Game's Difficulty - Discussion

[Krazy Wallet]

I'm curious what people's thoughts are about the game's difficulty. I see the steam reviews being far more negative because it's "too hard". From a souls veteran, I don't mind a souls game game being excessively challenging as long as it is for the right reason. Based on all the negative reviews, it appears that some people believe it is "too challenging" for the wrong reasons.

Given that, what about the DLC is too hard from those leaving negative reviews? I personally have my own gripes about some elements of the challenge, but I currently plan on leaving a positive review once I finish the DLC (I'm guessing that I'm about 75% of the way done).

Please don't get toxic, I'm honestly curious about the poor reception. This is coming from someone who broke a 10+ year streak of beating a boss the same day I discovered them (Dread had some Tarnished for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until I got more Scadutree fragments )

[LuckyCheshire]

Yeah I have no idea. A couple of bosses have some jank to work out, sure, but most of them are fantastic and the few issues will probably get resolved with the next patch, just like the base game. It's certainly challenging, but not unfairly so. There are plenty of tools available to help you.

[Vermilion Knight]

They artificially hold the player down and make everyone give/recieve the same damage.
Classes don't matter. Levels dont matter. Nothing matters. All that matters is the stupid scavenger hunt they force you to go on in one of the most empty open world games ever made. It's boring. It's bad design, and it's just padding to make the DLC seem longer with more content. I don't know how anyone can't see this. I've played every single Souls game and beaten Sekiro and I 100% agree that this DLC is the worst thing they've ever put out.

[Kashra Fall]

Funny enough, if they didn't put the scauldtree fragment system in the game, there wouldn't be any complaints. The boss designs are fine, the tree system is not and all it does is create an artificial system that limits the player. Sure, there will eventually be people that do the entirety of the DLC with no fragments, but the reliance on them to go forward when NOTHING of the main game or any of the DkS games did before that, is kind of a nuisance.

[Firellius]

I think the Scadutree system had good intentions and terrible execution, and that's the major drive behind the upset over the DLC's difficulty.

Dumpstering your stats for the sake of an opaque fetch quest is not good design in my opinion. It's also very disconnected from Elden Ring's main gameplay loop, which may throw players off. I also feel like it isn't scaled properly. In the base game, by the time you get to Godrick, you may have built up enough strength, or close to enough strength, to tackle him, but in SotE, you start at a colossal disadvantage and you've probably not patched that up yet by the time you get to the Divine Beast or Rellana.

Another issue, in my opinion, is that the scaling of the Scadutree Blessing is too 'wide'. You start off too low, and maybe end up too high. This causes reverse progression where, unlike in the base game, the start is brutally, unreasonably difficult, and then the end-game is way easier.

Imagine starting out in Limgrave and it's packed with Azulan Beastmen, and then when you get to Crumbling Farum Azula, you're getting Stormveil Militia thrown at you. It doesn't really make sense.

There's also a genuine difficulty spike in that everything tracks you way more aggressively, and there's longer combos. I also feel there's some bosses that are just plainly unfair, like Gaius and his busted charge or some of the attacks of the second phase of Mother Metyr.

Overall, the DLC is still good in spite of its issues, but the way the difficulty was handled just screams 'experimental', and I just wanna tell Miyazaki: Maybe take this one back to the drawing board.

[Neblunoa]

For me the problem is not that the bosses are difficult (which they are) but that they are tedious and boring.

The final bosses of Dark Souls 3 were difficult and yet the challenge was fun. In those bosses with repeated attempts you could learn their combos and be better than them.
On the contrary, it is not satisfying to fight the bosses of the expansion, I feel that when I defeat them it is thanks to brute force and luck, not because I have improved or learned their chain of attacks.

[paincanbefun]

i'm playing a caster and it's easy but i haven't gotten very far. i'm not good, i'm just patient, and "easy" includes dying

melee on bosses might be hard, but melee on trash is easy and ranged has been easy on the one boss (lion dancer) and field bosses (two mausoleums and an AI pvp) i have seen

my challenge isn't the enemies, it's the map. gorgeous, but hard to find my way around because of a relative scarcity of items and structures to guide me

[Krazy Wallet]

I actually agree that the inclusion of the Scadutree fragments incorporates a tedious element and wished they found a different way to scale. But is this one element enough for a negative review with all the weapons, mostly interesting bosses, and armours? Personally, I loved the Messmer fight and that was probably enough to win me over for the DLC haha

[GodfatherPlunger]

People are new and expect everything to be as forgiving as the base game. Fromsoftware dlcs have always been more difficult and just because Elden Ring lured in new people by being easier that shouldn't have to change

[Val]

I thoroughly enjoyed the dlc, the only two bosses that stand out as jank or annoying is- the divine beast...the camera gets all wonk and it can be hard to see what hes doing. And Gaius...just Gaius... I think people are ignoring the tree fragments and or- not exploring/finding them and rushing the bosses and thus having a bad time due to it.

[Firellius]

Originally posted by Krazy Wallet:

I actually agree that the inclusion of the Scadutree fragments incorporates a tedious element and wished they found a different way to scale. But is this one element enough for a negative review with all the weapons, mostly interesting bosses, and armours? Personally, I loved the Messmer fight and that was probably enough to win me over for the DLC haha

IMO, it's not enough for a negative review, but I do think that Eurogamer's 3/5 was close to right. It's definitely a passing grade, but its heavy-weighing issues do not permit it to be more than that.

[Krazy Wallet]

Originally posted by paincanbefun:

i'm playing a caster and it's easy but i haven't gotten very far. i'm not good, i'm just patient, and "easy" includes dying

melee on bosses might be hard, but melee on trash is easy and ranged has been easy on the one boss (lion dancer) and field bosses (two mausoleums and an AI pvp) i have seen

my challenge isn't the enemies, it's the map. gorgeous, but hard to find my way around because of a relative scarcity of items and structures to guide me

Glad to know I'm not the only one who struggled to understand where I was geographically! With the inclusion of much higher cliffs, it sent me for a loop trying to figure out how to get the last map fragment

[Onions]

all I hear is "the game sucks, not me."

[Wolferus]

i enjoy the dlc realy much. But for me its a bit to easy. Im "just" level 190 in ng+0 (fresh char for dlc).

The hardest boss (or enemy) till now was the first furnace golem that i aboslute did way to early (right after i enterd the dlc).

I wish the time back from dark souls 3 midir where i sat 16 hours over multiple days and got my ass handled to me over and over again. THAT was hard.

[VDRSK]

I quite like it, Although I haven't fought messmer's second phase yet because it bugged out first playthrough and he died somehow during his transition but I has a lot of fun.

I know difficulty is subjective but I heard ALOT of talk about how hard the lord of frenzied flame was.... he really wasn't that bad, he took me 3 tries.

[SkyWolf]

I mostly don't want to start a new play through so this is coming from a NG+4 - I don't really like the Scadutree Fragments. Feels like more arbitrary stuff to collect. I was more interested in the story elements so getting gimped into the ground at start and having to look for a specific item to eventually catch back up wasn't my idea of fun. I also seem to be backtracking way more than the base game and that doesn't really please me. I'm contemplating just starting a new run.
It's really a strange direction to me as well that the difficulty is spiked so much higher. Elden Ring has felt like the most forgiving and accessible of all the souls games and now I'm not feeling it.