There's Something Wrong With Shadow of the Erdtree

[@_lalapop]

does anybody here remember when the radahn leak came out and everybody thought it looked so unbelievably shit that it was fake

[@v1l1am95]

That actually happened? That's hilarious

[@buckiemohawk3643]

it got spoiled for me and i had already bought the dlc. It wouldnt have touched the dlc if I had known this was the final boss. Its a shit boss. They have been throwing everything and the kitchen sink in with their bosses and its gotten old. Elden Ring it got old really quickly

[@_lalapop]

@@v1l1am95 it was crazy everybody was coping saying it was impossible for it to be that bad. they said the moveset was just godfrey + pontiff, that the arena was a blank map made in an hour by a modder, that the skybox was just limgrave, that the music was phase 1 starscourge at first I also thought it was fake

[@m.l.2871]

@@buckiemohawk3643 not a shit boss though. u just ass i guess and cant adapt. sorry trading hits and outhealing didnt work for you :(( finally a boss where you had to try again

[@ibadrizvi5740]

​@@_lalapopWelp, I don't know what I spent like 50 hours playing but it ain't the game you described

[@thomaskopv2366]

It honestly boggles my mind how people can seriously call this peak fromsoft. This isnt even their best DLC let alone better than anything in the Elden ring base game. Either people have lowered their standards extremely, or theyre fanboys.

[@_lalapop]

​​@@bigsmall2842 >everything from first step to leyndell is peak design rose tinted glasses. liurnia lake is a barren wasteland with absolutely nothing of note in it. weeping peninsula? siofra river other than the big reveal? the game in general is barren and too big for its own good. acting like the dlc is worse is incredibly disingenuous. it's simply just as shit

[@_lalapop]

@@bigsmall2842 off the top of my head the lake itself has: a copy pasted ruin with a revenant (laskyar ruins), a copy pasted church for varre to sit in and nothing else (rose church), a copy pasted rise with a copy pasted puzzle, a waygate that simply takes you to the other side of the lake, and a miserable little shack for bogart to sit in. the only relevant enemy is the... copy pasted dragon that guards the academy key... I agree on limgrave and caelid (mostly), but the early game is littered with the same problems as the late game, and the dlc to a lesser extent. people simply got sick of it and started noticing by the time they got to the mountaintops, but the problems were always there

[@GMOTP5738]

A lot of people who say that are just casuals that are regurgitating whatever favorite streamer/youtubers review said, elden ring really brought in a a lot of casuals unfortunately so you'll see a rise of cringe opinions. Best DLC was definitely old hunters in bloodborne

[@nezumixp6744]

It’s definitely both

[@macvadda2318]

⁠@@_lalapopok i gotta disagree, the open world is pretty good, with interesting open landscapes and good pois, it doesnt need a packed area 24/7 its dar from ass, its a phenomenal open world, however the main issue with the dlc wasnt the lack of enemies, it was the lack of variety, look pools were the same, and enemies were too familiar, its pretty bad in repeat runs when you have to run through big areas, but for a first experience its phenomenal, which is all that really matters

[@Tracker947]

From "I wanna do that again!" To "Thank God I don't have to do that again"

[@liamhuehn]

wow... the most accurate way to describe it

[@hedition9346]

Despite what he said about Malenia, she is a boss I always miss after killing her. Maliketh kicked my butt in multiple playthroughs but I always look forward to fighting him in another playthrough. My biggest sadness in ER is I can never fight Margit for the first time ever again. All these feeling, I cannot find them in the DLC. I can start a new playthrough, and go through Gaius and Radahn again. But I kinda don't wanna.

[@liamhuehn]

@@hedition9346 margit, morgott, radahon, mohg, radagon, are abse game ones i like as for the dlc, i was hyped as fuck. And i did divine beast whcih i hated, and rellana which i liked the flow of. and i havnt touched it since

[@mikeyswift2010]

I love how literally 99% of the community loves the DLC and then a couple of people hate it and you guys all think YOU are right and EVERYONE ELSE is wrong.

[@Tracker947]

@@mikeyswift2010 I don't base my opinions on the opinions of others, regardless of how many or how few there are.

[@svenproglhof1768]

@45:50 fun joke, but lore-wise Torrent is spooked because Flame of Frenzy is able to kill not only physical beings but also spirits, that´s why he´s noping out.

[@ThiNemesis]

He also literally dies in the frenzy ending...

[@Kirkland-Consumer]

But for some reason he still helps you once you accept the frenzied flame.

[@FrigidOven]

Lore explanations just feel so half-assed. If Torrent was allowed, people would be theorizing about how Torrent is willing to die for the Tarnished or something. No matter what they do there will always be some way to justify it afterwards, just like how Mohg's shackle doesn't work on Radahn. If it did work the response would be "Wow look at the attention to detail!" But since it doesn't, people say "Well maybe the Shackle only works on Mohg's soul, or maybe Radahn is just too strong". There is no way to distinguish between an intended design choice or a genuine oversight.

[@svenproglhof1768]

@@FrigidOven "There is no way to distinguish between an intended design choice or a genuine oversight." I am with you there in regards to Radahn. I am not a fan of his, ...., uuuh.... "extended" lore. However, in the frenzied flame ending you see Melina picking up torrent´s whistle which is disintegrating, symbolyzing his death. So that one is established since the base game.

[@tequilawhiskey]

​@@FrigidOvento add to svens point, a lot of those "fill in the gaps" elements of lore are one of the appeals of the games, specifically under Miyazaki. Im sure youve heard the story of him as a kid not knowing all the words in the books he read. While yes, it can be a convienent copout, to assume thats the only reason it happens is to assume the worst. I havent had a reason for that to be my immediate assumption after all these years. You give a good example, both of those things are true. It, realistically, doesnt work because the fight is supposed to be hard, no doubt. But its easy enough to logic whatever bs that it wouldnt. If it did, it also would be a great detail. If you want to critique, the quest is why doesnt he have an auto counter attack when you try to use it and destroy it from your inventory. Now *that* would be peak.

[@omerlavie2816]

I think this dlc showed that the basic dark souls combat system has been streched to the point of breaking. They have to finally let go of it, or accept that they hit the limit of difficulty in their games and focus on something else.

[@ennayanne]

or they could go back to when it was fun and methodical like in the first few games

[@manuuu9458]

Such a bad take

[@Invisibleguy-kn7bd]

Yeah fully agree. Feels like they've been in an arms race with the veteran players in making the game difficult enough, and now that's hit it's end state. Feels like they've started delving into making things difficult just for the sake of difficulty and not in any fun or interesting way

[@Invisibleguy-kn7bd]

@@ennayanne Going back to DS1/DS2 combat would actually make the game way worse imo. It's dated and far too easy to anyone who's played the later Souls games.

[@ennayanne]

@@Invisibleguy-kn7bd it's not dated, it actually holds up perfectly because it's not stretching it past its limit. I'm talking about DS1, not 2. 2 always had problems with its combat. More difficult =/= better combat

[@johntaylor8469]

I find my self looking at the consorts fog wall and think “ am I having fun right now?” “ is this fulfilling?” I have found that elden ring has given me a sense of relief when I beat bosses, not a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment like every other from soft game.

[@skinnytimmy1]

Yea, when I beat bosses in ds3 I felt like "man that was fun, I want to fight them again". In ER I beat a boss and think, "Glad they didn't hit me with a one-shot attack this time"

[@spenzo]

yeah this is it, when playing ds3 i felt like damn, that was good, some of these bosses like the fucking sunflower was not fun

[@jablinski_time]

I feel like I get more fulfillment then satisfaction

[@jablinski_time]

​@@skinnytimmy1how much vigor do you have? there's rarely anything that one shots me, usually two shots if it's strong

[@goodamacthesecond5931]

I'm still there, I went back to other stuff I found fun cause I just didn't find that last fight fun at all

[@Sam-lo8yj]

It’s insane how few cutscenes there are in this. And the ones we get aren’t really base game tier either. The post final boss cutscene is one of the laziest things I’ve ever seen and made me feel like I did something wrong.

[@elbottio]

Only cutscene I think is great is the lord of frenzied flame boss

[@Coeaxe]

@@elbottioboth of Messmer’s are fantastic wdym + the Radahn cutscene is gas, gets you hyped

[@elbottio]

@@Coeaxe actually fair enough on the messmer one and the radahn one is fine

[@elbottio]

@@Sam-lo8yj i forgot about them

[@tbrown5836]

Measles cutscenes are amazing what do you mean?

[@EndersupremE]

16:16 man I agree with most of what you said, but saying elden ring doesnt have camera issues is WILD. Idk maybe ur talking about remembrance or main bosses, but Jesus ER has dogshit camera all over the fkin place. Especially when they stuff a 50m2 room with a 40m2 boss

[@jeremytewari3346]

That Fire Giant crotch is really nice looking lol, love staring at it all fight

[@djbeema]

The camera for divine beast was atrocious. They haven't fixed their fucking camera issues in 10 years. Just like other bullshit they refuse to fix (grab attacks that don't even have to visibly touch your character to work, for example). But why should they bother fixing anything when their sycophantic fan base thinks they are infallible and lambasts anyone who doesn't agree.

[@samuel.jpg.1080p]

fighting all huge bosses is always the same problem; the camera sucks. The base game already has Fire Giant to prove that the camera in this game is bad but somehow the devs really insist on making huge bosses like Divine Beast, Golden Hippo, all kinds of dragons, etc. The camera should just be zoomed out when fighting huge enemies

[@kylehendricksilveralvin5376]

​@@samuel.jpg.1080pTo be fair, Fire Giant has good tells by audio, which I'm pretty sure they did to remedy the camera problem

[@namelessiam7792]

It doest help that the examples he gave with radhan were extremely precise, well thought out camera angles at the boss. Alot of the video is good, alot morenis skewed

[@vincentninja68]

I really wish rune arcs were common in the DLC Loot and exploration did feel pretty hollow. Rune Arcs are so stupidly rare in base game (assuming you play offline mostly), they're the only item in the game that is still valuable to the player regardless of level.

[@joaoluizkfsantos8392]

Instead of rune arcs, which become so boring to reapply every time you die that I forget to use them, I wish they added some way to make great runes remain active permanently. If they added one of those for each great rune, that's an easy 6 major rewards to give us

[@gamester1440]

@@joaoluizkfsantos8392or in other words.. actual progression for our character. We make no impact, retain nothing of value, don’t get to go into the DLC as our full power lords, don’t carry over any effect from Miquella, have the same hard caps… we’re the same guy. The content isn’t made for the sake of replay-ability, character optimization, or true lore expansion. Nothing that mattered was answered other than “Where is Miquella” like holy hell

[@DNYLNY]

It’s really annoying farming rune arcs from rats. Have to reload 5-6 times with 200 discovery just to find 1. So I just gave up on them mostly and only use the Rykard one if I’m exploring instead of using them on bosses where I die more.

[@mononaut]

​@@DNYLNY you get rune arcs by killing a boss in co-op. Activate a few summoning pools and do that instead of killing rats.

[@based-ys9um]

​@@DNYLNYjust help people on co op

[@Bucket_Buffoon]

59:56 Genuinely such an L take. Armored Core VI was in development since 2018, with passionate people who had a love for the Mecha Genre and FromSoft's early history on board, alongside getting together Mecha Giants like the original artist behind AC, and artists from other huge franchises like Evangelion and Gundam, to push out the one of the best mech games in recent memory. Comparing that to a freaking 360 Demo or calling it "Very Little Effort" kinda spits on the 5 years of work that went into reviving their original Breadwinner (around only a year less than Elden Ring was in the oven) It's an achievement that they brought back Armored Core so utterly hard while also making Elden Ring. AC isn't a Golden Egg, its their retired old Goose that kept them alive before Souls was a thing. Which, at the moment is due for either an Expansion or a New Generation if reports from Miyazaki are anything to go off.

[@Wakkiau]

Wow, i couldn't even handle going throught the "replayability" section but hearing that just makes me think this guy is just a genuine piece of shit instead of someone that actually want to love fromsoft's product at its core.

[@YoannBB]

Worst part is, I actually find that AC6 has better graphics than ER lol. Now don't get me wrong ER's artistic direction is unmatched, I'm only talking about graphics, but still... it's clearly not even a "mid" game!

[@heyguyslolGAMING]

Great info, I bought AC about 2 months after it came out, I just haven't made the time to play it yet but I plan to. I wouldn't take this guys opinion to seriously. He's gotten a lot of things objectively wrong about the DLC. Example: My build med rolls using the Great Mace and I can dodge roll all of Radahn's melee attacks w/ np while still squeezing in an attack here and there. I find what he said about the s hilarious bc he's using a much faster wep and is light rolling, lol. The problem he never figured out is you need to stay in the pocket of Radahn's attacks and not on the outside. This guy just seems to have had such different expectations from what he got from the DLC that he's just flat out salty about it. The DLC does have issues for sure as I most certainly have my criticisms of it but it's hardly a failure as he's painting it out to be. Kratos : Keep your expectations low boy, and you'll never be disappointed.

[@Bucket_Buffoon]

@@heyguyslolGAMING I say this as someone who dislikes the DLC so far: Rellana was way more fun when I realized I'm supposed to be smacking her mid-combo with the giant sword. When it clicked that it wasn't about "waiting for a turn" but finding an opening for a crouch poke, R1, Charged R2, or Giant Hunt, not only did it become *easier* but a lot more FUN.

[@reeses7839]

Yeah, what the Hell was he talking about actually. Some of the people for the DLC were working on Armored Core?? Duh. Conspiracy shit man. I don't even like the DLC, but I despise that narrative. That somehow, Armored Core 6, a genuinely excellent experience doing its one thing extremely well, is to blame. Insane.

[@MachineMan-mj4gj]

I for one hated the new lore about Miquella and Radahn. The pre-DLC lore was just fine: The Blade of Miquella challenges The Starscourge, unleashes an eldritch rot-nuke to end in a stalemate, now a magic zombie giant is pinning the stars in place. Radahn's story was tragic, but complete. Bringing him back as Radahn Prime was just fanservice, it felt fake. Mogh was just fine being super-duper evil. He was mistreated as an omen, and that drove him to worship an outer god of blood and pain. The Golden Order creating it's own enemies was a fine enough theme. Hell, I was even expecting him to have been charmed, but in a creepy yandere way and Miquella couldn't turn it off. Him just being a pawn seemed both needlessly cruel and cheapened him as a character. It also undermines Malenia's inherent tragedy, being so devoted to her brother (who made it his life's work to cure her rot) only to be absent when he needed her most. At least this explains why we couldn't reason with Malenia beforehand, but again damages her character because that just means she was just sitting on her ass for however long, rotting out her brother's tree. And Miquella! God forbid we have just one morally pure demigod in the family, now he's a creepy cult leader lopping off pieces of himself, brainwashing people with magic instead of some super-charisma. There's pretty much nothing furthering the Rot/Abundance dichotomy between him and his sister, and we couldn't interact with him at all in a way that didn't involve violence. This whole story reads like fanfiction, and not the fun trashy kind.

[@fastgunnns3881]

Well, with your bit about Miquella, it was always implied that he had the ability to charm people using an external ability, we see that in the description for the 'Bewitching Branch'. To quote the item description, "The Empyrean Miquella is loved by many people. Indeed, he has learned very well how to compel such affection. " Although I do agree with you, we should have had far more interaction with Miquella during the DLC, if for any reason then to at least make him sympathetic.

[@huttyblue]

I actually kinda like the new plotline with Radahn as it implies why hes holding the stars in place. Which always seemed kind of random. But doesn't want to be the consort, and the only way to prevent it from happening is to not die. And some mechanism of holding back the stars/fate prevents this. Hes not a crazed warrior too powerful to die, hes actively holding out as long as possible because staying alive at any cost is the only way to hold the stars in place and avoid the fate forced on him by Miquella. It also leads to some other questions, like if he ever was really trying to cure Malenia.

[@fastgunnns3881]

@huttyblue I actually saw a very interesting idea in the comments of this video. While I can't find it, I'll paraphrase it. Effectly what this idea stated was that Miquella's curse of never growing doesn't just apply to his body but also his fate. We see examples of this throughout the lore, two notable examples being his attempt to cure Malenia and his attempt to bring in a new age of compassion, both of which were stomped out before they could reach fruition.

[@halebobuwu]

God, I agree fully.

[@petercottantail7850]

ikr!? his charisma influencing people is way more interesting than just mind control "cause he says so" they really made him in base game like a beacon of light for a dark time for people regardless if he was good or evil, he had what people wanted and would give their all for him to make it so, with his gifted understanding of life, the fact gawry being enamored by the golden needle who is most likely like shibiri a spokesperson or embodiment of the rot goddess itself finding admiration for a person he never met was such a good way to set up a character as being believable that he could sway the hearts of people by his realistic abilities to bring salvation to them. and instead of being jesus like in dlc where he just magically cures the redmane chick's scarlet rot with a touch, he was using his actual talents to craft items that could nullify outer God's abilities. he really was made into a caricature like someone unrelated to the base game read about him and wrote the dlc plot.

[@ennayanne]

no this IS elden ring. the exact same issues that plague the main game are here in the DLC too

[@atlantic_love]

The DLC was actually made from cut content, and that's proven by the low level of smithing stones if anyone's paying attention. They simply jacked up the HP and damage numbers of everything.

[@ennayanne]

@@atlantic_love I dont really see how that follows. The DLC took 2 years to make, I doubt it was mostly stuff they already had ready to go (even though a lot of stuff in there is even recycled from the main game

[@falcoon_f_zero9450]

Yeah. I don't get how people ignore these issues in the main game. Maybe they've started to feel blind nostalgia for it already. Even seen people unironically say things like: "the main game had actually fair and great bosses like Malenia and the DLC has strayed off that" 😆. Give me a break. The DLC only doubled down on the issues the main game had.

[@atlantic_love]

@@ennayanne You can google about the cut content. The smithing stones is a BIG CLUE as to where the content for the DLC originally fit in. They simply ramped up the health and damage of enemies, and forgot about scaling other parts of the DLC.

[@ennayanne]

@@atlantic_love So are you saying the entire shadow realm map was part of the lands between that got cut?

[@peevan]

The most annoying part of the DLC is simply visiblity, it feels like Im fighting the particle effects rather than the boss which I think is the fault of fromsoftware's shift towards appealing to an audience that appreciates spectacle rather than actual sound design. A lot of exploration also seems like wasted space, especially the abyssal woods and a lot of middle of the map in general. They vast amounts of recycled enemies dont really help with this issue either. The side content just doesnt really warrant the size of the map. If the game was more similar to the older games with each area consisting of more condensed but uniquely designed zones them it would be a lot more bearable. Instead I have to waste hours traversing the map to even get to the stuff I want to fight.

[@botondkunos1774]

It isn't just the particle effects, now boss attacks are almost always put under several layers of variable combos and other overcomplications. You are dying more to new shit blindsiding you than to actually hard to avoid attacks. It's super contrived and cheap, they arent actually making the bosses harder, just the learning experience an unenjoyable mess.

[@brappsniffs3924]

Finally someone who has a correct take

[@anonisnoone6125]

That's y I gave up on the Dancing Lion fight. Every time I got him to half health, he would change phases so many times and get really up in the face to where I literally couldn't see anything. And locking off doesn't help either cis he moves around so fast. I just gave up on solo and summoned Freyja and mimic to end it.

[@botondkunos1774]

@@anonisnoone6125 the wind form is alright at least, lightning is the worst with random lightning strikes all round. Frost form has a problem where if you arent a proper distance away from them when they start a combo you are guaranteed to get hit over and over usually till death.

[@jimmynorman9897]

This is right although I’d say there’s still enough new content to keep all kinds of fans happy. Readability is the problem boss wise, final boss is definitely the worst offender. Hair physics, lights on every swing, full screen and half arena effects. The same but lesser for the player. One of the original visions of the souls series was a weak character having a trial by fire against a depressed world. Every aspect of the design was geared towards this, -movesets looked like if a random dude picked up a weapon and was guessing form wise. -bosses were often very former glory and often had sad backgrounds reflected in the fight -gear was kept simple, a lot of it had some kind of real world analogue Elden ring Definatley took a new direction but it’s a little jarring seeing your ‘lowly tarnished’ brandish a sword infused with death perform 3 front flips while singing and launching 2 big beams. Atleast to me the series was never about becoming infinitely powerful and all knowing, it was about struggle.

[@SoftSpokenShawn]

The DLC just carries over the same problems from the base game. If you level accordingly, you're railroading 95% of enemies. To make sure you don't railroad the legacy bosses as well, they artificially inflate their health, defense, damage, AOE, speed, consecutive attacks, etc. It's not as fun because it's not the refined experience you got in previous titles.

[@soccernick50nickiannacone78]

Agree

[@Rastrelly]

Yeah, and there is no system to use to compensate for that health and damage buffs of the bosses, isn't it?

[@henryzweihander8282]

Aren't those aspects literally the knobs you have to tune difficulty? I'm not really understanding the complaint, that they used the tools available to tune the experience?

[@SoftSpokenShawn]

@@henryzweihander8282 It's not balanced, so it's not as fun. Not everyone shares my opinion, but 53 people liked my post, so this viewpoint is out there. Bosses from previous games were remembered with fondness. Most bosses in this game are remembered with dread or forgotten instantly. Why is that?

[@henryzweihander8282]

@@SoftSpokenShawn I'm not arguing that the bosses are specifically well tuned, but the aspects you mention are the majority of what you have to work with to achieve a desired result. The base game tweaks those sane knobs as did all the souls games before. So it feels odd to mention tuning with those aspects as if it's inherently a bad thing.

[@eternityfz]

If the people who uncritically accept absolutely anything that From puts out aren't willing to accept the very valid criticisms that are being made on a daily basis under the excuse of "git gud" they should at least listen to someone with over a 100 runs, including no hit runs.... right?...... right?

[@based-ys9um]

I've seen some get gud and skill issue comments, by people who definitely didn't solo the bosses. Let alone no hit run them 😂

[@thex6992]

​@@based-ys9umthey don't get the games anyway. It's not jzst about getting good, it's about the message they portray and the philosophical themes etc.

[@shevankaseneviratne1724]

They won't. They are in the comment section rn 😂

[@ethanhinojosa5274]

I'm not gonna listen to somebody that calls a Demi god with the body of a child a "sexy femboy". He just sounds jaded. The DLC is far from perfect but it's a great addition and it's damn fun

[@wiirawiira]

@@ethanhinojosa5274 I'm not gonna listen to somebody that complains about someone saying that

[@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERS]

You're one of the few people I've ever heard actually talk about the intendedness in how to dodge waterfowl, and yeah Radahn's triple slash is just an extension of the same problem. It's like in the language of their games, all of the ways to really avoid it are exploits, or just block it, which isn't really avoiding it and also build dependent, or simply run, which is probably the most intended thing, but that's also a bit stupid and doesn't always work either. Radahn's triple slash is so sloppy and amateurish, are they even trying anymore. The move that cuts s is the downward slash. It's supposed to cut s because the downslash can hit you while you're knocked up in the air, the problem is, if you stand on a rock or something, you become elevated, and it becomes impossible to roll through anymore. I'm glad I'm not just being gaslighted and someone recognizes that Messmer is by far the best designed fight in this DLC. He and to a lesser extent midra just make me wish for a boss rush.

[@poiumty]

You can download the Boss Resurrection mod if you're on PC and refight the bosses with no hassle. Of course, you can't subtract scadutree blessings.

[@axelnova123]

@@poiumty This is a feature that already exists in sekiro without the introduction of any mods, the fact that it is completely absent from elden ring is baffling to me. People shouldn't be forced to install mods to play a game mode that they have already successfully implemented in previous entries.

[@Nudderbols]

I would love to hear an interview from Miyazaki of him saying "Yeah I rolled waterfowl no problem. It was easy." It honestly feels like the intended way to deal with it is just eat some damage and hope you survive. I doubt the playtesters found out how to dodge waterfowl.

[@inxe8]

@@Nudderbols To force the player to adapt into a build that can survive taking an overpowered hit is a legit answer though; Elden ring is full of things that reduce damage taken, isn't making such elements irrelevant for boss encounters even more sloppy? Fundamental issue I see in a lot of amateur criticism pieces like this is the way that they fail to understand that a developer's vision has to be somewhat pluralistic whereas a reviewer/player's perspective is typically singular in a perspective sense. As soon as a critic starts saying "the game is intended to be played x way" in the context of a RPG title where the system offers multiple approaches, I know they simply don't get the designer's perspective.

[@Nudderbols]

@@inxe8 There's an intended window to play the game. That window is somewhere in between bosses having undodgeable attacks and using a bleed build with flame grant me strength to kill everything in 15 seconds. Neither side of the spectrum is fun. Somewhere in the middle is.

[@fermyonds]

The reason Torrent was never unphased by anything we went through in the base game is because he's just a spirit -- he doesn't really "die" per se. He was afraid of the Madness Forest because the Flame of Frenzy can kill spirits, hence why he didn't want to be summoned I still think it's bullshit though. You can see in the trailer Torrent riding towards Midra's Manse. They definitely cut a bunch of content which is a shame

[@Idontevenknowman779]

Then why isn’t he scared of Eye of Saulron?

[@peevan]

@@Idontevenknowman779 probably because it was a bunch of villager trash mob bums that were summoning it.

[@fermyonds]

@@Idontevenknowman779 As the other person commented it, it's most likely a much much weaker version of the flame. Midra is a Lord, and if the power scaling is the same as ours in that ending, he would be capable of burning away all forms of life

[@apolloisnotashirt]

@@Idontevenknowman779 the Abyssal Forest is quite literally tainted by Frenzy. But sadly its a disappointment, there were only 3 winterlanterns over all and mostly a vast empty landscape full of sheep, rats, and worshippers. And thats it, I really expected a crap ton of the winterlanterns, and maybe the water inflicting frenzy because Shabriri and the Frenzied eyes are actually an inspiration from the real life disease that causes one to go blind after bathing in an infected river. Its also inspired by a jewish demon, Shabriri, the demon of blindness.

[@MillwLeo]

I think its just the Flame of Frenzy or the Woods has some supernature shit that mess with people mind or animals are actually more vulnerable to madness like those rats ... yea it still sounds bullshit

[@ambymike]

Some of the quest made no sense either. It just felt like homework, and the quests don't branch out or have any versatility what so ever. Example: When Leda asks you who we should eliminate, we either suggest Thiollier, Hornsent, or say I don't know. I find it kind of pathetic that it doesn't matter at ALL what you choose, because it's going to result in the same way.. Leda going after the Hornsent. I was really hoping there was a way to CONVINCE Leda, or shift her focus towards Thiollier/St. Trina after we tell her St. Trina's words. I think that would've open up a WHOLE new opportunity or change in narrative to story if Leda were to take no risks, and kill St. Trina or something.

[@Phot0n0]

I mean after you talk to her and make a choice you can chose whether to be summoned to aid Leda or be summoned to help the person she's trying to kill (whoever you chose at the time). She chooses hornsent if you fight messmer before making a choice iirc. Outcome being that it can change who appears in the battle with Leda and her allies.

[@gf8762]

@@Phot0n0she always chooses hornset, if you help Hornsent she sometimes* goes after ansbach. She doesn’t care about any of the choices you make outside of help her kill or don’t help her kill. If you kill her in the invasions it accomplishes nothing in the narrative, she’s still there at the gank fight unphasedby what you’ve done previous. Which is weak, and a change of pace in the fromsoft quest design that works poorly.

[@SecretMarsupial]

It changes the quest rewards depending on other factors so saying it doesnt matter isnt real.

[@gf8762]

@@SecretMarsupial crestfallen knight does a complete character 180 off of player choices, solaire can go hollow or replace Gwyn, Anri can become your spouse in DS3 or just another casualty. Millicent either dies and fulfills Gowrys wishes if the player kills her, or dies on her own terms as her own person. Yes if you kill Leda with hornset you get swift slash AOW. Fantastic besides that the choice is meaningless, you summon hornset for mesmar and the voice actors has a bit of fun, but you still have to kill hornset and nothing else changes. Compared to the quest lines we used to get this shit is garbage. Virtually every quest line in the DLC feels like this. I’ll give shout outs to thiolier and Yimir/Jolan at the very least.

[@_CrimsonBlade]

Fromsoft couldn’t write a decent side quest if their entire company depended on it

[@Trimondius]

When I first saw the Radahn fight,I was like,whens my turn to attack?

[@Coeaxe]

probably during his punish windows (he has many)

[@BigVorst]

Beat him twice and I still feel the same way.

[@jador9641]

​​@@Coeaxe Welp, unless you're actually willing to inevitably trade an hit or two with him, then yeah he has plenty of openings to get him with an heavy weapon. It's a true shame tho that the little "trading" you're getting into will most likely result in a mosquito bite for Radahn and a good 65% of damage dealt to you, and all of this with the physical negation flask, talismans and the armor set of Moore. Even worse if you're a spellcaster build, as he has been specifically designed to nullify ranged builds lmao

[@matyasselmek3673]

@@jador9641 I had to basically respec for Radahn, he fucked me up real good, he has even crazy AI that basically ignores any spirit ashes, even mimic with the aggro talisman couldn't hold him for more then 5 seconds, he instantly aggros on you even if you dont attack him, bear in mind I just wanted mimic there to only keep his attention to apply my buffs, nope didnt work. And people say that spellcaster builds are OP, idk what are people smoking but spells suck dick in DLC, and especially the ones you find in the DLC, most new spells take too long to cast and dont do enough damage, the timing windows of even charging some spells like comet or night comet is too long for some DLC bosses, since by the time you cast your charged spell you're already at 30% bcs surprise surprise the boss you're fighting was fed crack cocaine and wont even let you breath. I've beaten him with frost bleed build in 60 seconds while resetting frostbite with fire damage and it was super frustrating to be honest not being able to play the game my way and being forced out of my certain playstyle I cant even fucking imagine the pain trying to fight him with collosal weapons, fuck me honestly.

[@skoop4477]

@@jador9641a lack of punish windows is like the least of problems for radahn, he has a lot of punish windows.

[@amilcarcampbell2405]

The Radahn fight is an example of a developer trying as hard as they can to make a boss "uncheeseable." They added so much weird cheesy stuff (in terms of souls-like mecahnics) that you can obtain and use in these fights. I just dont understand why they seem to have gotten so angry at people using the games mechanics as they're presented. Everything from his reach to his moveset to his behvavior screams, "You must play this how WE want you to." Artificial difficulty in games has been a problem for a while now, but this fight shows the pinnacle of it.

[@kylew7180]

You can literally Parry 90% of what Radahn does. You can also cheese him right back with a shield.

[@amilcarcampbell2405]

@@kylew7180 So because you can do a very limited way of "ignoring" his mehcanics he's not SUPPOSED to be an uncheesable boss? Standing there and building a characters specifically so you can take all his hits with a shield is hardly cheese. How is parrying cheesing? You have to do it 3 times to get the stagger and hit. Its a skill shot. Most builds will not be able to just ignore shit with his fight.

[@jador9641]

​​@@kylew7180 I'm not going to lie, the fact that most of these FS hardcore fanboys hardly knows what does the terminology "Role Play Game" even means is lowkey discouraging. It's just beyond sad to see people defending with both claws and fangs such a disgusting boss design like The Promised Simp which have been blatantly studied to literally nullify the "Role play" component in this game for the sake of "Challenge over fun".

[@AscendantStoic]

@amilcarcampbell2405 Absolutely not true, every single person I have seen beat Radahn has beaten them in a different way using completely different builds and gear.

[@AscendantStoic]

@@jador9641 Stop talking out of your ass please.

[@danield.1605]

The white elephant is the gameplay, but you also touched a point not many comment and it is the lack of storytelling and build up for these remembrance bosses. Only Messmer, Miquella and Bayle get this treatment. The rest are just flashy but random encounters. Almost not cutscenes, no dialogue, no one that tells their deeds, and almost no items that bring lore beyond their remembrance rewards. What happened? Couldn't they make Miquella's followers to at least give info about any of the other remembrance bosses?

[@joaoluizkfsantos8392]

I'd argue Dancing Lion and Midra also have proper buildup/lore. Those also happen to be the other 2 fights with cutscenes Metyr IMO is almost there, since the questline serves as decent build up. The rest are honestly more akin to mini bosses

[@danield.1605]

@@joaoluizkfsantos8392 Well, I would concede the Dancing Lion. Besides the cutscene, there is a single NPC that talks about them (although I completly missed her in my playthrough). Midra on the other hand only has the cutscene and the torch to give some lore before the fight (or so I think). For such a cool boss, I think he needed NPCs' dialogue, more items or something else to make him known before actually facing him.

[@joaoluizkfsantos8392]

@@danield.1605 for the lion, I mostly like how it's part of hornsent culture. It's this "divine" spirit that possessed 2 warriors specifically trained for this. It was a festival/religion thingy before being turned to a weapon. The other horned warriors, curseblades and divine warriors are all part of this cultural identity that elevates the fight to me. Midra admittedly piggybacks a lot on the frenzied flame lore of the base game. But I did enjoy what little he has. With the torch implying that he was manipulated into this position by Nanaya, and the absurd amount of hornsent inquisitors showing how much they feared the flame (and I just love that cutscene and overall aesthetics, definitely biased)

[@tevenpowell8023]

That's not really unique to the DLC. A decent chunk of remembrance bosses in the base game have no cutscenes or build up. Base game has: Ancestor Spirit, Astel, Fortisaxx, Plasidusax, and Fire Giant. And the DLC has: Rellana, Gaius, Romina, Scadu Avatar, and Putrecent Knight. So they're dead even.

[@murunbuchstanzangur]

​@joaoluizkfsantos8392 yeah, it's not all about cutscenes and item descriptions. The environment tells the story. Just the mansion... The paintings showing a happy man and his wife. The rows on rows of bookshelves. The books mouldering onthe floor in knee deep piles. The atmosphere of sickness and decline. The jaundiced light. The row of decapitated servants.

[@teflonbird]

This whole video encompasses my entire feelings for the DLC. The DLC felt like wasted potential all the way through. Everywhere I've explored ended up with me asking if that's it. The finger ruins was my biggest disappointment. A giant spot on the map, but it's only there to look pretty since there's only 1 thing in the middle. The questlines were complete barebones. The boss lore was nearly non existent. The bosses themselves were terrible except Messmer and Midra. Everything felt completely sudden too. The introduction to Messmer's fight felt right of left field. I didn't even know I was about to fight him, and I also thought he was the final boss, so it just didn't feel right. The DLC also just ends abruptly after the cutscene. It felt like a joke. The worst part though is how the DLC has next to no tie in to the base game. No continuations to unfinished stories, Miquella's needle doesn't do anything in the DLC even though it says it's unfinished and can prevent someone becoming a lord of frenzy flame like Midra, and hell, I don't think any NPC in the base game mentions anything about the land of shadow or your actions there. I would've expected Gideon to be completely enthralled by you finding the land of shadow and Miquella. Melina also would've had something to say about Messmer and Marika's home too. I honestly felt like I wasted $40 for a fan mod.

[@gamester1440]

Bro check my comment I said the SAME THING! I couldn’t believe I walked into Messmer’s room. You would’ve thought he would be sitting underneath the scadutree with armed forces and 62 configurations stopping you. I thought this man would blow the roof off the castle and transform into a dragon for a 3rd phase or fully turn into a serpent and instead they gave him 2 extra incantations and no extra health or status effects UGHHHH! The man can resurrect the dead, cure poison, create weapons and spirits from thin air and basically has two distinct powers one of which he had never even unleashed before and he can’t get so much as a proper send off or a decent amount of exposition from the side characters. And what’s the point of having St Trina, Melina and Miquella beefing with the frenzy flame if no one was going to care that I showed up post lord of frenzy flame ending with my dumbass Vyke war spear looking like a GOOF!

[@gamester1440]

Miquella is almost ditzy in his boss fight, ALOOF! Radagon is practically dead (or actually dead when you fight him) so we get why he has no personality but outside of this DLC what base Demi-God or outer God do you see get treated like this? In the base game 17 characters will talk your ear off just speculating about what a Demi gods jock strap smells like after a battle. But in this game where I’m meeting someone who’s as strong as I SHOULD BE… had the game allowed us to go in as the lords that we already are and I get 3 lines of dialogue from Miquella, Radahn doesn’t speak, Mohg obviously doesn’t speak but yes let’s remember that we technically fought and wasted the potential of THREE Demi gods at the same time. Shout out to Godwyn and Midra for staying a consistent disappointment as well. Hell BAYLE had more buildup than those two combined. You know why? Cause I had to scale a GODDAMN MOUNTAIN just to get to him! It didn’t feel like an accident or random when I met him, it felt like I was about to go fight Godzilla with Bayle even having his number one hater in my ear hyping up my accomplishment. Outside of Ansbach, St. Trina, and Freyja where were these interactions??? What’s the excuse? Where are the random merchants hiding in libraries. Everyone just dies after 3 conversations

[@fernandofaria2872]

From's obsession in designing every boss around spamming dodge rolls makes build variety matter less and less. And that is just boring.

[@ChiefLeef]

??? It's the literal opposite - the moves are meant to catch panic roll defaulters so you actually have to learn the timings of the dodge. See this is primarily why I think so many people are crying in the short term as they havent even learned the bosses yet - like every other souls game it starts with people complaining how bad the bosses/lore are, and give it a few months to a year and it will eventually settle with general appreciation. 5 stages of grief

[@fernandofaria2872]

@@ChiefLeef My point was that their design philosophy has been getting stale for a while now, not that you're *supposed to spam* dodge rolls, dude. There are MANY other ways to design bosses, but FromSoftware just *refuses* to change. EVERY fight is the same mechanic: long combos and delayed attacks; memorize when to them, and that's it. I find it amusing that everytime someone writes a comment criticizing FromSoftware, there is a fanboy on the other side reading it, absolutely _salivating_ with the prospect of responding with some variant of the ol' "git gud" adage. Well, I don't have to, since i've already soloed the last boss (twice - heck, i actually enjoyed the game), yet my opinion didn't change: we need something new, it's been obvious for a while that Miyazaki is running out of tricks 🙄

[@lc1429]

@@fernandofaria2872 I agree, sometimes when I'm fighting bosses and look at their moves I'm like damn that's cool wish I could do that, but then I realise anytime you try anything different from the roll, attack, roll pattern you get punished

[@squiggles9612]

​@@fernandofaria2872you dont have to roll every attack, you can strafe them, jump over them, duck underneath them with the recovery of a jump attack, space them out etc. If you're strictly only rolling against bosses you're limiting yourself, like as if you were to do a no prosthetics run of sekiro

[@fernandofaria2872]

@@squiggles9612 Please carefully read my reply above.

[@Smabbott]

I love the fact that after rubbing out the map and just leaving Messmer and Bayle it resembled a snake. Definitely unintentional. But an awesome coincidence.

[@anthonypedraza3017]

There's some theories about how the God of the Hornsent was some sort of serpent. They're mostly based on the skin Marika pulls the golden threads from in the trailer looking (according to some) like a snake's head, along with the shed skin in the forest next to Bonny Village.

[@HHTwice]

@@anthonypedraza3017lol the entirety of the writing in this game is a “theory” 😂 this way of story telling is so fucking lazy by now, “we’ll just let the players come up with whatever bullshit headcanon and call it a day” lol

[@anthonypedraza3017]

@HHTwice A theory, huh? You do realize there's a very clear storyline and timeline of events with only a bit of vagueness for the sake of mystery, right? The story is only nonsensical because people like you refuse to use your eyes and either engage with the environmental storytelling or read. Forget lore videos, the story of Elden Ring is simple: Long ago the Greater Will came to the world and either seeded life upon it or simply uplifted the natives by granting them intelligence. Many Outer Gods vied for control of the world but in the end the Greater Will won. It desires order, civilization and structure, regardless of its specifics. The dragons were either it's first or one of it's earliest chosen people, followed by humanity. Marika became mankind's God after she communed with the Greater Will atop of the Bellurat Tower and then began launching holy war after holy war in an attempt to purge anyone who had wronged her, opposed her or could be a potential threat in the future. On the now empty slate she built her own civilization where Death and Rot were outlawed, creating an odd world where living creatures adapted to eternal life. Humans who grew old or whose bodies were too damaged to function were fed to the Erdtree, the living embodiment of Marika's Golden Order whilst animals and even dung, which never rots in the Lands Between is either left where it falls or is eaten by others. Like the Greater Will, Marika was now a God, but one suborned to the former. And like the Greater Will, she needed an agent to carry out her own will. She took Godfrey as her first husband and Elden Lord and after he killed the last of her enemies she exiled him. She'd either never trusted the Greater Will to begin with, had slowly begun to realize she was expendable or she found out that the Greater Will actually wasn't even communicating with them anymore through Metyr. When Ranni, chafing under the stifling control of Marika and the Two Fingers enacted the Night of Black Knives and killed Godwyn the Golden, Marika snapped. Whether she did it as part of some twisted master plan to free herself of the Greater Will's control, out of grief for losing her favorite child, or both, Marika shattered the Elden Ring and began the Shattering, an apocalyptic civil war. Whether she'd planned for her following punishment and crucifixion is unknown, but when the Game starts the player is one of Godfrey's exiled clan, (many of whom she raised from the dead) a Tarnished that Marika banished just so she could have a trump card in case she ever needed a literal army's worth of muscle. You then go through the Lands Between and eventually make your way to her, and what happens next depends on what quests you did and which ending you picked. The story is simple AF. Everything else in it is just icing and extra detail on this game-shaped cake. It's a great and well-crafted narrative, you just don't get to see every last plot point because mystery keeps people hooked more than just telling them the answers to some of the more obscure lore.

[@zachtaylor5312]

@@anthonypedraza3017 Exactly. Some people read way too deep into some of this stuff like it's some huge mystery full of secrets to discover. Lore isn't story

[@atlantic_love]

"rubbing out the map"? I've never heard that before, lol. What does it mean?

[@Peek0.0]

The most disappointing part about the DLC is all the recycled enemies and bosses from base game. The new enemies are almost all reserved for legacy dungeons. In the overworld there are very few. A lot of reskins of enemies like red roaches, shadow dogs, etc., but those are just reskins, not new enemies. Huge areas with nothing in them comes close second, it just wasn't fun to explore. Blue flower area is just Limgrave, it even has a similar huge hole like the one after fighting Radahn. For a 40€ DLC I expected more DLC and way less base game.

[@yikso5549]

pretty sure the significance of midra’s boss room is it being the place he housed the three fingers before he went crazy. it’s why the bonfire is called “discussion chamber” or something like that

[@ricardolopes615]

@@yikso5549 a significant room that’s an empty barren uncharacterized rectangle? lol from bots love to reach with head canon

[@fartlordsmellytoe3690]

@@ricardolopes615 no need to name call

[@raiden3013]

@@ricardolopes615 isn’t that what the 3 fingers in the subteranen shunning ground also in when you find them?

[@rayzu4380]

@@raiden3013 Don't try to argue with them, they just call anything that isn't hating the game "being fanboys" even if you have personal problems with it, they aren't worth your time.

[@raiden3013]

@@rayzu4380fair enough. I’ve learned my lesson haha

[@21stcentury55]

I’m so glad someone talked about that terrible move from radahn

[@HeyTarnished]

Everyone and their mothers have talked about it, it is a terrible move that should be fixed.

[@joaoluizkfsantos8392]

It's the one complaint everyone, even the ppl who enjoyed the fight, can agree on

[@HeyTarnished]

@@joaoluizkfsantos8392 Yes! I enjoyed the fight so much, I think it’s one of FromSoft’s best bosses, just that the moveset felt like a Dark Souls 3 boss for the most part, roll roll swing, not much positioning, no spacing, you can’t punish in the middle of most attack strings like how you could do with Margit/Morgott/Maliketh/Godfrey/Malenia/Radagon, those bosses had plenty of punish windows that can be extracted, also Radahn, just requires too much perfection of roll directions which is fair but not the best for me as a boss design philosophy, he also has combos that he does without recovery animations which is weird, you have to wait for ANOTHER combo just so you can have a real window to get your hit in. Still, it’ll be an S-tier boss for me IF FromSoft fixed the hitboxes, that almost unavoidable attack, increase recovery animations of that one combo & degrade the AOE effects, the music, spectacle, the big attack animations & the arena are a 10/10 all-timer stuff. ❤️⭐️

[@joaoluizkfsantos8392]

@@HeyTarnished preach, I hold basically the same opinion

[@HeyTarnished]

@@joaoluizkfsantos8392 Thank you, rarely do I see people like you with understandable & constructive comments/opinions.

[@squintps]

I haven't finished SotE, but the thing that struck me the most was how empty the open world is. It's almost as if they decided to re-purpose the open world from a place of wondrous discoveries and treasures to a traversal puzzle, aka how do I get down from this cliff. I think though, Elden Ring has to be understood for what it was designed to be. Sekiro is about improving yourself as a player more than improving your in game character. DS3 is somewhere in the middle , you have to improve both yourself and the character. Elden Ring is on the opposite end of that, improving your in game character more than improving yourself. What matters most is what items you have, your rune level, your tools, your weapon upgrades, your spirit ashes, your scadutree frags. The game is about counteracting challenges by finding, equipping, and using the correct tools, not about git gud. That is also why you get a lot more respecs than you would Dark Souls. Trying to approach Elden Ring bosses with a Dark Souls mindset , looking for that "dance" with the bosses is setting yourself up for disapointment - as a huge fan of Sekiro, Bloodborne and the Souls series, I found that out the hard way.

[@peevan]

On your second point, I completely blame that as a fault of the open world design that Fromsoft tried to tackle and half failed on. The ebb and flow of progression you saw in the older games through mechanical improvement and knowledge checks could be entirely bypass by an much more easily accesible stat check (with the exception of a few bosses) compared to the previous titles. That completely dilutes the content for me personally and I hope that in the future they do not attempt open world again, if they do then I hope they at least learned from the failures of Elden Ring which I find to be less likely now due to how they handled DLC content.

[@pringle239]

On the first point I gotta say you are objectively wrong, if you got past he first open field the world is far more dense than the base game

[@Yive.]

it's fucking hilarious how empty some areas are. and some areas are just filled with base game bosses. and the best part is, if you criticise this miyazaki fanboys will call you bad at exploring

[@pringle239]

@@Yive. I can think of 1, the part of the cerulean coast with the semi human queen. Please name another?

[@Yive.]

@@pringle239 hinterland just has 2 tree sentinels and a falling star beast, the red area just has a deathbirrd and tibia mariner,finger places have literaklly nothing lmao, same goes for the abyssal woods. they force you off torrent and force you to walk through an empty area with copy pasted rats from the base game to get to a good boss

[@spiznasty]

The one thing I never thought would happen in a FROM game happened while fighting Radahn. I felt bored. It has never happened during any of their other previous games, or even when I was going for the plat in the base game, but holy hell when I made it to the end I just felt burnt out and couldn't continue.

[@chandler_martian]

I thought Malenia was an outlier, and they would make bosses that resembled something more fair like DS3 to show they can make tight, excellently paced bosses. Turns out they doubled down on Malenia level bullshit and most bosses felt more relieving to defeat instead of actually enjoying the experience.

[@spiznasty]

@@chandler_martianlooking back I don’t mind Malenia much, but I think she would’ve been more of a blast to play against in sekiro. In this dlc I wasn’t even banging my head against the wall with radahn for long, I was just over it and felt bored fighting him. Meanwhile is DS3 I would actively join co-op just to replay bosses over and over again that were so much fun to fight

[@chandler_martian]

@@spiznasty Overall yes I agree Malenia would mostly be fine besides Waterfowl. It makes sense knowing that Sekiro and Elden Ring were being made in the same period of time. It’s a shame they couldn’t borrow more from what Sekiro innovated on and ended up with what felt like Dark Souls but not nearly as tight as anything from DS3.

[@spiznasty]

@@chandler_martian sekiro has the best combat I’ve ever played in a soulslike that even if they never make a sequel to it I hope they use the deflection system in another game. It’s just too good to shelve after 1 game

[@chandler_martian]

@@spiznasty True that gameplay is so satisfying and I hope they continue innovating on that. I could see them doing a Sekiro sequel or something similar. I mean people forget it won GOTY in 2019. It’s beloved and there’s still plenty of that world to explore.

[@banuner_]

I think the problem lies in the fact that Fromsoft really wants these insane spectacle bossfights that are crazy hard but we as the players dont really have the tools to deal with all the spam and 20 hit combos. In Sekiro when a boss does a massive string of attacks it was a good thing (if you were good) because that was your way to massively build up their posture bar. Now obviously Elden Ring has tons of ways to make things easier. There are summons, cheesey builds etc. but I would argue if the players feel the need to cheese these bosses or use their overpowered summons then thats probably not the best design? Elden Ring feels like its trying so hard to be hard but they forgot that in order for it to be enjoyable it also needs to be fair and right now with the controls we have it just is not fair. The bosses can fly all over the arena and do 20 hit combos and all we have as a reliable answer is dodge roll?

[@Yharims]

Gael and Midir prove you can have spectacle without sacrificing gameplay, guess they just, forgot how to design bosses?

[@banuner_]

@@Yharims exactly man. I dont know how they regressed so hard on bossfights. Even Lies of P has really good boss fights and that was that developers first attempt at a souls game lol

[@Stanzbey69]

@@Yharims midir is nothing more than a boring endurance fight once you know his moves. Bayle offers something more

[@ConfusedWeeb]

I absolutely love the aesthetic of the Abyssal Woods, so seeing the area so utterly wasted just makes me really sad.

[@ApemanFromSpace]

The new DLC weapons are on pre patch 1.7, you can see this in their poise damages and hit-stun values for pvp, which leads me to believe there are even more oversights and rushed parts in this DLC and as it is now is not what they set out to make. Also before the DLC released for the public, Radahns frametrap full combo'd into the cross swing, just thought I'd let you know that.

[@redline841]

The schizo voices in my head tell me that all the fixes that patched out Bandai's other big game: Tekken 8 got transferred over to Elden Ring's DLC.

[@introverteddawg9805]

As much as i loved the DLC, something felt off from the minute i finished Belurat. I couldnt put my finger on what it quite was, until a very specific instance where i killed a bunch of imps in a room in a catacomb, which looked heavily guarded. Turns out the item they were guarding was a Somber Smithing Stone 2. One other place where things felt really off was Abyssal Woods. Way too empty. The fear that the atmosphere tried to induce fell flat the moment you realized the woods were empty with one repetitive enemy type. Assassins Approach trivialized the whole thing. I really have no compains with the bosses. The level design is DS1 levels of good, but the rewards undermined everything significantly. I felt the sense that they tried to mesh DS1 within Elden Ring, but were forced to artifically increase the map size to cater to expectations from the success of the previous open world.

[@apolloisnotashirt]

We had the literal exact same experience man. I was loving the DLC but always had that lingering feeling that something was off. I thought Rellana's fight was fun, but realized mostly because she showed me a spectacle at the end. Have I also been charmed by Miquella that I couldn't see the inherent flaws of the DLC? Where's Melina? Or Godwyn?

[@chopsandtoots]

Someone said they felt like the DLC was AI generated and while that's a bit of an extreme description, the DLC just felt like it lacked heart and they tried to cram as much random things in the DLC as they could. They could have shrunk/cut a lot of the areas and focused more on other things, idk.

[@introverteddawg9805]

@@chopsandtoots I think a lot of it was because they tried to merge multiple themes in a single experience. 2 fleshed out DLCs covering what we got + Godwyn, and areas with more thought out rewards and a meaningful open world would have been a better experience. Maybe 1 themed on Marika's past / Messmer and 1 themed on Miquella ascension to Godhood. The Jagged Peak, Finger ruins and Abyssal Woods are basically map fillers within the current context of the story. They could've been split into the 2 dlcs arbitrarily really.

[@KoolDrip]

The DLC is great but the itemization sucks! Why is there like no loot or even bosses in the far corners of the “fingers” section ? Makes NO sense that they could not drop like 5 items in each section that includes spells and some weps !

[@Hugroroth]

I won't argue on the fact that some exploration zones are empty, but having a bunch of mobs guarding mushrooms or lvl 1 stones are littering the base game

[@heyguyslolGAMING]

This man needs a friend, one that will give him a hug during these dark times.

[@yimwee2401]

I just want a sekiro 2

[@atlantic_love]

Sekiro is one of the most boring, drab and bland games I've played in 47 years of video gaming.

[@mohams151]

@@atlantic_loveYour rage is felt through your comment

[@sushantheshreztha8777]

@@atlantic_love Bro became an actual filthy casual! but hey its just a opinion!

[@r68saga31]

@@atlantic_lovein sekiro you actually have to get good. That’s why you can’t make your own character. You’re experiencing someone else’s story and they have a specific way of doing things.

[@atlantic_love]

@@r68saga31 I didn't say anything about the character creation. Read it again.

[@Lindokuhle19988Zulu]

How you feel about this DLC is how I felt about Elden Ring itself.

[@ennayanne]

yeah I was really confused by the intro to this video, like how do you love this game so much these problems are loaded throughout the base game

[@balaclavakid3905]

​@@ennayanne I really liked the base game, but was hoping the dlc would improve on its flaws. Instead, I feel like they're worse

[@melomet3789]

Skill issue

[@Lindokuhle19988Zulu]

@@melomet3789 I've forgotten more games than you've ever played. Relax.

[@jador9641]

​@@melomet3789Found the brainless drone guys

[@LiminalYuro]

It’s okay I know In two years “Why shadow of the erdtree is underrated” “Shadow of the erdtree is a masterpiece” “Deep depth dive on why shadow of the erdtree is perfect” Will all be video titles flooding my feed soon😂

[@ElizabethSalva-zr8hz]

And you will watch all of those hour-long analysis videos like a good little NPC

[@lucianknowles336]

Most will autoplay when i shower, shit, shave and get ready to go, or play whilst I nap. I can watch anything for 5 min and these kinds of videos, hours long, will always play. Like salt factory videos....always playing.​@@ElizabethSalva-zr8hz

[@rottensausages1289]

Well, if the next FromSoft game is worse than this dlc, of course we'll say that this dlc was better, but just because is less worse than the bad game they'll give us in the future

[@Horsthunder]

@@rottensausages1289 Eh, I mean. I get not enjoying modern FromSoft games. But most of the criticism leveled in this video is nothing specific to the DLC. All the same criticism can be leveled at the base game itself. If the DLC is trash on the basis of it, so is the base game

[@pawly537]

​@@Horsthunder because it is

[@Senorcookies486]

If they gave the dlc boss arenas any personality then there would be too much terrain/architecture getting in the way of the boss’ spinny bs aoe moves lol 10/10 design, working as intended

[@_CrimsonBlade]

Just look at the fire giant and it’s trash map

[@Senorcookies486]

@@_CrimsonBlade oddly enough I’m fine with that boss and its arena, his speed and attack patterns are consistent with his size and they give you enough room to attack and retreat without the camera getting in your way

[@bongwaterbojack]

I've been saying so many of these exact same things regarding the fights, and it's always dismissed with "skill issue." I'm not good enough to no-hit the game, but I can confidently say I'm an above average player. So it's nice to hear these criticisms be brought up by someone at your level.

[@joevaghn457]

Some people are no-hit running these bosses.

[@bongwaterbojack]

@joevaghn457 There's also people speedrunning the base game in under 15 minutes. Does that mean the game is too short?

[@Thirteen13551355]

It means that everyone has a limit. Now, this guy's limit has been reached, so he needs to complain about the game being "flawed." Just like people did with Maliketh. Going for the most practical way to win is natural for all bosses in every game made, unless people want to impose limitations upon themselves. Suddenly, it's a problem that such a "most practical way" exists.

[@bongwaterbojack]

@Thirteen13551355 What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

[@movieman6456]

Promised Consort is the result of us praising FromSoft from leaving the roots of Demon’s Souls and pursuing spectacle. It was inevitable.

[@leeroy2752]

These days bosses are praised and known mostly for being hard. In demon souls bosses were known for their uniqueness and thought provocation.

[@sasaki999pro]

As an old souls vet, I miss the days when From tried to make unique encounters out of every boss fight, and I feel like I've been chased out of my own community by a new generation of thrill seekers who just want more generic spectacle and shark jumps I missed the days when the final boss was a complete anti climax making you reflect on why you climbed the top of the mountain in the first place. I miss the days when the arena was just as much a factor in the boss fight as much as the boss itself, now everything is just generic flat featureless arena's with the occasion drop off edges that serve only as a hazard for the player I miss the days when a beast didnt get an anime style desperation power up when on the brink of death, and instead limped towards you making you realize the tragedy behind your actions I miss the days when you would walk through a boss fog and the boss would just passively ask you to leave instead of rushing you down with some inexplicable violent bloodlust for anything and everything that moves. I miss the days when Fromsoft was genuinely innovative with their online systems, instead of sanding them down to a level of self parody. I miss the days when every action felt deliberate, when a bad dodge roll gave you time to really soak in the mistake you just made, instead of being bombarded with so much stimulus that you'd have to analyze a frame by frame play back just to figure out what the hell you did wrong. And I hate the fact that as someone who DID enjoy bloodborne I still never asked for its design philosophy to bleed into literally EVERY game going forward. That this design mentality has been over served for nearly ten years while the other has been left to starve, yeah its easy to say "You can still enjoy the old games" when you are the one with a feast on your table and the rest of us are wallowing in famine.

[@MakioGoHardio]

Radahn is the most embarrassing case of difficulty over fun. I’ve no hit the boss multiple times, and he’s definitively trash imo. 3 swing frame trap that no average player or even advanced player will figure out how to dodge without a guide. The most egregious thing about him is his second phase which blinds you with a visual diarrhea light show and constant AOE’s that do massive damage. The shadow clones are just so bad, they could’ve just made the telegraphing clear but instead we get visual diarrhea. He also actively punishes slow weapon users, he has 120 poise health and regens it as fast as Malania which is 6 seconds and he has no mid combo openings for colossals so you can’t reset his poise health , so good luck trying to break his poise with a colossal without hit trading. He also constantly flies away regenerating his entire poise bar, he also has his annoying roar attack that slows down the pace of combat to crawl when you roll it he just starts edge walking resetting his entire poise bar. Fighting Radahn with a colossal weapon is fkn miserable, he feels like he was only tuned for fast weapons which is bad design.

[@LJAndrews1986]

Sasaki is preaching facts, can totally relate on every point. Yet we get called gatekeepers or dissed for saying it. When anything goes mainstream it gets ruined.

[@feebleking21]

@@sasaki999pro "I feel like I've been chased out of my own community" is exactly how I feel. What happened to hard but fair being a selling point?

[@kokiriforistima]

The AC6 slander isn't really justified. Armored Core games have always been pretty simple and straightforward, and the gameplay is more fun and coherent than what you find in SoTE. I think the issue with SoTE is that too much was cut, and what was left wasn't fleshed out and refined enough, which might just come down to a time/money thing, plus the expansion of the team creating a dip in quality.

[@petercottantail7850]

i agree with you, but as an armored core player at heart I can see how the way it was advertised to the fromsoft community and how it actually played were pretty different leaving a lot disappointes. i know people who stopped playing before they got to baltaus cause they were bored but were super excited to play it when it was advertised.

[@joevaghn457]

It was beyond uncalled for lol

[@KyngD469]

I feel like Elden Ring is too big and too unfocused. The rabbit hole that is the frenzy status effect, insight changing game mechanics all the way to the 2nd half of Bloodborne, the emergence of winter lanterns, hidden areas it's secret bosses, chalice dungeons and DLC have so much more depth to it than Elden Ring. Because Elden Ring has like a million things you can look into but it all stops short. Gloam-eyed Queen Godwynn The Shattering Radagon's roots Frenzied Flame roots how the TEMU winter lanterns came to be Difference between Messmer's fire and Fell God's fire Melina What did Morgott think of Miquella The list goes on forever But it doesnt get deep. Ive seen videos of people yapping about the implications of a single chalice dungeon in Bloodborne because of the designs on the walls for like 2-3 hours. And it reads like a fun audio book while you play and immerse yourself in it. What am I supposed to immerse myself into in Elden Ring? Catacombs? With Death roots that lead to Godwynn's body that has a bunch of missing lore? All the catacombs are the same, what are the implications between them all. Oh some of them have death roots because the tree has roots. That's it. Wide as an ocean deep as a puddle. Go back to tight, linear well crafted stories.

[@nostalgicactuator8448]

This is unrelated to your review save for at the end, but I do think your view on Armored Core is pretty ridiculous. The franchise overall is really fun, and 6 is amazing (despite some issues with the multiplayer, but if anything those issues arose due to various Souls mechanics being implemented into the game). I'm unsure if you've beaten it or not, but if you haven't I recommend playing through it. It's a genuinely amazing game with plenty of great weapons and AC parts to try, and although it offers a very different experience when compared to Elden Ring, I would not agree that it is a "B-team" game in the sense of quality. Cheaper to make compared to ER's gargantuan map size, perhaps, but certainly not B-team in terms of quality. In fact, there are various aspects of the game that I actually PREFER when compared to Elden Ring. Just a nitpick on that last tangent, I'm not sure if I agree with your overall review as I'm still thinking on the DLC myself, but I do think you do AC a disservice here and at the very least it'd be nice to hear your thoughts on it (especially if you really did just buy it as a show of support and have yet to play it).

[@perreaml9909]

imo AC6 was a more complete and polished experience than both Elden Ring and SOTE. All the bosses were great and the NG+ additions gave the game replay value like no other Fromsoft game.

[@AnimeGIFfy]

i remember being so flabbergasted when i first fought radahn in the dlc. it was hard to put in words how bad the fight is. but you put it nicely. whole fight is just meta build time, be it completely naked light weight ash of war stuff, or just full heavy greatshield. same thoughts with madness woods. i was so confused why that whole area even exists, its just empty.

[@Stanzbey69]

If you need that for radahn, it’s a skill issue.

[@grrrr255]

​@@Stanzbey69 actually it's a "fun design" issue

[@Slavic_Snake]

​@@Stanzbey69the fact you can even beat radahn with shitty brainless tactics like that shows the game requires 0 fucking skill, and that's the problem. Elden ring doesn't reward having skill, it rewards having no skill

[@caramelfrappe402]

@@Stanzbey69 I can tell you haven't even fought Radahn to say those words. It's such an unfun boss fight, people either use a no skill build to kill him or do the most meta shit ever to cheese him. Legit fun builds don't work well against Radahn that's a huge problem.

[@La0bouchere]

About the question at the end, gameplay seems like it's designed by a B-team because From Software is B-tier when it comes to mechanical design. They are extremely good at creating cool worlds and spectacles, but their mechanical decisions have been very inconsistent since DeS. Also most of the problems you mention were problems in the main game. They've been trending towards normie sh*t from the start of DS3.

[@anthonyhertlein4629]

Idk most AC games (clunky of-the-time controls of the early titles aside) are pretty mechanically sound but I get what you're saying

[@Alter_Ego_V1.1037]

I'm so fucking done with From pulling in stuff I'd actually want but like a game later than they should. Deflecting hard tear, giving the fucking back step i-frames, just make these main mechanics. It's absolutely insane that the back step has remained USELESS for like 5 games and only NOW are they bothered to do anything about it. And maybe if we/they stop jerking off to the laser light show boss fights we can get a better experience as a whole. Might I also add armor set bonuses STILL don't make any sense because it's so arbitrary. Spellblade set gets full bonus for full set. Alberich's trousers don't count but the rest of it does, and only Ranni's hat counts, what the actual fuck.

[@skinnytimmy1]

Omg WHY DOESN'T THE BACKSTEP HAVE I-FRAMES?! It's FUCKING USELESS

[@RyanWilson-qy7kb]

Backstep isn't useless at all it has one use: to let the host know you're not in a menu any more and are ready to proceed with the boss.

[@Alter_Ego_V1.1037]

@@RyanWilson-qy7kb Fair point, I redact my statement entirely 🤣

[@danteangelo9412]

i see you have never played Dark souls 2 as in it backstepping did have plenty of i frames and was balanced option to use.

[@Slavic_Snake]

​@@danteangelo9412no one plays d2

[@gavincaldwell7420]

One of my main gripes is how open and barren some of these areas in the dlc are. I mean, the finger ruins serve one questline purpose. Otherwise, they are quite literally pointless. Also, dont get me started on the loot in this dlc. Why would anyone want a smithing stone 5 in an end-game late dlc area?

[@Crewkabanger]

Maybe someone would want to level up a different weapon to use against late area enemies and bosses and they need some 5’s

[@boshwa20]

​@@Crewkabanger Then find the appropriate bell and buy it off the finger maidens

[@Crewkabanger]

@@boshwa20 that’s an option I totally was unaware of. Thanks helper!! lol I find it so mindless that you’d comment that publicly. My point was to say if you’re in late dlc and re-evaluating your build or just curious to try something else a smithing 5 could come in handy.

[@Crewkabanger]

@@boshwa20 I never said that was your only option to level up. Hasty boi

[@axel198]

@@Crewkabanger I will say that the overabundance of the smithing stones in the DLC (get multiple from a single enemy) is quite nice. Go through a dungeon or forge or two, find a new weapon, and hey! You already have a bunch of upgrade materials for it so you can just pump your stones into it next time you go back to the roundtable. Sure, you can spend the runes on them too if you've got the bell bearings, but if you don't happen to have the bell bearings (and you can miss one or two of them if you're not careful) it's a nice alternative. Overall though saturating the world with smithing stones doesn't remove other, better loot from the game. There's a ton of more viable loot available even if it's kind of a letdown to get a smithing stone you've already got a bunch of. I went through the DLC on NG though, and not NG+, and my current NG+ run of the DLC is definitely a lesser experience since I've already got a ton of things upgraded to max. I figure anyone who went into it on NG+ would definitely have the issues you outline.

[@sechmet987]

I've got nothing substantial or constructive to say. But I'll admit that I deadass laughed at the line "Getting hypnotised by a sexy femboy? I can understand that." good on you sir, good on you

[@jaketinsley1987]

Same I laughed pretty good at that. Elden Ring is like the movie fight Club except the main characters are transsexuals

[@Niall001]

There are legitimate gripes raised in this video but other complaints just seem to be "they didn't make the game the way I wanted". Most players don't belong to the community of players who refuse to use summons and take the time to practice to the point where they can do no-hit runs. The game gives a lot to those people, but complaining that this tiny minority of players didn't get everything they want seems a bit much. Most people don't care if they can't finish Radhan without getting hit and not using summons. And of those who do, a significant portion don't care if they need to use an exploit or a particular move/talisman/weapon to do it. The number of people who care about this are probably dwarfed by the number of people who bought the game and got angry that they couldn't beat the first tree sentinel. But you wouldn't expect FS to adjust their vision to please that minority of players. The game is the game. It facilitates lots of playstyles but if your preferred playstyle is a challenge run, and it only facilitates that style 95% of the time, it's a bit much to start dumping on the developers. Just because you're disappointed doesn't mean that someone did you wrong.

[@heyguyslolGAMING]

The salt is strong w/ this one, lol. He's def going to need a good friend to help nurse him thru his 1st divorce.

[@thehotwindblowing]

On Radahn's -ignoring move: I think it's some kind of fuckery regarding framerate. For many attempts I gaslighted myself into thinking I was rolling at the wrong time until I took footage and went frame by frame until I could see clear as day that my char would still be halfway through a roll when the HP bar would take the hit. I think it may have something to do with the fact that normally being displaced or knocked down by a boss attack gives you temporary s but the first swipe is supposed to combo into the downslam so it checks to see if the first attack hit then ignores your s if so, but some spaghetti code lets it do that normally maybe. Weirdly enough, I had this issue when I was locking Elden Ring to 30fps and when I turned that off the attack worked as intended 100% of the time.

[@majobber]

It seems to be a problem they have with "juggling" attacks specifically. My understanding from what I've seen others say who've analysed the hitboxes is that the first half the first half of that swing has ignoring hitboxes. The first half of the swing ignores s it seems so that it can hit you out of the air when he "juggles" you.

[@Azure_Torrent]

My biggest issue with the Shadow of the Erdtree is what I believe to be the root of every problem with content, loot, weapons, boss design and perhaps the one of the few things Dark Souls 2 got right: Separate DLCs. Dark Souls 2 has three DLCs: Crown of the Ivory King, Crown of the Sunken King, and Crown of the Old Iron King. Each DLC has its own content with bosses and lore unique to the DLC while expanding upon the lore of Dark Souls, which is infinitely easier because Dark Souls is "ruined" unlike Elden Ring where the land is actively falling apart. Why I say this is because this DLC feels horrible because it is a jumbled mess in an attempt to get out as much content as possible so that they can move on to the next project. Shadow of the Erdtree was not about Miquella, nor Radahn, and not even Mohg. It was about Marika and just happened to involve Miquella, Radahn, and Mohg. The Land of Shadow is where Marika was born, where she grew up and her village was tortured and killed; it's where she was chosen as an empyrean- something that multiple god candidates can have, such as the old lady with the crucible and the gloam-eyed queen (or Ranni, Miquella, and Malenia)- and Marika won that battle for the throne. Using this, she countered by destroying everything about the crucible. She had Godfrey rebrand the crucible with his knights by making it seem like they were using their faith to create artificial animal limbs and could make the earth tremble- making omens, symbols of perfect societies and the crucible thriving- a terrible curse that must be destroyed. We see that Marika protects her village to this day, having her son and her technically-not-son's friend (Gaius) guard an entrance to what seems like a small furnace that was probably used to burn away whatever Marika had to get passed like we do. Marika's son, Messmer, is leading the crusade against the crucible and as such, everyone you see in the DLC is somebody effected by this... until you get to the point where the game reminds you that Miquella and Radahn are also here. At some point, the game will be like- "Remember that Miquella is here, dismembering himself for the greater good!" or "This guy grew up with Radahn!" despite the fact that regardless of whether or not Radagon and Marika are the same person, anyone of Carian lineage should hate them because Radagon not only broke up a family, but abandoned his wife for his other self and had the audacity to bring his children. The only person who properly responds to this is Ranni, who goes on a mission to never let gods bother mankind again because of it. Sure, that's not the full gist of it and I may have missed some parts. But Shadow of the Erdtree is about Marika, not about Godwyn, not about Miquella, or even Radahn. Another example: St. Trina is Miquella's other half. And the reason she's left in some chasm to die and why there is no addition of sleep spells, weapons, incantations, or the like, is because he abandoned her there to die and so whatever you find in there is it. Most bosses have such high sleep resistances that sleep doesn't matter, and eternal slumber is infinitely better, but it doesn't matter because nothing you fight that actually matters is truly affected by eternal slumber. We also find out that St. Trina is quite literally guiding people in death by soothing the body while the soul can rest. Putrescent Knight is what happens when a body without a soul is comforted by St. Trina, because a mass of flesh whose soul has most likely already been burned by ghost flame has no meaning, it hates it. But no, we get nothing expanding upon that at all. What would have been better to have multiple DLCs like: 1. "Shadow of the Erdtree" Where we learn of Marika's past as we do already in the current DLC. Expanding on her crusade with the crucible, leaving bosses such as Midra, Messmer, and Rellana. This also gives them an opportunity for larger and greater detailed areas, while also possibly adding another set of important bosses. 2. "Era of Compassion" Where we enter through Miquella's cocoon to an alternate world like the realm of shadow, but instead it's all about blood and faith- Miquella actively fighting off Mohg's advance while trying to ascend to godhood so that he can finally wake up. We could have an entire sleep area where St. Trina isn't an enemy, but rather we get to see why she was Miquella's other half, putting many incredibly aggressive enemies into eternal slumber so they can't fight us but also causing other enemies like the putrescent knight to exist. Meanwhile we get a bit more about Mohg and his motivations, not "he was charmed and a pawn," but rather "he was charmed and stronger than Miquella anticipated." 3. "Realm Beyond Time" Where we learn about dragons and the five fingers. Here we could get Bale and more dragon centric bosses and areas, perhaps even more aspects of the bestial lore with Maliketh and ancient deities or legacies of them like ghost flame. And just plenty of other ideas that don't necessarily need to land perse, but rather just go to show that so many of these stories are too big to be cramped into one DLC. The reason why it worked in the base game was because everybody was supposed to be converging in the lands between, everybody had their own factions in their own areas and these areas were exactly as we found them- Godrick and his lot were pathetic, Radahn's faction is fighting off scarlet rot, the Haligtree is dying but awaiting Miquella's return, Mohg and his people are seeking refuge in blood and killing tarnished, while Ranni and the carians are silently building strength. This all worked because the main premise was ascending to elden lord while helping or destroying these factions, while Shadow of the Erdtree just has all of these groups that don't get enough time to shine because they've only gotten increasingly more complex, not less. Elden Ring 2 or another DLC won't matter because they put the most important aspect of the game in the DLC, the divine gate. Apparently, people can just ascend to godhood, which while fine, defeats any purpose of a sequel. By the point in the game, you canonically enter the DLC, the fingers are dead, the greater will no longer responds, the lands between is falling apart, you have to kill the guy guarding death to make sure that everything stays dead, and you burn the tree that helped make everyone immortal. By this point, if you beat the game already, everything is dead and practically every faction is without a leader. What would a sequel do? Just solidify who we got rid of? All the empyreans that had access to the divine gate are gone. We stopped Miquella, Ranni didn't need it because of us, and Malenia would never try to surpass her brother. So, who'd be left that would make a compelling story? The world outside of the lands between is falling apart too, so no land of reeds, the badlands may just be the land of shadow, but nobody knows, all the outer gods that matter have been sealed or already are wielded by characters we defeat. So, they hastily wanted to conclude the story just to ensure that nothing else could happen. Not only that, Marika and Radagon having an endless number of children stops making sense after the fifteenth important demigod and now we're trying to figure out how she had to do this while married to Godfrey or Radagon, who all these important demigods look like. Shadow of the Erdtree is great, I love it, I loved it on my first playthrough and there are plenty of other things I'll love as I play more when I feel like beating the game again. But there are some things that seemed like nobody discussed beforehand or just ignored because they wanted to get this one project over with so that they could get the next one. Which is insane because a possibly rushed project performing this well to me isn't an omen of things to come, but an omen of things that'll be missed in future projects.

[@xEcuador1]

Trash bait.

[@Carra_Mello]

The idea of Shadow of the erdtree being a sequel wouldve been so good in hindsight. Especially with how different the dlc is with its progression compared to the main game, why wasnt this just a sequel? I wouldve definitely waited longer and wouldve been more excited to find out that due to the contents of the dlc it would instead be turned into a sequel. What i mainly dont like about the dlc is that it left me feeling… empty by the end of it.

[@debater452]

Miazaki dosen't like to do sequels. Shadow of the erdtree does function as a dlc quite well. You can also make the argument that the old hunters is also really disconected from Bloodborne as the only thing that changes in the main game is the doll getting like 3 new lines of dialoge

[@ETBrooD]

When we look at the dialogue, it appears as if the DLC is a sequel. Several characters make clear that we're the Elden Lord.

[@based-ys9um]

​@@debater452😂😂😂he's been making the same game since demons souls with one exception 😂

[@debater452]

@@based-ys9um Do you play DS3 the same as you play Demon souls

[@escalatingbarbarism5096]

Because if a hypothetical Elden Ring 2 ended with fighting fucking Radahn like in this DLC, the people who actually care about this shit would be 1000x more annoyed at how lame that is than we already are.

[@shadowbear1231]

As someone who has damaged reflexes cause of years of substance abuse and a neurological disability, im so glad there are people willing to criticize this dlc despite the vitriol of the "get gud" mob. I suck at these games, no shame in it, but i do love them. Beat er, and bloodborne, moving to the rest next. But man, these games are so far from perfect. I use hella cheesy builds to enjoy the game, and thats fun for me. But when even 1 shot players, people who live and die by the most challenging way to engage these fights, have genuine critiques of these enemies, there is most certainly something amiss with the design. Fantasic video.

[@shreder75]

I'm not in the same boat... but sortof am? I know my reactions aren't what they used to be. I'm finding it much harder to dodge roll in this game than when I played ds3 a couple years ago. I, too, am glad a high level player is not only NOT git gud and acknowledged that lesser players should be able to enjoy this also, but that even he's got a litany of complaints when he can easily skill his way thru it with little problem.

[@mroutcast8515]

Sure - Consort Radahn is complete lazy spam garbage boss mechanically - but it's also a lazy asset reuse from base game. For the Elden Ring ending, I expected something cool and unique - but what I got was lazy asset flip.

[@mikebrown1881]

Torrent is a spirit so he can’t be killed by anything (that’s why he is never afraid) except by the frienzied flame (that’s why he won’t come in the woods).

[@DionPanday]

“Some normie sh*t”, Elden ring sold over 25 million copies. The point of Elden ring and in turn Fromsoft being some normie sh*t has long since been crossed.

[@zawarudo8991]

Sad to see

[@jadentaliani515]

Don’t mind these glazers bro. W opinion

[@Vengeance_I_m]

Subjective unpopular opinion, disconnected from reality. Elden Ring is 96 metascore, GOTY with most awards won and is regarded as Top 3 best game in history, unlike any other Fromsoft game. Shadow of the Erdtree has 95 metacritic score, making it the best DLC in history. These are raw undeniable facts, not some subjective opinions like yours. Keep hating Elden Ring, the game, it's success and the huge fanbase that loves the game with all their heart, couldn't care less about you crying

[@aliceinwonderland4395]

@@Vengeance_I_m NO ONE CARES.

[@Vengeance_I_m]

@@aliceinwonderland4395 you cared enough to respond. Also, funny how your first reaction to my comment is getting emotional lol, pretty much sums up all of Elden Ring haters, people who's ego is deeply hurt for multiple of reasons. Are you actually an intelligent person, can you oppose the facts I aforementioned, instead of getting triggered?

[@theinternetsightseer2935]

​@aliceinwonderland4395 You're right. Nobody cares about you. Keep coping Mr. 5% minority.

[@joaoluizkfsantos8392]

​@@Vengeance_I_m yeah, I guess we both are just glazers... Thankfully fromsoft makes games that fit their glazers tastes, so we can keep on going like this and ignore the, admittedly very vocal, minority

[@Kyle_Johnsons]

SOTE definitely feels like a standalone project. Something you play through fully once and never touch again unless you want a specific item or fight. I wonder if fromsoft decided to cater to newer players who never had the opportunity to play the game on release.

[@RecordedMercury]

Maybe I'm just getting too old. I dont have time to die 40 times to consort radahn 🤣 I have to make money to feed a family

[@BEARDEDSLOTH802]

This right here

[@purehollow]

I am assuming what happened is that fromsoftware weren't planning on doing a dlc from the beginning only after the success of elden ring reached a certain point that they decided to make a dlc which explains why it was announced a whole year later after release and only with an art picture because they only just started working on it, that means that the whole map and it's content was made in one year and 3 months, cut that time down because they were also focusing on armored core 6, so basically shadow of the erdtree was made in 9 months it was too large of a scope and was rushed simply because they never planned to make ahead of time

[@ItsjustmeAlone]

That also my theory there’s so many new weapon classes that just have one weapon in it or are so bad there’s no reason to use it (smithscript hammer) (smithscript dagger) and also there’s barely any spells, cutscene dialogue, and incantations

[@purehollow]

@@ItsjustmeAlone I also remember back in 2022 there were some leaks that fromsoftware weren't in the process of making any dlc for elden ring, I think that's true because I refuse to believe they only made that in 2 years and a half, they made much better things in less time

[@joaoluizkfsantos8392]

Sorry to say it, but this is stupid conspiratory thinking without any basis in reality. If they truly took this little time we would be getting a modern pokemon game, not a 10/10 scoring product from most reviews. Mr Zaki also wasn't the director for AC6 for most of its development. Do you think he just stayed there licking his tumb? No, fromsoft has around 300 employees and enough experience to handle multiple projects at once, obviously the dlc was being worked on alongside AC6. The third point is how Zaki mentioned that part of the story (and the lore written by George) wasn't going to fit the main game, so they decided to leave it for the dlc. This tells me that the dlc was a thing in their minds since close to the end of the development of ER. You can think he was lying, but that's just a conspiracy at that point.

[@purehollow]

@@joaoluizkfsantos8392 well first you can't trust review scores, they are all either payed by Bandai namko or just too afraid to criticise fromsoftware because of its fanbase, second when Mr Zaki said there's a lot of lore that couldn't fit in the base game he wasn't referring to dlc specifically but more to a possibile sequel, third 300 employees isn't that many for a project the size of elden ring so not all of them working on it is a bad thing, lastly Mr Zaki did lie about many things before like the size of the dlc being similar to limgrave or that it's gonna be more densely packed these are lies You are the being delusional if you think fromsoftware delivered full product in this dlc, this so called conspiracy theory is more likely than saying fromsoftware intended all of this

[@joaoluizkfsantos8392]

"well first you can't trust review scores", see what I mean people? Conspiracy thinking at its finest. Do anyone truly thinks all positive reviews were either bought or given out of fear? Where was the fear in Eurogamer's 6/10 review? I obviously disagree with their take, but they have the right to give the score they gave, as do any other reviewer. Or is it only an untrustworthy review if you disagree with the score? For the record, my favorite reviewer for this kind of games is Rurikhan, and you can see the joy in his eyes while he was playing. Can't fake that shit, his "10/10" is fully justified by his experiences. Funny you should call me delusional while believing something of this scope is even remotely doable in 9 months. And while you can say that 300 ppl isn't that much, I can say that it is, none of us can prove either way because none works at fromsoft. What we can't debate over, however, is that the studio is much bigger than it was before, and other big studios can develop multiple projects together, so why can't they? On the topic of lies, I just chose to assume he wasn't lying, since he never gave me reason to doubt before. Even the Limgrave thing no one thought was gonna be 100% accurate, giving his tendency to undersell and be humble about his own projects. End of the day, I know it'll be impossible to convince you otherwise, you came up with this rabbit hole yourself, so you must be the one to claw out now. I just hope any poor sod that comes here and is tempted to agree with this line of thinking can see this and turn back.

[@LarryWalker-l2t]

"When it comes to souls games, what makes then stand above the rest is that they are supposed to be precise. When you take damage, its supposed to be your fault..." This has never been the case with any of the souls games 😂. The whole "hard but fair" meme is a total myth that souls fans use to prop up their favorite game series and pretend it's better than it is. DS1 is chock full of unfair encounters, unexplained mechanics, trial and error, deliberate player inconveniences. It's so uniquely antagonistic and non-acommodating to the player that there's a strong argument that it can be seen as a type of survival horror. And thats always been a part of the appeal. DS2 has a lot less of that but it still has a variety of encounters that will seriously challenge and punish certain playstyles, so much so that unlimited healing with different strategic uses is baked into the balancing and design. Not to mention that poise-tanking and hit trading are meant to be deliberate playstyles you can invest and gain value out of. So "taking damage means the player made a mistake" is clearly not an overarching design philosophy here. Maybe this can be said moreso of Bloodborne and Dark Souls: Bloodborne edition (DS3) which trend toward forgoing RPG player expression and funnel the player into a dodge heavy, reactive-aggressive playstyle. But even still I'm suprised to hear this from someone who has had such a perfectly warranted critical perspective on the series.

[@neamraven]

I pretty much agree with about 80% of your video. FromSoft fanboys and new fans who feel like they've discovered a pile of gold with Elden Ring are either blind or coping when they call this DLC a 10/10.

[@pedropaulo13220]

it was so disappointing. I still cant believe the dlc was so tr@sh

[@neamraven]

@@pedropaulo13220 I wouldn't call it trash. I like a lot of things about it. I am also disappointed by a lot of things. Just a mixed bag for me.

[@anonymous01201]

I enjoyed the DLC. I don't think it's a 10/10, but I thoroughly enjoyed learning and beating the bosses. All my friends did too and from the looks of it a lot of the KZbin community did as well, looking at polls, rankings etc. Guess I'm wrong, blind and am just coping.

[@neamraven]

@@anonymous01201 How did you get that out of my statement? I clearly said that the people who think it's a 10/10 are blind and coping. I enjoyed it too. But it also disappointed me. It is objectively not a perfect DLC or anywhere close to perfect. And I think that the people who insist it is are coping or blind.

[@Dualities]

Its mostlly promotional bot accounts really or people that lack gaming experien s. Every japanese gaming studio has these issues

[@saishi9876]

Didn't finish the video yet but you didn't mention the deflecting hardtear for the final boss's bs attack. Not defending the attack or anything, but the deflecting hardtear actually made me enjoy the final boss.

[@jesterofjuice5132]

Good point. I guess I was only considering options on how to no hit the move, but that's definitely an option, my bad

[@saishi9876]

@@jesterofjuice5132I only used it after googling a no hit run to see how to dodge that move lol

[@YoannBB]

​@@jesterofjuice5132when you deflect you take 0 physical damage even with a 1% physical block shield/weapon. So it does count as a no hit!

[@Iqdeficient]

I do like that addition but I find it baffling that it’s a temporary buff that you can use once per rest. Blows my mind that they didn’t just put it on a talisman. If a boss is going to fight at the speed of Sekiro anyway, just give us back the deflection system for it 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@jacoblyon3652]

@@Iqdeficientbruh it lasts 5 minutes no boss should take longer

[@krona3803]

i like how they made phase 2 radahn tank ur fps as a bit of meta difficulty l, miyazaki is truly a genius

[@stevemichael652]

Also, it’s important to ask why the scadutree fragment system was put in place to begin with. It’s because so many players over leveled themselves, and it’s a consequence of the meta builds and ash summons only put in place to appease the masses. FSW are boxing themselves in, because they’re trying to cater to the casuals while still making the game “hard”. And so bc of cheese and summons, you get an artificially inflated difficulty spike that becomes unfair and unbalanced for players who opt out of cheese and summons.

[@columnarbasalt4677]

i think the problem is that most of elden ring bosses belongs in Sekiro

[@spenzo]

yeah some of these are way too fast, especially when im playing with the greatsword lol

[@joaoluizkfsantos8392]

@@columnarbasalt4677 good thing they gave us a Sekiro mechanic now, just wish this was already a thing in base game, with how much fun this was

[@AODeLarge]

someone said that the bosses were playing sekiro/bloodborne and we were playing dark souls and that is so true

[@Vengeance_I_m]

Which is great and not a problem. Answer is simple as it always was in every SoulsBorne game, "get good"

[@spenzo]

@@Vengeance_I_m ”get good🤡” i can smell you from here

[@crabhater9373]

Honestly I am not losing sleep because I didn't get answers for Melina or Godwin. I found the story for Elden Ring to be a mixed bag, and it didn't even come close to Dark Souls lore or Bloodborne lore. And for the most part I enjoyed the bosses except the last one. The most egregious part of the dlc in my opinion was the quests and exploration in general. I don't mind if this is the last we see of Elden Ring. It had it's moment to shine. I am ready for a new story.

[@bigsmall2842]

Dark souls did a great job at having understandable themes at a surface level while also rewarding players for digging deeper into the lore. Elden ring just gives you a ton of facts about the world’s history without giving you any connection between events. Almost every idea that the player generates is a crack pot theory with no backing.

[@elijahfyffe5176]

Fromsoft needs to learn from where they got their roots. Monster Hunter mastered the difficulty that From is trying to create. Instead of heavily inflating the damage and making the monsters breakdance around, they give time limits and specific gimmicks for each monster. Ironically, when Souls were more based off MonHun, the fights had cool mechanics such as Yhorm, Ceaseless, and even most of ds2’s boss fights. If From wants to be a boss rush, they need to study who taught them these systems in the first place.

[@angeltzepesh1]

There is a plot point that everyone seems to ignore and i didnt see anyone talk about. In the Frenzied Flame ending we see Melina, a spirit, still alive, while everything else is supposed to have been burned by us. In the DLC we learn that Frenzied Flame is so powerful that it can burn even spirits. Is this a massive plot hole or how would you explain it? Honestly, for a 2.5 years development of a DLC, that already had most of its lore written(per Miyazaki) i was expecting more quality and better boss design. What's even the point of this massive map if half of it is empty anyway? 3/4 areas are basically empty areas just to reach a boss (Abyssal Woods, Jagged Peak, Ancient Ruins of Rauh and Finger Ruins). Dont even get me started on the final boss and ending.

[@goldenboy8361]

Melina is incredibly powerful. She is the Gloam-Eyed Queen, who wielded the god-slaying black flame. She was also the original wielder of Destined Death.

[@angeltzepesh1]

@@goldenboy8361 but it doesnt line up with the timeline for her to be the GEQ. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Golden Order was created when Marika ascended to Godhood, created/remodeled the Elden Ring and plucked the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring, she did that after Maliketh defeated GEQ. Maybe between Marika becoming the leader of the Lands Between and the creation of the Golden Order was a big gap where Melina controlled the Godskins and Destined Death under Marika leadership, but that feels weird since Marika hated anything associated with the Crucible and Godskins have those features. More likely Marika coming to power was the result of her defeating the GEQ, then she was cursed, that was represented in Messmer's Serpent(Godskins) and Messmer and Melina's Kindling Flame(GEQ). We know that Morika's children are all about curses, Mohg and Morgott are cursed with horns by the hornsent Grandam, Malenia and Miquella are cursed by Romina with scarlet rot and stagnation of aging. Melina also possesses a sealed eye like Messmer, so i could see that her power is just a manifestation of the curse, being literally Destined Death but her not being literally the Gloam-eyed Queen. Sorry for the wall of text, I'm good at expressing my ideas😁

[@goldenboy8361]

@@angeltzepesh1 No, it literally does line up because this is all information FROM THE BASE GAME.

[@angeltzepesh1]

@@goldenboy8361 how the fuck does it line up? So for you Marika's Golden Order started after she defeated her daughter, that somehow had the rune of death from the previous Elden Ring before Marika was even in power?

[@goldenboy8361]

@@angeltzepesh1 Don’t know what you’re yapping about but the reason that Melina travels with you (as a reminder, she’s the Gloam-Eyed Queen) is to get Destined Death back. It’s like if someone stole your Lamborghini super car and then just drove off with it. Maliketh defeated the Gloam-Eyed Queen in battle. Melina travels with you specifically to get to Maliketh.

[@Vlaffffy]

A lot of these boss fights feel like they're purposely made to be reacted to by popular streamers.

[@HeyTarnished]

Holy delusional! They’re literally easier than base game bosses except the last one in which criticism is deserved, stop the hate train. 😅

[@Vengeance_I_m]

@@Vlaffffy They're literally better versions of DS3 and Bloodborne bosses. They're cooler, have better movesets and require more skill. I no hjt every boss in base game, and in DLC I no hit half the bosses. The only boss I think is not good is Radahn final boss, other than that they're peak Souls.

[@vandalic8566]

I heavily disagree.​@@Vengeance_I_m

[@Vengeance_I_m]

@@vandalic8566 It's ok to disagree as long as you're respectful about it👍

[@epsilon1372]

@@Vengeance_I_m i think gaius sucks and i also found the gross knight guy and mother of fingers to be a bit underwhelming. i can agree with most of the others tho

[@dvdivine1962]

Good criticisms and you no hit the bosses so people cant mouth off like npcs and say git gud. Overall Old Hunters is better by a large margin for me.

[@50-50_Grind]

I estimate the average age of the git-gudder to be around 14.

[@hehe_boi9181]

Old hunters and ringed city were masterpieces with insanely well designed bosses, SofE has flaws loads of it and it doesn't compare to almost any of froms previous dlcs

[@Scowleasy]

It’s pretty insane that dlc bosses nearly force you to use cheese tactics against them. Like what part of that is supposed to be satisfying?

[@dhopjr57]

80% of the fight is running from or chasing a boss. five to one hit exchange when you do clash. wait for your 1 hit window of opportunity then run to avoid the spam combos. this is the formula over and over.

[@scottgimple8107]

What r u waffling about? No boss forces you to do that. Every move is dogable if u learn their attack patterns

[@sublimechimp]

@@scottgimple8107some of us have lives.

[@paladinpls]

​@@sublimechimp Not being trash and having eyes doesn't make you a no life.

[@sublimechimp]

@@paladinpls ok bud, have at it, I’m the worst player in the world, for sure, I’m an idiot, you’re best 😅🤣

[@Forthelulz01]

I'll level with you, I don't understand what you wanted with this game. You seem so negative about every single thing they did, I can't imagine what you even found fun about the base game. I really can't. You hated so many fun bosses, claimed certain things were just bad design (the zombie boss has the easiest diodgable moves, no idea how you struggled with this but mesmer was no problem). You clearly didn't pay attention to lore, so your confusion with details like torrent running away is silly. You have a good point about some things, like the final boss feeling crazy hard and having that wide triple attack being nearly undodgable. Honest question, artifical difficulty... what does that even mean? People say that, but it generally doesn't make sense to me. It usually boils down to people feeling something is hard without being fun. Okay, sure, that's fair. But that's not "artificial". It's hard, you don't like it, and it just comes off like people want to try to blame from soft for losing to the game when in fact you didn't learn the game. It's like saying "this loss didn't count, it's artifical difficulty. It's not that I haven't learned, it's that the game's challenge is not fair." I've never felt this in the entirety of fromsoft, so I'm at a loss for understanding this argument. Ironically, it's lazy, the very thing people accuse fromsoft of being every time they say "artificial difficulty." Sorry if I'm coming off combative, I do have my issues with the game (camera on bayle and a few other fights is awful, some places are indeed empty, repeat bosses), but I really enjoyed the dlc regardless and hope they continue with this game design and simply fix these quality of life issues. It sucks you didn't enjoy it, I hope they don't let you down next time.

[@greyfuller1025]

Was flamelurker really that good of a boss that every boss after it had to be a rendition of it? Do people really enjoy rolling and fly swatting bosses for 5 mins straight? Is this peak game design? To explore a dungeon for 25-30 mins just to get to a square room and roll around a caffeinated, steroid induced psychopath? Is this your king?

[@IAm.Messmer.Brother.Of.Malenia]

chill bro. from is still king and steps on every other game company right now but they still make mistakes

[@apolloisnotashirt]

@@IAm.Messmer.Brother.Of.Malenia even as a huge Fromsoft fan... this was a pretty big mistake...

[@IAm.Messmer.Brother.Of.Malenia]

@@apolloisnotashirt the DLC was a mistake? have you seen starfield??? 😆 if we're gonna talk about mistakes let's actually use our brains here

[@benpage5088]

@@IAm.Messmer.Brother.Of.Malenia Ah yes an irrelevant game justifies a shitty From dlc

[@IAm.Messmer.Brother.Of.Malenia]

@@benpage5088 sounds like you got creamed and need somewhere to put your big boy feelings this is a safe space buddy

[@kingofbel6499]

You pretty much summed up my exact opinion about the bosses in this DLC. When I got to the Dancing Lion, the very first boss I fought in the DLC, I was legit baffled. For the first time since I played DS2, I was not having fun fighting a boss in a Souls game. Then I fought almost every other boss in the DLC and had pretty much the same feeling. At first I thought it was just cuz I didnt have many Scadtree fragment yet, but even after collecting a ton of them and trying the bosses again I was still not having fun and just wanted to end the fight already. It is extremely rare that a Souls boss makes me wanna spam the most OP weapon or spell I got to quickly get their fight over it, and somehow this DLC had so many bosses like that. In the base Elden Ring, only Malenia and Elden Beast made me feel like that. Mostly Elden Beast cuz Malenia only pissed me off with her water dance attack. I would actually bet money that Miyazaki saw how players were using summons like Mimic Tear and spamming that Rivers of Blood skill to breeze through base bosses and decided that DLC bosses would not just have way more HP and attack damage, but also they would be way more offensive to deal with summons. All the while completely ignoring players like me who always solo bosses and play a melee build... Anyway, when it comes to the exploration of the DLC map, I actually liked it. It wasnt perfect, as I think some areas are extremely empty and we could have had more varied environment, but as a big new area I was okay with it. Optional dungeons were mostly fine I guess. The main ones could have been bigger, maybe more unique looking as well, with more secret walls to find. And lorewise...I am not surprised at all for the lack of it. I am used to Miyazaki barely giving us anything concrete and just leaving us to guess wtf is going on. But anyway, all in all, I did not hate the DLC, but I do feel it shouldnt have been 30 bucks. That is too expensive for the mixed feelings I have after playing it. Like half of the bosses REALLY let me down in a way that reminds me of Dark Souls 2. At times this DLC unironically made me ponder if I am too old for Souls games now. Bosses that make me feel like I am wasting my time playing the game should not exist in a Souls game.

[@devinport.]

It feels like two different studios worked on these bosses , we have midra , metyr , messmer and even romina which are all well designed and than we have the rest.........

[@DRNOval]

Listing metyr in well designed when she has a true undodgable attack and all her second phase attacks force the player to disengage and slow the fight to a crawl ruins all ur credibility 💀

[@devinport.]

@@DRNOval ah yes I loose all credibility just because my opinion of bosses doesn't match with your own experience lol

[@purehollow]

I would include Bayle Also metyr isn't really well designed it's just has a spectacle similar to astel which was a fitting rememberance boss

[@devinport.]

@@purehollow I want nothing to do with that schizo dragon

[@DRNOval]

@@devinport. its not just my own experience, not a single person has been able to find a way to dodge the metyr laser without an ash of war....

[@crowrevell2082]

I agreed with much of this. The first thing that irked me was just the camera and trying to read tells of the animal bosses, but then their faces would become transparent thus removing the tells of their attacks. I found phase 2 of many bosses to severely limit player interactions. The "undodge-able" attacks became an issue after commander gaius. ever time i struggled to dodge something I would just think "it must by some frame perfect garbage. Metyr's swooping beam attack cannot be dodged. There is a way to med roll radahn's triple swipe, but you have to be moving around his right side before the attack has started, to be able to clear it. But this attack just stopped me from completing the DLC. In phase 2 it would just catch me and stun lock me into death (50 vigor and 17 levels of fragments). I went into the DLC with a venomous fang build and there's just a stretch where everything was immune to poison. the ghostflame dragons, petulance knight, Death Bird, and the furnace golems. The furnace golem i enjoyed the first one as a better fire giant, but then the spamming fireball attack and having to kill 8 of them became such a massive chore. I changed my build so many times just trying to adapt to the bosses. I can enjoy a spectacle, but from a technical side in regards to the combat I just felt it lacking.

[@alexgoncharov6430]

Honestly, at this point I’m glad that this DLC didn’t become a sequel. I don’t want to wait 5 years to get anything remotely like that as a full fromsoftware game. Shadow of the Erdtree world feels very dull, I’m already tired of looking at it. The base game areas are still very pleasant to play through

[@purplemarshmalow]

While I agree with (not everything but) a lot of what you say about SotE, the "B team" theory is both very lazy and very lame, and what you say about Armored Core is outright shitty, dumb and disrespectful considering both the quality of the game, From Soft's history with that beloved franchise that literally saved them from closure, and Armored Core's relevance as a video game series. The first episodes were masterfully crafted and brought a lot to video games. Maybe giant mech games aren't your thing but acting like it's just some low quality side product made out of greed is seriously outlandish.

[@ZeroAtNight]

It’s just an opinion

[@purplemarshmalow]

@@ZeroAtNight literally everything a person thinks enters in the definition of "opinion", once you've said that you've said nothing

[@axelnova123]

@@ZeroAtNight Sure, a terribly dumb opinion.

[@Gelly311]

​@@ZeroAtNight An objectively dumb opinion if you don't actually understand the full depth of what goes into designing a game and all the elements that goes into it. Where the only point of reference you have is the the surface level belief that games that cater to your wants is the best kind of game. And seeing as this video is about how this particular gamer didn't get what he wanted out of the DLC, well...

[@enigmatic8280]

Yui Tanimura is the problem

[@samuel.jpg.1080p]

all the problems that Fromsoft is creating right now stems from one place; their inability for restraint, to say enough is enough. more is not always better yet Fromsoft keep wanting to have more and more difficult bosses to the point that it breaks their own combat system. The bosses have insane speed and combo won't be a problem if the player have access to Bloodborne or Sekiro's speed and aggression by default. I'm worried they will double down on this trend on their next game because they NEED to protect their brand as the creator of "difficult" games. EDIT: more is not better is always true for the open world/map in the dlc and base game. The map size of both can be reduced by 25% or even half of it and it would be better. Places like Abyssal Woods or Mountaintops are needlessly huge for no reason

[@MakioGoHardio]

I disagree that the bosses are too fast, but I agree with your point about how they don’t know when to show some restraint and stop. WFD and Radahn triple slash are the prime examples of this both moves 90% of players will only figure out through guides, but overall I think most moves are pretty fair and easily learnt without guides.

[@JohnFischl-rz6wz]

@@MakioGoHardio Maybe you watch the world in slow motion. Bc this new bosses are even faster than Bloodborne.

[@MakioGoHardio]

@@JohnFischl-rz6wz the only reason bb looks fast is because of 30 fps, ER moves aren’t at all faster than bb.

[@samuel.jpg.1080p]

@@MakioGoHardio i think bosses like Messmer, Romina, Midra, even some attacks from final boss are not that fast, in comparison to Sekiro or some Bloodborne but the biggest problem imo is that they all have so many combo strings and they bleed into one another, leaving you doubtful when it is safe to attack. I did dlc final boss with dagger and shield build but even with a dagger, I can only swing 1 time or two times at most after each combo he did, even then he can quickly start another combo while I'm in the animation. It just doesn't feel good most of the time because you feel like your character moves so slowly and are always locked in animation, add to that with input delay being a thing in this game. And I'm not even talking about the bosses' 2nd phase because most of them always have 2nd phase that are all about aoe extension. It feels like you're fighting with the same boss over and over again because they all have the same moves; gap closer, quick sidestep, backstep, spinning attack, long combo, delay attack, elemental attack, super move, grab attack. I think Fromsoft is having a problem of wanting to raise the difficulty on each game they make now to the point that it hits the limit of what they can do with the boss design on this combat system

[@JohnFischl-rz6wz]

@@MakioGoHardio Check your eyes lil bro.

[@TheDruadan]

Unfortunately, I absolutely agree with like 90% of the whole video. It's a shame and I hope they learn from their failures.

[@Nocturne989]

The Armored Core slander is fucking ridiculous and I think souls only "fromsoft fans" like this are the reason they stagnated to the point of givong us Elden Ring and its DLC in the first place. Elden Ring is a masterpiece even though most of the main DLC problems theyre complaining about are problems with all of Elden Ring, but then AC6 is a glorified 360 store demo that is only worth buying so they make more Elden Ring? Fans like this is why theyre willing to just ship shit as long as it has a dodge roll attached to it. Yall wanted more open world worse DS3 and thats what From gave us, with ER and the DLC.

[@MYWALLS]

Agree bro The fromsoft fanbase is actually schizophrenic They’ll ask for one thing Then when they get that thing They suddenly hate it

[@kaiwardinofficial9686]

I finally agree with a hater in the comment section. And that is after I agreed with his word of saying AC6 would be cheaper to make than ER.

[@wolfgangromine8341]

I’m surprised you gave it such a scathing review, I really liked it. I think their goal was to make it feel like it fits perfectly into Elden Ring, as if it could have always existed, and it does, that’s why there’s mausoleums, catacombs, recipe books, etc. It’s literally more Elden Ring. I think you and others were expecting sequel-levels of difference and that’s a bit ridiculous, it’s an expansion, of course it’s gonna be like the base game. Also I don’t get the criticism that there’s “nothing of value to find” and that you’ll “have a complete build by the time you get to the DLC?? There’s tons of weapons for every build you can think of. Every type of character, STR, DEX, INT, FTH or any combo have many new weapons, ashes of war, spells, talismans, etc. there’s new stuff everywhere! Why would any player choose 1 weapon from the base game to use through the whole DLC? That’s boring and I don’t believe many players did that, and From adding new weapons is exactly part of the fun. Majority of players pick a stat to main and bounce around different weapons of that stat. This is further supported by From because the forges give you Ancient dragon smithing stones so you can try out more weapons. On your 1st playthrough of the DLC it rewards exploration with these new tools and gives you tons of content to use these new tools on for fun. Yeah on repeat playthroughs you’ll run straight to the content you care about but that’s true of base Elden Ring too so that’s not very fair criticism.

[@KennyCombo]

The lack of new enemy types in the dlc REALLY bothered me. We waited 2 years to fight more skull nobles

[@bondrewd5935]

Are you serious? The DLC Is literally full of new enemies...

[@tasosplat3589]

Yeah and what about nobody talking about cerulean coast?? The most beautiful area with literally not a single new enemy

[@KennyCombo]

@@bondrewd5935 the ratio of new enemys to reskinned enemys and bosses from the base game is piss poor fam. I liked the new forges but they didn’t even have unique bosses bro, plus alot of the catacombs just had npcs

[@zawarudo8991]

@@bondrewd5935 it‘s full of reused bosses. There shouldn‘t be more than one or two, but almost ALL of the basegame bosses were put into the dlc + npc bosses, which let‘s be real, are the laziest archetype there is next to copy&paste. Erdtree Sentinels twice, and Drakes even a dozen. If 3/4th of your dlc‘s bosses are old ones, you‘ve f-ed up.

[@bondrewd5935]

@@zawarudo8991 Those are mini-bosses not bosses🤦🏻‍♂️ at this point you are simply hating, every single from software game Reused minibosses

[@wearevenom82]

Duuuude, you literally explained everything i felt perfectly and detailed. Great video.

[@swisspunker94]

what you say about AC6 at the end is truly idiotic

[@unleashedbread6146]

yeah that part was pretty dumb. he was acting like he bought ac6 out of pity for fromsoftware instead of buying it because it’s a great game. wth, who does that? What’s even more boggling is that he was implying that the game sucked, when in my opinion it was freaking awesome… I don’t get it

[@aryabratsahoo7474]

My honest take on AC6 is that it's a proper successor to previous AC games on a lot of levels on both technical and story wise levels. We have qol stuff such as checkpoints, being able change loadouts during boss battles, and many more. We even got cool viable melee options. Better story design that's more focused on different factions. And the next game since ds2 to have a lot of changes in ng+. My only criticism is that I felt more fun in fighting other ACs as bosses compared to the unique "soulslike" bosses.

[@kcub07]

Yeah dude wasted his time exploring under every rock in this dlc but decided to skip ac6, all while being able to recognize good boss design. The irony.

[@aryabratsahoo7474]

​@@kcub07 It's funny to me that for him, Souls games quality is just whether the bosses are good or not. The whole reason Elden Ring is popular is not just for bosses, it's the open world, dungeons, builds AND bosses. He completely plays it like he's doing a speedrun. The bosses are where the game suffers from in my opinion but bosses are least amount of time spent playing this dlc, it's mostly exploration and dungeon crawling that FromSoft nails it. The difficulty of exploring dungeons is done well. He simply summarized areas without realising the awe aspect of finding out and reaching the location.

[@_CrimsonBlade]

No one cares about that slop

[@apolloisnotashirt]

1:00:42 I think I would genuinely just quit gaming at that point. Fromsoft so far is the only Developer I know that makes good games. To see the DLC as a warning that someday they'll be announcing that YOU HAVE A DOG NOW in their game and boast about the features the dog has, I would just... depression.

[@stuffedpizzaroll5422]

Recycled talking point ripped straight from a vasty superior content creator DJ peach cobbler

[@Dualities]

They make the most incomplete game out there wtf u talking about. And yes there are many worse gaming studios from smite to wow but lets not pretend elden ring is a complete game in any form

[@apolloisnotashirt]

@@stuffedpizzaroll5422 yes and?

[@apolloisnotashirt]

@@Dualities I didnt say anything like that bruh, despite the lackings of Elden Ring I personally still found it enjoyable, not perfect but definitely pretty close. You may disagree but I will so as well, I don't care about Elden Ring's flaws as they are usually outshone by the good. I'm talking how Fromsoft usually deliver in making their games, but with me actually being able to notice ER's flaws I'm scared at some point they really are just gonna become like Ubisoft or Bethesda washed up game developers who put no love into their games whatsoever. So when that happens, I'm asking if does anyone know another studio that is like Fromsoft?

[@wojciech-kulik]

The best difficulty review available! On top of that from the no-hit runner's point of view, so that nobody can criticize that it's a skill issue.

[@CrossXM]

no skill issue yet still whines like he has

[@maximany9506]

@@CrossXM do you like bed of chaos

[@GoshoLosho-ld3xh]

No hit runners are the biggest whiners of all. The game is for the average gamer not fpr some challenge runner...

[@Slavic_Snake]

​@@GoshoLosho-ld3xh no average gamer can beat the final boss without looking up a fucking youtube guide, and that's bad boss design

[@GoshoLosho-ld3xh]

@@Slavic_Snake I am an average gamer and I did not need a guide. Also everything in DLC is technically optional so you don't have to finish it. The boss is not perfect but it teaches you about positioning and patience.

[@RaxiazRedux]

I can safely say that I personally was not disappointed by this DLC.

[@topical6574]

@@TheSoftcoreMonkey The DLC has a LOT of flaws, 100% was not a 10/10 DLC, but you don't need me to tell you that. I feel everyone can agree this DLC wasn't absolutely perfect. But, it was worth the price I paid. I was marketed a DLC "the size of Limgrave", and I arguably got a bigger map than Limgrave, with some fun new weapons and bosses. I got a little bit more Elden Ring, and I've got no issue with it. People were apparently expecting Elden Ring 2 as you said, and as this video said.

[@simon-peterwilliamson2412]

​@@topical6574I agree I absolutely LOVE the dlc. But it is indeed imperfect. The story was lacking in some parts. Lots of questions unanswered. Radahn(I love him though) and both coasts being lackluster and the jagged peak being empty. But I truly loved the experiences

[@shanegale6143]

@@TheSoftcoreMonkey I literally don't understand ppl co-opting "get good" like this lol. I beat it. The guy who made this video beat it - no hit, even. There are tons of people who were disappointed who beat it. They got good, they beat it, they didn't like it. Whats so hard to understand?

[@Adam-TheLiftedKing]

@@shanegale6143i personally liked the lore alot and liked several fights but i do think the base game had better fights alot of the time

[@0x6e95]

@@shanegale6143 It's because souls games have an easy out of being critiqued. To criticize them you have to get good at them and early on when souls games were very niche a lot of people were shitting on them because of their difficulty. That really isn't even the case any more these days with how mainstream souls games are. Lots of people are beating them. They aren't that niche anymore but that counter argument never died down. People co-opting "git gud" are doing so without understanding why that was a counter argument in the first place. It's stupid.

[@7enima682]

14:07 oh my fucking god, it's just like the DS3 Soul of Cinder juggle slashes that outright ignore your s so you can be hit in the air where you have s to do the juggles. This attack juggles you too, but after 8 years they didn't bother to fix it I guess.

[@thedoomslayer5863]

"I played Elden Ring 100 times through and never got bored" that is absolutely wild. The sheer tedium of having to traverse that giant map back and fourth just to get some items for my build or to fight one late game boss was an absolute nightmare. And the weapons were not unique enough for me to justify dozens of hours with their simple movesets. Many grips people have with the dlc were flaws I saw already with the base game but people just didn't notice them or care. In the end I truly hope Miyazaki is DONE with the souls formula and done with open world and gives us either Bloodborne 2 or Sekiro 2 or something entirely new and different. If his next game is just Elden Ring 2 or dark souls 4 I'm done. Lies of P DLC has me far more hyped than shadow of the erdtree ever did tbh

[@jeremytewari3346]

Is the Lies of P dlc confirmed I didn't hear about it

[@YakuzaGoon]

Yep, the open world nature of ER puts it way below the other fromsoft games for me - Sekiro was their best game and they should iterate on that combat. I enjoyed Lies of P way more than ER as well, crazy good combat and a narrative that doesn't require hours of 3rd party youtube lore videos to understand.

[@Hugroroth]

I agree on some surprisingly empty zones, some surprisingly bad designed bosses, but I got the feeling that everyone is loosing sight on the fact that it shares many flaws with the base game (sometime artificial difficulty, gimmick bosses, some zones clearly below the others) and the overral quality of this DLC remains unusual in the game industry (unmatched atmosphere, esthetics, level design, weapons/talismans that deepens the mechanics etc)

[@sartavin]

This guy played the base game 100 times, he's memory holed all the cheap and artificial stuff, of which there was quite a bit. And it's pretty obvious that he favors boss fights over pretty much anything else, with seemingly very little understanding that some players simply like to roam the incredible environments to which the treasure lying around is just a bonus, whether it's usable or not. I do agree with a lot of his statements but given how much he obviously invested in this DLC in terms of time and energy, it ends up being mostly a sad rather than insightful essay.

[@kllcmd8980]

agree with most of this but i don’t think the comments about ACVI are fair. the game is incredibly well crafted and going back to fromsoft’s roots with armored core shows to me that they care about something other than souls

[@kcub07]

Yeah, game was awesome and anyone who’s so committed to souls games to skip it on the difference of genre alone is just depriving themselves of some of fromsofts best boss fights since ds3 and sekiro

[@mannequin1832]

Thank u for saying it. All of it. Im tired of all the dual kitana mimic tear git gud redditors excusing bad design choices. I love this game, but im not blind. And i agree, mesmmer is the only reason to play the dlc despite how beautiful the land of shadow is

[@anthonypedraza3017]

The sheer amount of "DLC Bad" videos shows us two things. One: That a piece of content's launch is the most important part of its life. They patched the numbers to be fine a few days after launch, but the inflated stats in addition to the more dubious delayed attacks, camera issues (f#ck the hippo boss) and long combos soured a lot of fans on it completely. Second: The company's eternal arms-race with players has finally reached a boiling point. They've increased the difficultly so much, for so long, in so many ways that they've reached a state where they have to make hitboxes unfair in order to punish hugging the boss whilst also giving them combos that seem to last the better part of a full minute sometimes. The one thing I'll say is that Radahn's light ring attack can be dodged.... I dont know how that makes physical sense, but its doable. The reason most people have peoblems with him isnt any one issue, but death by a thousand cuts. The walls of the arena obscure vision if you get too close, his combos are long AF and he has enough damage and health to solo every other boss to death and barely feel the tickle of their attacks. Every component that makes him problematic is okay on its own, but putting it all together was plain unreasonable. The only part that is truly bullsh!t is his blinding particle effects; the only reason one friend of mine with literally 99 in every stat beat him was because he spammed the upgraded version of Rancorcall (Ancient Death Rancor, I think) whilst wearing the goat armor and using a greatshield. He literally could not see the boss otherwise once the lightshow started.

[@nathanflynn6686]

My main issue with the DLC was the fragments. I did not feel that they were common enough. I would clear out bosses/waves of mobs in the hope to find one, however was met with a cookbook. If they were as common as golden seeds it would have been fine, for an open world rpg the reward for exploration was unsatisfying for the most part. A beautiful, empty world.

[@submarineautist]

Man, I was initially inclined to agree with you on many points, but it's ridiculous how you call every single main boss except Bayle and Messmer a "glorified miniboss". How can you even remotely put a boss like Midra in the same category as the Erdtree Avatar from the base game? It's pretty clear that you were so overhyped about SOTE being a masterpiece that you now have to compensate your disappointment by going into the complete opposite direction and pretending like 90% of the DLC is bad.

[@user-yh7wl7xb9u]

Fr. And if they had used some of the bosses as repeated mini bosses, they’d catch more flack for “being lazy” and reusing them. I think the only boss that really feels undeserving of a remembrance is either Gaius or Scadutree Avatar. Honesty what the rest needed was just a cutscene to build hype/significance.

[@kllcmd8980]

agreed. i don’t like the DLC but some of these criticisms are just ridiculous

[@ironclad4451]

I agree with his opinions on the boss arena's, and I think that greatly influences his view of these "remembrance" bosses, but I do disagree with the opinion on several bosses. Relanna needed a cutscene and dialogue to establish her character, Midra was fantastic, I enjoyed him a lot, but the dungeon leading up to him was short, underwhelming, and claustrophobic, and his arena was simple. Honestly I really enjoy pondering HOW things could be made better

[@submarineautist]

@@ironclad4451 I'm starting to feel like SOTE should've been a standalone DLC with a completely new RL1 character. That would've solved most issues with replayability and would've also made for a more profitable product.

[@tilenkobe]

@@submarineautist true I had massive expectations for the dlc and the only real complaint I have is the lack of new enemies. I don't like that most of the map is populated by base game enemies and those shadow people.

[@nooberus9241]

Thank you so much for summarizing your thoughts about Radahn! Its exactly how I feel and its a shame that the last content for my favorite game ends that way :(

[@stevemichael652]

There’s no evidence that community modders work for FSW especially on the dlc

[@Jianichie]

I love seeing these videos. Both because no game is above criticism, and the frothing cultists can't git gud at handling different opinions.

[@Artar0s]

I can sign under every word spilled in here, but most importantly: "I'm a sucker for a redemption ark"

[@Horsthunder]

Shame that FromSoft has nothing to redeem themselves from. So there is no arc to complete