that there isn't an overabundance of Scadutree fragments. Imagine if you couldn't max out the number of your flasks just because you missed a single Golden Seed in the base game's gargantuan open world. It would suck wouldn't it?

[@jameswilkinson4632]

I actually think intertwining exploration into power increase was genius... so, respectfully disagree completely. It's keeping me exploring the world when i otherwise would have gotten bored ages ago.

[@Gril_the]

Yeah i did not like having to collect those, is very boring and just feels like a chore so i just got them all so i dont have to worry about them anymore

[@OwlPlayIt]

It's not so bad if you do PvP or like keeping characters for some other reason. You still have to collect them all every time you start the DLC though.

[@Zom-B-Gone]

​@@OwlPlayIt This is incorrect. The blessing levels stay the same in New game plus. You can collect more and maximize the level if you wanted to, though.

[@Gril_the]

@@Zom-B-Gone thats why i got all 50 before ng+, so I don’t have to anymore. Oh boy how boring was that

[@TyroPirate]

The way I saw this fake problem and solution they made.... Every Souls DLC they released has always been harder than the base game, but they never resorted to making the new content so inflated that a new power up was needed to be created. Why did they feel the need to inflate the difficulty sooooo much here?

[@Alloveck]

Yes, exactly. Skadoo Fragments are just power inflation to offset power inflation, plain and simple. It's the laziest, least exciting sort of progression games can have, and that sort of cheap "number gets bigger" game design is the sort of thing I always thought From was above.

[@evilfungas]

The whole point of the open world in the base game was the exploration would function as a difficulty. Being an expansion to that game, one that will take, unlike all other From expansions, between 20-60 hours to complete, they had to 1) continue the design philosophy of the base game while 2) providing a progression system for such a lengthy expansion after most builds will have reached their softcaps. You have been deliberately obtuse to not understand this.

[@Alloveck]

@@evilfungas I understand they were about encouraging exploration. As someone who loves exploration, that's one of the only two pros to the fragments. (The other being that they're completely equally useful regardless of build.) Regardless, I still dislike that they are pure number inflation to offset other number inflation. They aren't new skills, or new weapons, or new mechanics. They aren't even like standard levelling where you at least choose where you want to improve specifically, and might get improvements in ways separate from damage numbers like increased equip load, FP, or Stamina; things that change the gameplay in more varied ways. They just, exclusively, make damage numbers bigger or smaller with zero other changes. Again, that is pure number inflation of the cheapest kind. It's good that you can explore and get stronger, yes, but getting stronger in a pure damage number inflation sense just isn't the type of design I've come to expect from From. Also, softcaps aside, with standard levelling, you can always level more and more if a boss is too hard. As long as you don't lose your runes, you'll gradually level naturally while going out and doing other stuff. But the fragments have a very hard, specific limit. If you've got all or most of them, and still find the later bosses too tough, you can't just go find/grind more fragments and come back tougher. And I'd say that's another weakness they have versus standard levelling systems.

[@TyroPirate]

@evilfungas Deliberately obtuse? Lol But yes, they needed to create a level up system that is tied to exploration to fit the theme of "if it's too difficult, go explore and come back later". Yes, we all know what the point of the scadu fragments are... you have to be deliberately obtuse to assume the mechanic went over some of our heads. But thanks for pointing out again why they scattered the power up items all over the map. What definitely did go over your head was the issue of the scadu fragment system feeling incredibly artificial, and is a solution to a difficulty issue that From should never have taken to the point of genuinely being a problem. But, if they insisted on having this level of difficulty, and wanted to do an exploration based power up system, they could have done waaaay better than the scadu fragment system.

[@MrDekasOne]

19:20 in Dark Souls 1 if you go to the dlc before fighting sif and rescue him then go fight sif the cut scene will be different as sif will recognise you as the one who saved him, fromsoft have connected the dlc to the base game before and it was disappointing they didn't do it again, Miquella could have reacted to you killing Malenia, Malenia could have reacted to you killing Miquella, Midra could have reacted to you embarrassing the frenzied flame, but no they did nothing

[@zaphael7238]

I think a lot of people feel the same way, the lore for the DLC is cool and really interesting but it doesn’t affect the base game. I don’t know why they didn’t give you a few bits of dialogue, even a new ending it wouldn’t be impossible.

[@Saicofake]

That would have been crazy but I wonder how they would implement it. With Sif, it was a singular/ minor change but with Malenia dying before meeting Miquella, I highly doubt a simple/ minor change to cutscene would suffice.

[@lordiro]

When you're looking for fragments and the item you find after exploring an area is a cookbook or a spell you can't use it SUCKS

[@mifangtai5820]

I agree with you. The blessing system forces players to explore more, but most of the map is full of low- or medium-level smithing stones, which is a LARGE DISCOURAGEMENT for exploring. Besides, I think more Scadu tree fragments should be placed at distinctive locations, not in random mobs out of nowhere that are hard to notice, and the number of fragments should be redundant so that it's ok to miss some of them. I have two characters reaching the end of the DLC and none of them maximize the blessing level. I beat every remembrance boss and hippo, but I still stuck at blessing level 16 at most.

[@julioelcisne]

I think the smithing stones are there mostly to give players a chance to quickly upgrade DLC weapons and try a few new builds in one playthrough avoiding you the hassle of farming these items every time you find a weapon you’d like to try. For me, I tried around 7-10 dlc weapons and I never lost time farming smithing stones. I found them very convenient tbh

[@mifangtai5820]

@julioelcisne That's a fair point, especially in your case. But I already stock tons of stones in my inventory beforehand, and that consideration for conveniently upgrading weapons is kinda unnecessary for me.

[@Cbrunning849]

​​@@julioelcisne You don't have to farm them. By the time you finish the main game you can just buy them which makes it disappointing to pick one up. If you dont have souls spend literally 2 minutes taking out albenarics and that's even if you need them since by the end of the game I had a ton in my inventory anyway.

[@tmsphere]

If you actually beat the main story you should already be able to buy all but the dragon smiting stones from the husk maidens, this just shows me you didn't explore like the game wants you to.

[@goodusername2497]

Why not just explore for the sake of it? Personally I find it fun to see every area, I don't know how it could be a chore in an open world game as good as this. Also, none of the fragments are on 'random mobs'. They're all recognisable: Miquella's cross? Fragment. Hippo? There's a fragment. Enemy holding a big glowing pot over their head? There's another fragment. They're really not that hard to miss.

[@zeehero7280]

Yeah the whole scooby doo fragment system sucks. They should not have done what they did with the scaling. Who the F cares if the munchkins speed thru the DLC? 99.99999% of players will still find it extremely challenging.

[@zeehero7280]

At least you keep the buffs on NG+ so its not so painful the next time around.

[@nodlimax]

@@zeehero7280 Here's the thing though - how many players actually do NG+ playthroughs? For me personally I never done any NG+ playthrough in any of the fromsoft games. There's no appeal in it for me. If I want to do a playthrough then I want to do it with a new character and build therefore going for NG. I'd say that this is pretty common and NG+ is only used by a fraction of the player base. And now whenever I do an NG playthrough of Elden Ring and go into the DLC I'd always have to do this additional stuff with the scabadibibadadoodledoo fragments which I'd always need a guide for to find because it's just to many which are randomly placed. It's a shit mechanic.

[@anarche4900]

@@nodlimaxanyone who plays PVP and wants items they can only get in a second play through lol

[@nodlimax]

@@anarche4900 As I wrote - "a fraction of the playerbase"

[@BelgerModder4414]

They created a problem where there was none. There is already stats caps and soul requirements for leveling follows geometric progression. Fortunately we can mod this crap out on PC. Well PC version has huge frame drop issues, but that is what we have to deal with.

[@ETBrooD]

Regarding the reward for progression: I would recommend going into NG+ if you want to feel powerful after playing through the game. The early parts of NG+ are extremely easy due to your high character level and fully upgraded gear. The end game isn't the part that is designed to reward progression. It's designed to challenge you at all times. The early game is the easy mode in a NG+ cycle.

[@khaalmalki4039]

Dying in two hits isn't a challenge nor is it fun.

[@Bigsolrac]

The System does indeed feel busted, bosses like Midra taking 90% of your health with 2 normal swings with the biggest range ever, while you have 2k health and beast champion armor set, and also spamming arena wide madness attacks doesnt feel good to play, its almost as if they are forcing players to play a cheese build for certain bosses, same with Radahn 90% of the players offering help outside had the fingerprint shield and a spear weapon, such a a boring playstyle, i managed to beat him with my Beastman's Cleaver but had to use the mimic tear, also the spamming of blinding attacks is not fun at all doesnt even let you learn the move set and makes you spam dodges, im happy with Messmer as an end boss, that was such a cool fight.

[@lharsay]

4:16 You are starting the base game with 4 flasks giving you 4x250= 1000 hp healing in total, by the end if you collect all 12 sacred tears and most golden seeds you end up with 14x800=10400 hp healing all obtained by exploration, weapon upgrades also being optained in a similar manner, it's basically the same system in the DLC. You can technically beat the game just by leveling your character without weapon of flask upgrades if you don't want forced exploration, but I don't think that's how you did it for the fist time.

[@Wonsync]

I agree, I feel like they added the Scadutree last minute, they didn’t expect things to be this hard and just added Scadutree last minute, fyi I like the dlc more than the regular game, but nothing tops Godfrey’s fight

[@KirkWilliams300]

Remember when Sif recognizes you as being the hero from the past for beating the dlc of Dark Souls? Remember when the Fume Knight responded to you with aggression for wearing the helmet of his enemy? They were minor things, but spoke volumes about the care put into the story and lore. Why doesn’t Miquella respond to us killing his sister? Why do bosses not respond to equipment used by their family or foes? I know it would have been a lot of things to account for considering how large both the base game and dlc are, but a little something to make a nod between the connections would have gone a long way.

[@Raidon484]

Okay so I don't know how that slipped but the blessing levels do cary over! However, it's still dumb

[@evilfungas]

It's not perfect but the system post-patch is more than servicable. There is effectively a soft-cap at level 12, and really anywhere above level 8 and the game starts to feel a bit too easy. Even if you're not being extremely thorough you'll find enough with minimal effort. Also, on a subsequent playthoughs it's actually a very good system for tuning difficulty to exactly the level you would like it. On my first playthrough I got to level 18 by the end of the game but felt I was pretty overpowered against most mobs and bosses. On my second playthrough I found a sweetspot at level 9. Unlike Runes they don't disappear when you die, so you can keep a store of them and upgrade as-needed. The whole thing which justified the open world of Elden Ring is that exploration was used as a difficulty slider. The Scaduree Fragments allows exploration to work in a similar way after most end-game builds have hit their softcaps in their major stat-allocations. I used to think it would have been better if they just included more than the 50 needed to get to max level, like the golden seeds and kept the original smooth scaling curve, but that would require gathering more fragments and so would be more tedious on subsequent playthroughs. It was a better idea just to front-load scaling as they ended up doing. The ones you find alone the main path are more than enough to prepare you for all encounters, even if you hate exploring the open world the game was designed around exploring.

[@giovaniconte1860]

4:25 the base game do gate people from using op stuff early and locking it behind explorarion.... It's called the upgrade system. You need to hunt smithing stones in your first playthroug. Scadu fragments are an even better system imo cause it upgrades everything at once and i can test more items without the need to go farming in a mostly single player game. The defence you gain is a bit different cause the softcap for resistances is RL 150 and it is the base for the DLC so they had to connect it to the scadu aswell. In the end it functions even better than the usual smithing and Leveling cause you can build however you want and get even more freedom of equipments by not having to expend limited resources on them.

[@aryawiraraja8041]

the fact that before i enter the DLC i already possess all the necessary bell bearings for all smithing stones, the loot is super dissapointing especially when the majority of the weapon is kinda lacking in power

[@goodusername2497]

I do understand this but also what if other people don't have the bell bearings? Personally i found it really useful to have a ton of stones so that I could test out all the new cool weapons. Also, another way to think about it is, what else could they have put there? If it wasn't a smithing stone, what could it be? They can't exactly put a whole new weapon or armor set in the place of every minor loot item, that would be impossible.

[@moonlight9493]

Aside from the fact that external progression/scaling systems were literally never necessary in any Fromsoft DLC before this one, it's interesting how the Scadutree system was described pre-release as a "Sekiro-like" leveling system, only for it to be very different from Sekiro's system and much worse. If they had implemented it like it actually was in Sekiro, where upgrades are primarily rewards for defeating bosses, it would have truly encouraged exploration to fight as many main bosses and mini-bosses as possible to upgrade your character throughout the DLC. If they made it scale faster and gave a surplus of the upgrades so that you don't have to kill every boss, it would have been perfectly fine and make a lot more sense than the system we ultimately got. Even with that said, I think that any system like the Scadutree fragments is still ultimately superfluous for an endgame DLC. You make this point perfectly in this video by asking the question of why it matters if someone, who already bought the DLC, wants to steamroll it with a powerful endgame build. There's no good reason for the DLC to require a separate type of progression scaling other than to artificially inflate its difficulty or length, and the way they went about it makes very little sense compared to other design choices they could have pursued.

[@ramen3643]

I was able to do the entire DLC below level 8 (final boss was at level 8) and my damage and defense both felt just fine, I do not think you need all of them, and I found that if you simple do all the remembrance bosses you can end up with a good level 15 at LEAST, which is COMPLETELY okay, you don't need all 20 levels, the damage drop off starts at 12 which basically means that 12 is the minimum that you need. literally all you have to do is progress through the DLC normally+go to bayle and midra and you'll find enough scadutree fragments along the way to get up to level 15. I also like the mechanic because it allows me to scale my own difficulty, like for example I decided to fight messmer at level 4, it was challenging and I loved it, but if I had been level 8 (I see alot of people fight him at level 10 and beat him really easily) I would have absolutely destroyed his health. also at level 6 bosses like midra, romina, and bayle actually felt a little weak despite my low level. also there are 2 reasons why this mechanic exists: 1. to give a sense of progression in the DLC 2. to encourage exploration and give you that feeling of leaving a difficult boss to explore a bit then come back stronger (just like alot of people did with margit in the base game)

[@mickthick6170]

I saw this on a different video and I thought it was an interesting idea what if the weapon leveling system never existed, no smithing stones or sombers, and all we had was a scadutree equivalent system? One resource that flatly benefits all of your gear, which means that all you'd really need to do is worry about your character level as opposed to also worrying if you have properly leveled gear to go with it. I thought it was a pretty good idea, assuming that smithing stones never existed in the first place.

[@OwlPlayIt]

I'm pretty sure that's basically how Sekiro works. It would've been great. Anything would've been better (including nothing).

[@S3nCh4n]

What I suggest, is that after you finish one playthrough and collected all the fragments and ashes, they should let you skip the collecting part in following playthroughs, I don't know how, maybe an account locked item or something? That would save a lot of time

[@Drowzii]

Thats why im playing The Convergence every time i play the DLC from now on. They removed scadutree bs and replaced it with regular scaling and weapons can go up to +15 with new shards. Much more enjoyable. My second DLC runthrough was much more enjoyable not having to worry about that system at all

[@OwlPlayIt]

Very nice, I usually avoid Souls mods because they tend to be difficult for the sake of difficulty. Convergence sounds really good though, I might give it a try when I'll want to play Elden Ring again!

[@XrenegadeZ]

I skipped the whole DLC because of the blessing system as well. Gone are the days when you could simply cheat your way to just enjoy a video game. Now game developers just want to waste more of your time and limit your options. Basically trapping you in a video game.

[@TyroPirate]

I think they could have created a new type of currency for this dlc. Like scadu runes. Enemies would drop both runes and scadu runes in different amounts based on the enemy. And these scadu runes could be used to level up your character's stats But... likely si ce this is endgame, your character build alrwady has some stats at the softcap. So the scadu stats would be a new buff on top of stats that would then have its own soft and hard cap that youd be able to hit. Something like this would keep the entire philosophy of getting stronger through exploration exactly the same as the base game. Or... what if instead of a scadu runes and simply adding on to your existing stats, they made stats that are unique to the shadow realm. For example, dark souls 2 had a stat that would upgrade your roll. The bosses and enemies in the shadow realm drop so many runes that i dont know what to do with... they could have brought back these more gimmiky stats to dump your runes into, that would only work in the dlc. Drink estus faster. Summon faster. Sprint faster leading to more damage on sprint attacks. Jump higher and get more jump attack damage too.... Idk... these are off the top of my head, im sure they could put effort in to making fun ways to get stronger thats unique to dlc

[@heideknight7782]

One of the most important points of an open world exploration game is to keep up the player's motivation to explore. Nobody wants to explore a huge map just for the sake of it. There has to be a proper reward for this, be it either finding new and 'useful' loot or finding new bosses and enemies. And the best reward you can give to the player would be finding a boss who both drops loot 'and' opens up a new path on the map to explore. This gives one some sense of progression that is severely lacking in the many optional side content in the base game and in SotE. When I defeated, e.g., one more dragon with the very same moveset etc. as any of the other dragons that can be found I do not see how I do make any progress in the game. Because my reward is only a couple of runes which I do not need anyway (because I am already level 150 when entering the DLC). From this perspective it does make sense to add some new mechanic in the DLC to give the player back some sense of progression, even when already having a high level character. However, as you noted in the video, it perhaps keeps up the motivation only one time, in your first playthrough. In the second and all subsequent playthroughs (with a new character) I have to do this all over again. I.e., scanning the whole map for the fragments most of which are a pickup and not protected by a boss. This leads to a highly unbalanced time ratio of where you have long and boring horse riding segments compared to the time where you actually play the game (enemy encounters). Actually, very similar to the beginning of the base game where I need about 1-2 hours to collect Estus flask upgrades and smithing stones before I can start to play the game. I therefore also think that one way to fix the Scadutree blessing system would have been to make them only drop by bosses (dungeon and open world bosses fewer and remebrance bosses more of them). Then they would have combined exploration with (actual) gameplay and this would have been one hundred times better than how it is done now. But I would also not regret it if the blessing upgrade would not exist at all and so I would know that each boss in the DLC is already on a proper difficulty level. Now I do not know this at all, because I could fight against the Dancing Lion on level blessing 0 or on level 12, which is a huge difference already. Which Scadutree level is the proper one for which boss?

[@Jonas-ob2sh]

Yeah, I do agree that the dlc could have worked with having the scaling system from the base game. I mean, the snowfields for example are still quite challenging even if you come to the area with fully leveled up character. They simply could have scaled up the dlc enemies even further from the snowfields enemies or/and nerf certain overpowered playstyles like magic so that you don't need to worry about players steamrolling through the game.

[@dosu1018]

I agree, simply because a messmer soldier was bodying my 60 vigor character in 2 hits with no blessing when i started the dlc ng+7

[@massaosaito4084]

If the Scadue Tree Blessing is a response to the comments of the fans, I don't know what to think about FromSoftware. It is literally the same problem as the base game: "do you feel weak against the new enemies? Roam around and find random shit to be stronger", except, this time, the blessings give you rough numbers instead of some new mechanical stuff, like the Physics Flask, different weapons, more healing flasks, etc

[@jerryone013]

huh... i never thought of trying to collect all of the scadu item. I mostly explore just to find more bosses and new enemy. AND!!! that was fatal flaw for me in the dlc, imo there is too many reused enemy and also so many empty place especially the coast and midra outdoor area. At least, area near main story are packed, but for no reason when exploring other side of the map most of it is empty with few reused enemy and the loot aint rewarding...

[@OwlPlayIt]

That's a good point, a lot of the areas in the DLC are just a big empty field with like 3-4 locations around the edges.

[@Aninvader-rm4fl]

I liked the abyssal woods, there wasn't much there, but the dread from the idea of finding any winter lanterns kept the whole area tense, and I found it really memorable

[@mwjgcreeves4984]

I would've preferred if they expanded the existing progression further (scadu-blessed grave glovewort, scadu-blessed smithing stones etc) which would solve the ludicrous amount of times you find 2x Smithing Stones 4 guarded by an elite enemy that does 300% the damage of pre-DLC endgame equivalents. Like COME ON, no wonder players are spamming "dung ahead, why is it always suffering?" in front of 95% of loot pickups 😂😂😂

[@geno755]

Interesting take. I agree with other comments, and also to the short mention of the vertical level design. I don't know how to pinpoint it, but somehow the DLC does not have that certain something as the original game had. Just mentioning: ER is the only FS game I have ever played. And for me Elden Ring is the best game of all times to this day. So everything coming from a place of love too, as the author of the video stated it quite well. One thing that I found for myself liking more in the original game: The implicit linearity of the world, although it is an open world. What I mean is: you start at Limgrave, you accidentally teleport to Caelid and recognize - scary place - come here later again. So you had this sense of discovering something. At the same time you have a huge gate, behind that a big castle - and after that you continue to the next big area. You just recognized so much from the level design and world building - although open they placed things implicitly so that you understand them without recognizing it. While in SotE I ended up at Mesmer with Blessing Level 8 on Ng+. I killed him and then most of the NPCs were gone - I was locked out of multiple quests - using a guide from that point on. I just had missed like two thirds of the game up to that point. OK - I heard they made more vertical levels in DS - but I never played DS. So this kind of more labyrinth world building was somewhat unexpected. With regard to ScaduTree Blessings and Exploration: I agree with the things said in the video. And others saying that you don''t have to collect them - well, the fragments are also an implicit way of saying to the player: "Do this to get more power". And in an RPG you always want exactly that. This system makes the progression seem way more artificial, while in the original game everything seemed to be interwoven organically. So you were gaining power while continuing the adventure into new territories - everything felt like it was one huge fantasy novel. Maybe this is why the fragments system seems so weird to many people. Also, in the video it was said that the intention of this could be to encourage more exploration - I think that this is true, and I think that it was done because the world building is different in the DLC - as mentioned the world is more vertical and more labyrinth like - so you are less guided by it. But this takes away the free choice of exploring - in ER you could explore, and I did it just because I wanted to - I went to every corner. Others might not like to do this - and they didn't have to. In SotE you kind of have to, to collect the fragments - don't misunderstand me - I would explore everything anyway. I am just saying on top of what was said in the video, the Scadutree Fragments make the game feel more artifical, less organic and less open due to "limiting your freedom" to go and discover wherever you want in which order you want (in quotes because it actually doesn't, but it communicates this to you, while in original ER the world communicates this to you in a much more subtle way). On the topic "Wide open areas"": I don't know what to think here. Sometimes I felt during the game, that they could have put more into the places (which had always a great design), and sometimes there were cool ideas. Like that mages in one of the ruins stunning you into one place and teleporting mobs to you, or the unbeatable frenzy mages in Abyssal Woods. I would say that I sometimes had the impression that certain things were unfinished - which may have different reasons. Nevertheless - I sill enjoined the new Legacy Dungeons, the Bosses, and that it's "Elden Ring". I liked that jumping passages were mostly easier when built into levels. I also enjoyed the general dungeon design, that they make you intentionally see something, so that you know that there must be a way (this is something I really love in ER). I think it is also good that they experimented with a different kind of world building - as mentioned in the video - but it kind of didn't work as well as the one before. I also think it is quite difficult to develop such things - so huge respect for ER/SotE in general.

[@kpeezyrepda401]

I’ll say this, I initially didn’t get the DLC on release, the moment I seen someone going 100mph 50 foot gap closer spinning lightning ball I said what in the fuck? My point being is they put a extreme limit on some bosses with being unable to see, going fast as fuck, and doing massive combo strings with gigantic hit boxes. After beating the last boss I have 0 intentions (even with my OCD to obtain everything like all unique items and skills/spells) on wanting to even play this DLC again.

[@L33Dz]

I personally don't mind the scadutree blessing system, I just wish they scattered the items in a more abundant way similar to the golden seeds in the base game.

[@mat3393gjh]

This is a cool vid, well explained, easy to empathise with you. Easy to understand how and why you feel the way you do. To add to your video, I do wish we could add 999 map markers instead of 100. It would help us mark anything on the map without limitations, especially marking the blessings, like I did, without worrying about the event of a lack of markers for other phenomena, due to being limited to only 100.

[@effive7817]

What also sucks about reusing Radahn is that despite people saying its a totally new fight, it isn't. Many of the attack patterns are very similar to Radahn 1, its just hes smaller with slightly different pacing. The scissor combo, from Radahn 1, the pancake flip, from Radahn 1. The gravity rocks, gravity explosion, even the Radahn-meteor gimmick is back. Like yeah, its the same guy it makes sense for 1 and 2 to be similar. It just sucks because I wanted something different. Ignoring Radahn, I also hate the Scadu "system". Mindlessly inflating enemy health and damage is quite literally the same difficulty scaling slapped on the vast majority of other games. It has always been the lazy way to scale difficulty, and Fromsoft has been brilliant in its game design by specifically not relying on it...until now(mostly). Other than DS2, admittedly all the games have had similar afterthought for NG+ scaling, but at least you had the pleasure of replaying all your favorite fights with all the items you prefer. As it is, Scadu scaling is just a lazy difficulty slider inconveniently missing from the options menu.

[@oudt3762]

I found many big flaws in the dlc, but what pissed me off is something maybe people don't even care about or maybe like it and it's too minor but it bothered me, miyaziki always try to make the games mechanic don't feel gamy like everything is part of the world even the menus, and of course dying and reviving is part of the world and the lore, but when mequila grabbed me twice the the heart stolen message feels like a game over message and continue from the last check point and pretend it didn't happen.

[@Aninvader-rm4fl]

I see what you mean, but that is definitely just a nitpick, it doesn't make much sense, but its not very important

[@nicecoat5004]

"lets give the final boss a move that deletes their save file after 50 hours of hardcore gameplay" great idea dude, surely nobody would find an issue with that in a 60$+40$ game.

[@oudt3762]

@@nicecoat5004 how about let's not do that at all or maybe something simple like you can't enter the fog gate if you get caught 2 time until you get that item that cancels the grab attack, then he wont grab you again or something like that, not something that destroy the logic and charm of the game.

[@minespatch]

If you haven't played Dragons dogma Dark Arisen, I'd like to hear your thoughts. SOTET should've taken notes from BitterBlack Isle.

[@Pyroniusburn]

Agree big time, when I thought the fragments would just be placed at miquella's crosses and the statues of Marika (two things that somewhat stand out in the environment) I thought it was fine. But with them being placed on random pot enemies, Hippos, and even locations with literally no distinction from normal loot, I got fed up and just looked up a guide. People commenting on here saying "you're just too lazy to explore" are only making points against themselves without realizing. Exploration shouldn't feel like a chore, I had almost no incentive to cross the multitude of giant, barren areas in the DLC either full of garbage loot or literally nothing (so basically all the finger ruins) just to find another stupid fragment just so I do anything more than scratch damage to the bosses despite having a maxed out weapon and 80 strength. Amplified by how *HUGE* areas can be gated by going through a random cave you might not even see, or worse, behind a puzzle that requires you to use a gesture. Same with the false comparison to smithing stones, golden seeds and sacred tears. Besides there being way more of those than you actually need (including literally infinite smithing stones with their bell-bearings), these exist in conjunction with each other and not as *one* thing you have an absolute limit on.

[@jwilliam6743]

This all could have been avoided if fromsoft just raised the level cap. It made no sense in base Eldon ring to cap levels at 99 when the game is the size of dark souls 1 and 2 combined. Throw in the DLC which is the size of dark souls 3 and it only compounds the problem. If they had just let players level to 150 per stat instead there would have been no need for tree fragments and players would have had an additional option in the base game to handle the end game content. Rather than using it summons or OP ash of war, they could have equaled the boss in stats.

[@pajeetsingh]

It is certainly the only aspect of the DLC that I didn't like. Could have set the stat levels similar to Farum Azula and no one would have complained.

[@crabbypatty10fefrefe]

I think they should patch in an update that allows you to carry over all Scadutree fragments you find into NG+. Essentially, so you only need to gather them once. Having to refind them for every new game is too much.

[@OwlPlayIt]

Turns out I was wrong and they do actually carry over to NG+.

[@gcates107]

If you don’t have them all heading into the DLC in NG+ they will be at their standard locations again so it’s easy to max out if you missed any.

[@tvvang9093]

It’s not “open world” for a reason. It defeats the purpose of “open world” if you don’t gotta explore to find the fragments.

[@AscendantStoic]

Nah, it's fine, the system has clear purposes and it fulfills them quite well. First of all, the game has been out for almost two years and players have leveled up and done everything in the base game to death, and considering the main selling point of the game and souls games in general is the challenge this system provides that while also providing at the same time some sort of a baseline line for everyone to start the DLC at regardless of whether they have a lv.50 character or a lv.600 character in NG+7, cause otherwise it would be impossible to provide any comparable or sayisfying experience to both. Moreover it gives players a way to gauge and tailor the difficulty of the DLC to their liking, if you are confident in your skills you are free to go straight to the bosses and beat them without using any fragments, or if stumped you can go explore and while looking for fragments you will find new areas, weapons, talisman, etc, or you could beat the bosses first then explore later, and not forgetting most of the bosses in the DLC are optional even within the DLC in order to progress its story (some people are already beating the all the DLC bosses with lv.1 characters and no fragments, I'm on my 2nd DLC playthrough and already beating bosses there without the fragments because I'm already familiar with their moves/tactics) The fragments also play a part in the lore highlighting that the shadow realm is now a place seperate and hidden from the lands between with its own seperate tree and its own blessings. Also if you plan on keeping your rusty old build and not experiment with the new weapons, ashes of war and talisman and make new builds why are you even buying and playing the DLC!? Oh, and if you are playing souls games to look for a "power fantasy" where you beat a 100 enemies per minute and have screen wiping superattacks, you are playing the wrong games, you are trying to fit a circular peg in a triangular hole.

[@Yokoso-kj7ij]

Womp womp, you have to collect items in a Japanese RPG once per Save File... Get over it😊

[@gabagandalfoftheweed]

Tbf the HP bar inflation was always a thing. DS3 DLC bosses usually had around 50 - 100% more health than the final boss of the main game, BB DLC bosses 40 - 50%, DS2 DLC bosses only had slightly more health than the final main game boss, but usually gave you plenty of bs to deal with. DS1 DLC bosses also had up to 50% more health than the final boss. The tankiest bosses from SotE on the other hand only ever have about the same HP pool as the final boss of the main game. Sure, they also pack a lot of bs at times, but I find the complaint about inflationary boss health in that regard unfounded.

[@geordiejones5618]

Yeah but if you beat a couple side bosses and major dungeons without any, you only end up really needing them for the really really tough fights, so you won't use them all. You can beat most of the side dungeons, Divine Beast, Rellana, Sunflower, Midra, and Romina with base game damage/resistance if you optimize your build and leverage your playstyle's strengths, especially with the dueling shields and the new acrobatic weapons/ashes. Messmer, Gaius, Metyr, Bayle, and Radahn were too tough for me without the fragments but even with those fights if you take a few hours to really study them, you can consistently beat any of them. They are all mechanically sound and very fun.

[@aaronmccutcheon6008]

The DLC is beautiful but utterly trash to play. The base game had a sublime balance, the DLC is hard for hard's sake. And I don't mean "fun hard" I mean death by a thousand cuts hard. The fan base is in denial over the fact that from soft core mechanics and how you engage with their games have vastly surpassed what the player is actually capable of doing in said games. The DLC exacerbates this issue tenfold. The content is doable sure, but there's no efficiency, the formula hasn't evolved past dodges, which is a shame considering all the progress they made with sekiro... I was extremely disappointed with shadow of the erdtree

[@thetalkingmausoleum]

While I do agree with some of the things you said, such as that I too don't really see the need for an additional scaling system and I think they could have done without it completely, I fail to see what's so "fatal" about it. For a first playthrough (which I think should be the main consideration, since that's all most people will do) you will find them naturally through exploration anyway. Like you said, exploring is something I'd want to do regardless. And with the patch in particular missing a couple really isn't that big of a deal. Furthermore, even for subsequent playthroughs you will just come across most of them simply by running through the areas in order to get to the bosses. I'm looking at a map of all the Fragment locations right now and - assuming that replaying the DLC means at least attempting to beat all the Rememberance Bosses (you know, the main content of the DLC) - I can count maybe 5 to 10 Fragments that are more than a minute or two out of the way of the "main path", that you would have to take anyway.

[@Aninvader-rm4fl]

I agree that it isn't a good system, but I don't think doing nothing would be better everyone playing the DLC is reaches it at a different point in the game, whether they rushed to Mogh at Lv 50 to play it quickly or are playing on their Lv 350 NG+ character they've been preparing since the DLC was announced a leveling system reduces the variety of problems players would have, without one there would be more complaints about the difficulty, as both underleveled and overleveled players would be complaining for opposite reasons

[@creativename2567]

I don't like this system either, but it's not like you need to get all of them, I beat the entire DLC with blessing lvl 13, which I reached without any guides, not only that but exploring the DLC gave me a ton of lvls, which made my base character op asf.

[@robbyloux]

I think the Scad system was implemented sheerly because of how big the DLC is. You said it well, it would be more welcome in a new game and I think thats how FromSoft wanted returning players to see the DLC as. This is by far the best critique of the system that I've seen, thank you for making this video 💚 Also you really hit the nail on needing a guide to find all, I explored for 60 hours before looking them up and some I think I might have never found myself

[@rayfranklin7646]

I feel like they realized that the vast majority of the 25+ million Elden Ring sales went to folks who were "one and done" players, so they focused on making SOTE a grand spectacle for one and done players. Just a guess as their design philosophy for this.

[@Junebug879]

I think the point of the system was to give you the option to make the dlc as hard as you want but having to collect all the fragments is sort of a chore though I found them all just from running around the map so I didn’t notice this issue. I also love the lore of Elden Ring so I love the dlc no matter what it explains so much about the story I think it’s awesome. Fair points great video.

[@nopurposeposting1548]

The smithing stone in DLC are useful for fresh character, i played coop and finish the dlc before accessing leyndell royal capital and those smithing stones are so helpful on upgrading weapon that we got from dlc area.

[@nopurposeposting1548]

yea the blessing system i feel like it needs a rework. i feel like fromsoft trying to encourage lower lvl character to come to the dlc with that system (which i kinda did) but i feel like doing check list of scadutree blessing is just not it.

[@thefailsniper5499]

Having played through the dlc three times at this point, I agree that the fragment system is indeed very heavily flawed. I don’t dislike the concept of the system, but it has been implemented terribly. Having to collect every single fragment on each non ng+ playthrough is just a god damn chore, especially when a lot of the fragments aren't even in interesting locations. Most of them are just next to statues, crosses, or inside of pots that random enemies are holding. If Fromsoft really felt this system was necessary to give players the feeling of progression, there should be way more fragments around the world. Anything with a boss health bar should drop these things, as should npc invaders and tough elite enemies like the horned warriors. There should be some in every mini dungeon and plenty to collect in the legacy dungeons. Just playing through the legacy dungeons should give you most of the fragments you need, then you just go do whichever side content you feel like engaging with to get the max rank.

[@s.w.e.d.3057]

The main reason I stopped buying games on release is due to DLCs. Playing Elden Ring with the DLC as a new player is alright, got to defeat the dude to start it and at around level 85 I feel just as weak. The power ups being far away did bother me and I think I stopped chasing after them after level 10 or so. I just wanna hit things and then I found out the things don't carry over... lmao, but the weapons are cool.

[@Ew4ya]

The issue i have with the last boss if it's Mohg's vesel where are the omen horns or any evidence of it? idk imo they could have created something incredible here

[@izhxllxw3316]

I don't mind the fragment system. The problem with the older games DLC is that you would never level through the DLC because you would already a high level character. So the DLC was easy so there was no feeling of progression. It's about the journey not the destination. They also designed the tree fragments that way to balance the higher level players and lower players. Some players wanting to go in with their level 530 character on Ng+4 some people with their level 80 on their first play threw. The system isn't perfect but they did well with all the different things to consider. huge fan base complex game mechanics. Would be hard to please everyone

[@LyllianaofMirrah]

DS3 journey to dlc is mostly done from level 70 to 90. 100 and higher are just ng+ runners

[@izhxllxw3316]

@@LyllianaofMirrah most people who are into PvP cap their character at 120. Regardless it was just an example on why the tree fragments exist. which provides my point. Not everyone is going to go in at the same level.

[@LyllianaofMirrah]

@@izhxllxw3316 yeah 125 to 133

[@fogstorm5531]

You can only get to level 20 for Scadutree fragments, doesn’t matter if it’s new game+, 20 is the highest level.

[@Partybus777]

There’s so much to unpack here that I can’t. But I completely understand where people are coming from even if I may disagree. But I will add my opinion from my experience. I’m a grown man with a demanding job in critical infrastructure and a 6 year old daughter, so I have a limited time frame to play Elden Ring. I completed the game last week with 17 or 18 fragments collected. I felt a LARGE majority of the fragments manifest themselves in the path you are already treading and are strategically placed to boost you just when you need it. I found out most of the ones I was missing were from the shadow people with pots on their heads 😂 now that didn’t make any sense but aw well. Other than that, I didn’t feel forced at all with the system. Is it the best system? No. Do I understand why it is necessary? Absolutely. Could it be better? Everything in every game could always be better. Over all, I think there is a middle ground to be found somewhere between die hard fans saying it’s perfect and the dramatic complaints saying it’s the worst thing ever. My only complaint with the Elden Ring series is give me some normal towns with normal NPC’s that aren’t hostile. Sometimes I feel I’m in this world full of enemies that hate just to hate 😢 maybe I just want to pass through a town and kick it for a bit 😌

[@Tarnished_Onryo]

Although the fragment system didn't bother me at all, AND I enjoyed all of it, you make a fair argument. I knew many people wouldn't be into it. I have my reasons for why I do, and I didn't expect many other people to share that sentiment. I HIGHLY disagree with your thoughts on the last boss, though. I think the final boss HAD to be Radahn for reasons I won't go into but...that's your opinion and because of my obsession for this game, it really makes sense to me

[@flabbajabba9527]

Except it isn't a fatal flaw and arguably improves the experience as it still allows for a feeling of progression. "They could've done nothing and it would've been better." No, then you would've just complained that "there's no sense of progression."

[@Hippy777]

"Explore the map to gain power" "By finding equipment and leveling up right?" "No by finding poorly guarded tree bark that can potentially double your damage and mitigation. Don't even try doing anything until you find that tree bark" Fucking why. I love the DLC but the blessing system was such a bafflingly lazy way to balance the game that I pray they never do it again. I've played through the DLC only once all the way through, and I've touched it with only another 3 of the 9 remaining characters because this treadmill work is such a fucking slog. Damage and mitigation stats become inflated and meaningless, meaning I have to return to roundtable hold just to properly gauge how a piece of equipment performs. I was told that the new system was going to be closer to Sekiro's memory system. It fucking wasn't. It's literally just Golden Seeds on steroids. If I can avoid 99% of the boss fights before picking up the vast majority of these items, what was the fucking point of including them to begin with??? I was okay with the new Radahn. Miquella not commenting on you killing his sister makes sense. Why would he give a shit about another tool he exploited in his quest for godhood? He literally abandoned his love when he cast St. Trina into the chasm. Dark Souls connected the main game to the DLC with a unique interaction with Sif that occurs if you meet him the DLC prior to encountering him as a boss in the main game.

[@Strellock]

Also, get this! Fragments that are to be found by killing the ethereal shadow npcs carrying pots on top of their heads, they can dissapear/despawn, taking the fragments with them for good. For some players restarting the game won't reintroduce the items, even if the enemies will be back. Another fragment that's buggy is one dropped by one of the two hippo bosses that are close to each other. One of them will simply not have the fragment for some players. So now you're chasing after nothing after wasting time with guides and videos and trying to figure out the map and the way to get there! Dreadful, and you're right, it makes a chore of exploration.

[@kylew7180]

Just rest at grace. They respawn

[@Pondimus_Maximus]

You’re 100% correct about the Shadoocheese fragments. My big gripe, is that all the boss fights are identical. Whether they’re big or small, they all move insanely fast, and constantly jump away from the player, when there is finally a chance to stop rolling or blocking. The camera controls, coupled with the overuse of particle effects, turns every boss fight into utter chaos. When one boss is finally down, you get to traverse a drab, almost colorless world, and do it again. Sadly, nothing comes close to matching the splendor and majesty of Leyndell, the gorgeous vibrance of Liurnia, or the otherworldly beauty of Feram Azula. It’s not without its good parts, but overall, I think the expansion was a missed opportunity.

[@evilfungas]

Did we even play the same game? SOTE has a broader variety of remembrance boss types than the base game. If you think Bayle is the same as Rellana, or Midra is the same as the Scadutree Avatar, or Metyr is the same as Putrescent Knight, or Gaius is the same as Messmer, or is Romina is the same the Divine Beast you need to get your head checked.

[@JuliusKingsleyXIII]

Yeah, the fragment system was a mistake. It didnt really ruin my first playthrough, but it has killed any interest I have in ever playing the DLC again without a mod that removes the system.

[@Niakra]

The proposition of bosses dropping the fragments *instead* of how it is right now sounds even worse if I'm honest. I'd hate being "forced" into killing all the bosses even more than checklisting through the map as it is. But as an addition (and not just the hippos) it would have been just right, much like how I can kill a tree spirit here and there to gain an extra golden seed, rather than having to seek all of the damn things out just to max my flask. What makes this so tedious is really the lack of surplus. And funnily enough on all my playthrough so far I'm missing 2-3 fragments for the final upgrade and I surely can't be bothered to go over it with a guide after the fact when I've beaten the DLC anyway. It's just very uninteresting, which is a shame, really. Also very much agreed on the fanservice bit when it comes to Radahn. "Oh wouldn't it be so cool to fight Radahn in his prime?" yes, yes it would be. And it would take away from his tragedy, wouldn't it? The whole fight felt like "Well, isn't Radahn just the COOLEST?" to me, almost like fanfiction. It was silly and though the first phase was fun, the second phase is its own little problem, as we know from how everyone furiously argues about it.

[@josephzdyrski]

I don't think the scadu tree blessings are bad at all. Fun to find and once you do it once you never need to do it again. So if you run the character through the dlc again you'll start at level 20. Maybe I'm a gaming masochist but I really enjoyed the crushing difficulty at the beginning of the dlc. I think that is only possible without the scadu system. Plus once you know where they are its pretty easy to grab them quick on new play throughs. Plus if certain players wants a super hard mode this allows for that.

[@AiviTos]

Dont know, i dont mind. You dont need them all at the start. Just play and explore. Don't know whats the fuss. Only issue is long access to dlc at new game plus

[@jasconx]

I have noticed most of the Elden Ring runners have to do a Scadu fragment loop before they begin their run and it really takes away from the entertainment value for the view. Watching the same loop on the majority of the runs. I am enjoying the dlc but I would have been happy without the skidoo frags too.

[@certifiedcib7958]

13:05 regarding subsequent playthroughs, your scadutree blessing is transferred over to the next playthrough. It’s crazy how confident you sound yet you obviously haven’t started a second playthrough after completing the dlc (if you even completed it) because then you’d know that the blessing carries over and you do not have to collect them again. And if you’re say 5 short of maxing, in your new playthrough the fragments are all reset so you can easily find them. I guess I’m in the minority but I liked the system. I would have hated to blow through the game with my level 300 character in a couple hours after waiting 2 years and I know FOR A FACT that even the people saying “so what if I breeze through it? I paid for it” like you did earlier in the video, you’d have made a video complaining about how it was too easy and that it didn’t give you the base game level of challenge. In short, people are always like that. They’re going to find something to complain about either way instead of appreciating the many good things we got and I think fromsoft knows that at this point which is why they just do whatever they want. I for one am glad

[@certifiedcib7958]

15:40 here you’re complaining about the map being too big lol. Again if it was small you’d have complained about that. You also keep talking about how it’s post end game material and that may be true for us who played the game when it came out and beat it long ago but there are also new players that are coming into the game that will access the DLC before finishing the main game. And also to add to the scadu fragments, by the time I got to the end I was at scadu blessing 17 without any guides. They really aren’t hard to find especially since they’re literally at every cross of Miquella. There’s probably 10 that are hidden via the pot enemy’s and such which are literally glowing and obviously indicating something special.

[@certifiedcib7958]

I’m just gonna keep adding as I go through the video because all your takes (while you have a right to have trash opinions) are trash. How would Miquella know that we killed Malenia if he’s in another realm and vice versa? Do you think there’s a demigod social media for them to keep in touch lol? Malenia didn’t even know Radahn survived the scarlet bloom and he’s in the same realm 🤦‍♂️ you keep saying you played all fromsoft titles but you just come off as a casual gamer instead of a fromsoft supporter/fan. Regarding the smithing stones, I watched a good number of reviewers actually like that. Not everyone collected all the bell bearings like you did and with all the new weapons they added they put smithing stones everywhere for those people to be able to upgrade. What a narrow POV I don’t mean to come off as angry but such ungrateful people just get to me. Like you want me to believe you had NOTHING good to say about it. I’d get it if you had pros and cons but you just seem like a hater.

[@certifiedcib7958]

“Im a grown man with responsibilities and a full time job. I don’t have time to look around for unnecessary items” yet you took a WHOLE WEEK OFF OF WORK 😂😂😂 I can’t be the only one to notice how asinine that is right? You just said you could have played for 16 hours straight if you wanted to, you just didn’t like the scadufragments. It has nothing to do with your job and responsibilities that you took a whole week off of to play. I can’t even imagine taking a week off of my real life responsibilities and income that I use to survive to play a DLC 😂 I guess I see why you’re mad now. For everyone else we paid $40 for the dlc but you paid $40 plus a weeks worth of pay. Sheeeshh

[@CryBaby_68]

I love it i have no problem with it. It's very enjoyable. God war might be for you then.

[@JustSumClips9840]

bro omg thank you for pointing this out everybody kept saying the same thing that "its so you can explore more of the game" meanwhile I just finished the main game that took me 120+ hours to to explore and level up just to have all that progress stripped from me in the dlc. Why cant I choose whether I want to rush to the final boss and beat the game or go exploring. Its just a stupid type of mechanic in my opinion

[@JustSumClips9840]

The game basically forces you to explore and im not gonna look in every corner of my map just to find 1 scattered tree and then even finding 1 isnt enough

[@soccutd77]

You can choose to rush to the final boss to beat the game, it’ll just be hard no? And isn’t the point of the DLC to be an Elden ring expansion, IE like a second game with new content? If the first game wants you to explore to get stronger and beat bosses, it would make sense that the DLC would incentivize that as well.

[@dualwieldroxas358]

Tbf, just focusing on the main boss routes, and only taking the fragments that are obvious, you can get to lvl 10-12 without needing to explore. After 12, you get diminishing returns, so it is fairly balanced in terms of the main path

[@OwlPlayIt]

You can rush the DLC but it would be like doing a naked fist only run - you would do no damage. It feels like a mod rather than a professionally designed game. If you could start the DLC directly from the start menu, the blessing system would make more sense.

[@tmsphere]

Point deducted from game for forcing you to play it before you see end credits, bad miyazaki is bad.

[@jessejames3600]

I respect your objective opinion besides the fact that you said it doesn't carry over, the blessings definitely carry over and imo matter even more when beating bosses at ng+ 4 and above..also I got to blessing level 10 just progressing the game so I really don't understand everyone saying how tedious they are to find, atleast half of them anyway..with that said I would probably have liked just getting way more runes to make leveling up to higher levels easier and made us more powerful that way

[@derekcampbell4209]

Me personally, I felt the fragments were the only thing keeping me exploring. The world was so empty and devoid of any reward besides Crafting Material, crafting books and smithing stones. It became aggravating. The fragments at least gave me something useful and a reason to explore around because aside from that there is nothing really. Beautiful world, but going back to the base game for a RL1 run and it’s glaring how much more is going on in the open world of the base game and how there’s almost always something for the player to find/use. I tried to ignore how lackluster the dlc was till about halfway through I accepted that I don’t need to check every corner and behind every building. Truly a bummer. And kinda do hate how in the base game you still collect golden seeds that you can’t use. Annoying how that became something not worth collecting vs there being an exact amount you need. Makes sense for the game but I prefer there to only be the correct amount needed to upgrade to fully.

[@Tomberculosis-q1i]

The writing is from soft games feels almost on par with the writing in the acolyte in the sense that events occur. No one ever thinks to communicate in any capacity, it's ridiculous. Why aren't there overarching effects of the choices that I've made of the bosses that I've defeated. Why doesn't anyone even react?

[@deadeyedun]

I liked the Scooby Doo Blessings because it made the beginning of the DLC feel difficult and intimidating, even as a high level character, which is what I would want from a new realm. It would have been really boring and disappointing if I was steam rolling everything from the beginning.

[@julianberutti4169]

I overall agree with you. How the progression and exploration work in tandem wasn't something I was fond of, and this was very different from the base game. Shadow of the Erdrtee showacases a way more complex and entagled layout much more focused on verticality. On top of that, the map (as a feature) has never been updated to support the dlc. I heard a lot of complaints about the non-intuitive navigation which made exploration more frustrating/confusing than exciting. I agree that it felt more like a series of easter egg hunt. I personally played the DLC the "right way": meticulously spending time checking every corner and exploring without relying too much on the map (just by following where the paths naturally led me), but I saw my friends struggling to find places, to fight enemies (due to being low lv). The base game does one thing very nicely for being an open world: you feel weak? well, go somewhere else, beat some asses, get runes and level up, right? Well, the DLC throws that formula away for the scadoofragments (which aren't too far from tge Sacred Tears in terms of functionality, but at least those where placed in a more intuitive and not so hidden way). If you feel weak in the DLC, you have to rely on a blog post From Soft had ro write to help players get through the content, how silly, right?

[@SylvirLuna]

I agree with your point that subsequent playthroughs of the DLC feel like a chore. My first time I played completely blind and ended up with Scadu level 18 by the time I finished the entirety of the DLC. My NG+ run felt much much better as I essentially steam rolled through it especially after getting Scadu level 20 early on. I think people are severely underestimating how much Defense it gives you. In THE WORST armor in the game you have around 60% physical and magical dmg negation and thats BEFORE buffs and talismans put on Protection of the Erdtree and Golden Vow and the Tower shield and Pearl drake talisman and you are at about 72% dmg negation physical and magical with essentially no armor on. BUT When I wanted to start a completely new character and got to the point where I entered the DLC I was like OH SHIT I have to run around and find all those stupid fragments again and I dont even remember where any of them actually are. Which to your point made me want to just pull up a guide (more accurately just use the interactive map on Wiki) and so what I ended up doing was just NG+2 to replay it. Which is fine but man if you want to experience fresh progression or do any base game Co-Op when you are like level 240+ good luck 99% of the time you are gonna be getting summoned for ONLY the DLC and alot of them are playing the DLC first time on their NG+2 builds and as far as I can tell Co-Op uses the Host's Scadu level so they will summon you walk in and get 2 shot by the boss even at level 240+ and so will you even if you personally have scadu level 20. Which also goes to your point about builds being fecked up. YOu could have an OP build all around Scadu 20 and in Co-Op (not sure how it works in PvP if it works at all) your build is completely useless because the host doesn't have Scadu 20 Long ramble I know but there it is I agree that it is a bit of an issue though I don't think I'm quite as doom and gloom about it. It's annoying for sure in the context of a brand new restart and for Co-Op reasons but other wise I don't feel its bad enough to kill the game for me definitely bad enough to complain about though.

[@SylvirLuna]

Just to further evidence of builds being fecked for DLC Co-Op next time you are in the DLC just LOOK at some of the co-op phantoms almost all of them are using a similar build Heavy armor (for the poise since poise reduces shield stamina cost) a trusting weapon with bleed (since you can block and attack with thrusting weapons at the same time) and a great shield.

[@grimreefer213]

You raise a lot of good points here with good reasoning. As I hear you explain this I can't say I disagree with you, especially considering the burden on repeat playthroughs. They're not encouraging exploration but rather forcing it, and if the open world fatigue wasn't felt already in ER's base game it will *really* be felt in SotE. That is the main criticism I had for the base game that I was hoping they would remedy in SotE. At least after you've beaten the game you should be given the option to re-fight bosses any time at your leisure and not force this tedious collect-a-thon every playthrough.

[@79bull]

I managed to get to blessing 18 naturally without guides, spirit blessings were at 7. After I’d beaten the final boss I looked the rest up and I have to say it was a PITA. Perhaps *you* made the game more about finding these fragments than anything else? Which is understandable if you wanted max power, however there’s so much more to the game than just collecting fragments. I figured I could always hunt the rest of I hit a brick wall. Which in the end I didn’t.

[@iv9496]

The DLC was a massive dissapitment for me. The scooby doo tree system sucked ass for me, but the bosses are what ruined it for me. Almost every boss was disappointing to me. Was either a reused boss from the base game or some dude jumping all over the arena with tones of annoying delayed attacks. I went back to DS3 and BB after I pretty much finished SotE, and it's incredible how much better fromsoft bosses used to be. I remember how epic Midir, Gael, Ludwig, or Koss felt the first time they were a spectical to behold and never felt unfair or borderline unfun to play. But when you reuse the same "epic boss jumps all over and throws flashy combos" on almost every single boss, it just becomes old and boring.

[@Bereskarrn]

Thank you for making this video and presenting this issue in such a clear way. In my opinion, the Scadutree Fragment system is one of the worst mechanics I've ever seen in any game, and I hope they never do something like that again. And this is coming from a studio that has had some truly terrible mechanics in their games before, such as Soul Memory and the weapon durability system in Dark Souls 2. Actually, speaking of DS2, Scadutree Fragments are basically a reskinned version of the Giant Souls from that game, where each one you collect makes a certain part of the game (just one boss in DS2) more properly scaled compared to the rest of the game, after being artificially inflated in terms of they amount of health they have and damage they do in order to enforce exploring and clearing other parts of the game. Except, as stated by you about Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears, the Giant Souls in DS2 were fairly straightforward to find, with all of them besides for one dropping from Giants, most of them within the memory trees, and one as a drop from Ancient Dragon. Likewise, Golden Seeds are all at Golden Seed trees, which you can see from far away, and Sacred Tears are all within churches, of which there are only a few of within each region of the Lands Between. Scadutree Fragments are like... some of them are by Miquella's Crosses, visible from far away like how Golden Seeds are. Some of them are by Marika statues inside churches or along roads. Some of them are dropped by shadow people with pots on their heads. Not all of them, though. Some of them drop Revered Spirit Ashes or uh, random consumables. Some of them are dropped by Golden Hippos in out-of-the-way areas. Some of them are just found on random corpses with nothing setting them apart from normal loot corpses, like the one at the bottom of the waterfall in Scadu Altus or the one on the north side of the Abyssal Woods. Also, I approve of calling them "scadoo", because if it's an Old English pronunciation, first off that's a different language than modern English, and second off, in modern English (the language the rest of the game is in), C is pronounced like C, not like H.

[@Bereskarrn]

To elaborate a bit on how big of a problem the Scadu Fragment system is even for completionists like myself, on the character I cleared the DLC with my first time, after finishing the final boss, I was at Scadutree Blessing level 19, holding 3 out of the 5 required Scat Fraggies to max it out. So I spend the next two or so hours looking at the Shadow Realm mapgenie map to track down each of them one by one since the game also doesn't tell you which ones you've already found. The last two were both in the Gravesite Plain, pretty close to the start of the DLC, and I missed them because I didn't even know what they were or what they did when I started playing the first time.

[@words4weapons186]

13:21 Skibidy System

[@words4weapons186]

I know he meant Scooby Doo System but brain rot funny

[@travman1987]

I dont think there was a better way to make the DLC. The alternative to the blessing system would be player lvl scaling with content. Which would be much much worse. There simply was no other way to balance the DLC to feel difficult enough for all players. Everyone is at different lvls, different levels of NG+ etc. This was the only way to make the DLC feel like a challenge while also giving you an option to make things easier. You literally have the choice to make the game as hard or easy as you want it to be. Everyone loves having a huge world to explore but at the same time they complain that there isn’t enough good loot to find. I feel like we got more than what we expected. And Fromsoft made the best choices for the game itself, even if some players don’t agree. I think there is a huge difference in what players think they want and what they actually want and that’s where the developers shine. People who complain just don’t fully understand what they had to do to make it the best experience for the most amount of people. No one is forcing you to use the blessing system. It reminds me of people who complain about summoning, when no one is forcing them to use them. Don’t like blessings? Don’t use them. Stop using the blessings if you’re too powerful lol. Because so many players are at different level ranges, the blessing system was the best choice for the dlc. Instead of everyone just blowing through the DLC on their over leveled characters, they actually got a challenge, with a choice to make yourself stronger with blessings.