Purpose of Scadutree Fragments Explained

[VaniKa]

It's quite simple. They are a mechanic to provide experienced players with high-level and well-geared characters a challenge. It also forces you to explore the open world to gather them (it's an open-world game, after all). At the same time, it guides you with increasing difficulty, which you have to counterbalance with an increased Scadutree Blessing level. This way, you have a similarly consistent difficulty curve as in the main game.

Without such a mechanic, the game would either be too easy for the aforementioned players or too difficult for many players. With this system, they can keep the difficulty similar to the main game in the long run, assuming you have maxed out your Scadutree Blessing level. I actually find it quite a clever solution. Finding Scadutree Fragments feels very rewarding and provides a similar mechanic to finding Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears, which are likely irrelevant for many players when entering the DLC.

Just accept, or at least understand, how From Software intends for players to play the game. It's an open-world game, and therefore it should be played as such. Go explore and rejoice each time you become passively stronger and change the odds more in your favor.

[Rando the Crit Clown]

Originally posted by Valthejean:

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

The blessings are not unnecessary, they're a great addition to the DLC. It allows you to have progression and a loot item you actually care about.

Speak for yourself then. I had no issue caring about seeds or tears or smithing stones or anything else that went into builds. These fragments blow the balance way out of proportion by being the single most important thing you can possibly find, and there are only exactly enough to get you to the cap.

And are in some very obtuse places.

So you think we should get 30 estus uses orrrr???

Originally posted by Zefar:

NG+ does quite a bit actually.

No, it doesn't. What does it do? Make it so that the enemies who you kill in 1 or 2 hits have like 5% more health so instead of killing them in 1 or 2 hits you kill them in 1 or 2 hits?

Originally posted by Zefar:

What do you mean you can't level up your character? You can do it.

what

Originally posted by Zefar:

The only reason you care about this scadutree fragment is because they make the bosses not one shotting you. They are mandatory to get.

Do you have 10 vitality and 4 negative health talismans or something? Why are the bosses oneshotting you? I never went out of my way to get fragments and just used the ones I happened upon and the bosses have never killed me in less than 3 hits.

[Livy]

Somehow, no one explored the base game without Scadutree Fragments.

It's just not an engaging mechanic to chase down. You go to a place that you'd expect to find one and get nothing, then you find one on a random generic corpse that might as well have contained a smithing stone.

[Livy]

Originally posted by Key:

Nobody has difficulty understanding what the Shadow Blessing system does, people are saying that:

We. already. Have. A. Leveling. System. For. That.

Nothing the shadow blessing accomplishes is something the base leveling system wouldn't accomplish by just keeping the curve going from Mohg onwards, since he's an endgame boss already.

It would somewhat make sense if the DLC was placed in the middle of a playthrough, but Mohgwyn's scaling being the second highest means it's meant to be after the consacrated snowfield, that's as endgame as it gets.

Edit: Clarification

Yeah, feels like a mistake to gate it behind Mogh, especially with all the new fun weapon types you don't get to experience unless you're at the end-game of end-game.

[Valthejean]

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

So you think we should get 30 estus uses orrrr???

Wow....I don't even. Where did you get that take from what I said? If you're going to resort to that kind of strawman, then there is no value in talking to you.

[Rando the Crit Clown]

Originally posted by Valthejean:

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

So you think we should get 30 estus uses orrrr???

Wow....I don't even. Where did you get that take from what I said? If you're going to resort to that kind of strawman, then there is no value in talking to you.

Well, if we're starting the DLC with 15 estus, and you say that getting more estus is a good reward, and you say that scadutree fragments are a bad reward, what else could you possibly mean?

[Ant Ra]

Originally posted by Key:

Nobody has difficulty understanding what the Shadow Blessing system does, people are saying that:

We. already. Have. A. Leveling. System. For. That....

Nobody has difficulty understanding that? Really not? I know almost only and exclusively players who despair on twitch because it somehow doesn't work, as they are used to from elden ring itself. None of them, I mean none, know the new game mechanics and what they are good for. Who wants to believe that people are smart and would have informed themselves in the months or even years of expecting the dlc's... nope.

Not to mention an entire group of people in the world who find everything they don't want to understand stupid in terms of consumption and expectations. The corresponding linguistic translations are probably lacking. At least I hope so. That would mean that people would still have a small chance of having a functioning brain.

[Valthejean]

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

Well, if we're starting the DLC with 15 estus, and you say that getting more estus is a good reward, and you say that scadutree fragments are a bad reward, what else could you possibly mean?

I literally already explained why. Can you honestly tell me that these fragments are even close to being the same kind of power reward as the others? They are a bad reward because they LITERALLY invalidate everything else because of how absurdly valuable they are. It's like a worse version of DS2's adaptability. Imagine if in addition to improving your dodge rolls, adaptability gave you upwards of 80% more damage reduction and damage output. This is insane....

[Casul Gamer]

Originally posted by Zefar:

The only reason you care about this scadutree fragment is because they make the bosses not one shotting you. They are mandatory to get.

They are not a great addition to the DLC and will only make it so that each time you make a new character you'll have to collect ALL of them again and there are a lot of fragments. You have to go through all of the dungeons and caves again.

Yeah. This makes me less likely to do the DLC with other characters unless I really want a particular item. At least with the statues with Lilith you don't have to collect them again with other characters. It's a sad day when fromsoft is copying Diablo 4

[Rando the Crit Clown]

Originally posted by Valthejean:

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

Well, if we're starting the DLC with 15 estus, and you say that getting more estus is a good reward, and you say that scadutree fragments are a bad reward, what else could you possibly mean?

I literally already explained why. Can you honestly tell me that these fragments are even close to being the same kind of power reward as the others? They are a bad reward because they LITERALLY invalidate everything else because of how absurdly valuable they are. It's like a worse version of DS2's adaptability. Imagine if in addition to improving your dodge rolls, adaptability gave you upwards of 80% more damage reduction and damage output. This is insane....

Estus flask upgrades literally invalidate everything else because of how strong they are. Why are you okay with getting 10x as much healing but not okay with getting whatever the scadu stats are?

[Zefar]

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

No, it doesn't. What does it do? Make it so that the enemies who you kill in 1 or 2 hits have like 5% more health so instead of killing them in 1 or 2 hits you kill them in 1 or 2 hits?

Shows that you've never done NG+. Go play NG+ and you'll know what it does.

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

Originally posted by Zefar:

What do you mean you can't level up your character? You can do it.

what

I'm literally asking you about that.

You made this comment.

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

NG+ does just about nothing. Why are you complaining about scadutree fragments but not about being able to level up your character?

What is this about not being able to level up?

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

NG+ does just about nothing. Why are you complaining about scadutree fragments but not about being able to level up your character?

Do you have 10 vitality and 4 negative health talismans or something? Why are the bosses oneshotting you? I never went out of my way to get fragments and just used the ones I happened upon and the bosses have never killed me in less than 3 hits. [/quote]

When you're in NG+ enemies do a whole lot more damage. Without scedutree fragments they do far more.

Also I don't get why you love scredutree fragments but hate NG+. They do the exact same thing. Except bosses are double dipping in the start on NG+.

[Valthejean]

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

Estus flask upgrades literally invalidate everything else because of how strong they are. Why are you okay with getting 10x as much healing but not okay with getting whatever the scadu stats are?

For the last time I NEVER SAID TO ADD MORE ESTUS CHARGES. That is a fabrication you have invented because you don't want to address the circular argument I pointed out earlier. Unfortunately for you, I'm not giving you a clown reward for this. Someone else can deal with this insanity.

[Rando the Crit Clown]

Originally posted by Valthejean:

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

Estus flask upgrades literally invalidate everything else because of how strong they are. Why are you okay with getting 10x as much healing but not okay with getting whatever the scadu stats are?

For the last time I NEVER SAID TO ADD MORE ESTUS CHARGES. That is a fabrication you have invented because you don't want to address the circular argument I pointed out earlier. Unfortunately for you, I'm not giving you a clown reward for this. Someone else can deal with this insanity.

I'm talking about the base game. Why aren't you mad about the base game's rewards giving you 10x as much healing? That invalidates every other reward.

[Zefar]

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

Originally posted by Valthejean:

For the last time I NEVER SAID TO ADD MORE ESTUS CHARGES. That is a fabrication you have invented because you don't want to address the circular argument I pointed out earlier. Unfortunately for you, I'm not giving you a clown reward for this. Someone else can deal with this insanity.

I'm talking about the base game. Why aren't you mad about the base game's rewards giving you 10x as much healing? That invalidates every other reward.

What are you even on about?
No one but you are talking about healing. A real fitting avatar you got though.

[Kyutaru]

Originally posted by Valthejean:

No one is saying that the blessings don't give a massive benefit. They're saying that it is wholly unnecessary. You understand that this is a circular argument being made here, right? On one hand you're saying that the extra levels from the dlc adds little to no power, while on the other hand you're saying that the blessings are necessary to prevent people from overpowering the dlc. So which is it? If levels don't give that significant improvement past the soft caps, then blessings are completely unnecessary because you can just make the bosses have slightly better stats than Malenia.

The overpowered comment refers to initially and allows there to be some progression and semblance of equality for pvp. The goal is always to get overpowered, blessings, runes, spells, swords, whatever you pick up that you didn't start with makes you overpowered. But not to begin overpowered with prefarmed runes that can be spent on the new DLC stuff.

The blessings create that progression that Rune levels created for the initial game. Talismans and new weapons/armor/spells also do, as they are all quite a bit stronger than what was in base Elden Ring. You COULD make bosses similar to Malenia, but then every boss is equal to the strongest boss that already exists. No progression, it's been prefarmed. Since levels add little, you can't use them as a basis for power anymore. Blessings stepped in and took over.

Now could they have used a different system? Certainly. But they went with blessings and the impact is meaningful and the progression impactful. People complain to hell about Messmer and Rellana and Divine Lion. I downed all of them on the first attempt, and not because I'm some pro RL1 souls vet dodger. I was smacked around for most of the fight and just outhealed and outlasted the bosses, due solely to blessing level. Clearly the other people on these boards didn't bother to do the side content surrounding the main bosses before actually doing the main story bosses. Which is akin to gunning for Margit at lvl 1 instead of doing Weeping Peninsula and coming back at lvl 30-40 with +4 flasks and smithed up weapons.

In short, there's no which is it issue here. A sense of progression was created by the devs, their intention unknown but the result is clear, and levels wouldn't have had the same impact since they drop off the more of them you have. My friend has a level capped character and was still getting slapped around by the story bosses while I coasted through them with a quarter of his levels due to my patience and exploration thanks to the blessing system. Just like base Elden Ring... you can try Malenia at lvl 80 if you rushed, or lvl 150 if you didn't. Farming the same spot like Moghwyn's Palace was probably something the creators wanted to avoid this time around since we didn't get shadow runes, we got items.

Could they have balanced the DLC around being lvl 1 and asked you to make a new character or do it on NG+? Yes, totally. But they didn't. Considering the what ifs of personal armchair game design is better left for the trolls. We received what we were given and the method works.

[Zefar]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

The overpowered comment refers to initially and allows there to be some progression and semblance of equality for pvp. The goal is always to get overpowered, blessings, runes, spells, swords, whatever you pick up that you didn't start with makes you overpowered. But not to begin overpowered with prefarmed runes that can be spent on the new DLC stuff.

I have a level 290 character and I was planning to help people on the first human NPC boss. I don't know what NG+ or how many Scedutree fragments the person had collected but that NPC boss literally one tapped me with a single strike.
I have high amount of armor and talismans that increase armor. Still I was one tapped.
Now when I first got to that NPC he didn't one tap me. This makes helping people in coop a wild gamble on what you'll get.

Originally posted by ilikestamps51:

The blessings create that progression that Rune levels created for the initial game. Talismans and new weapons/armor/spells also do, as they are all quite a bit stronger than what was in base Elden Ring. You COULD make bosses similar to Malenia, but then every boss is equal to the strongest boss that already exists. No progression, it's been prefarmed. Since levels add little, you can't use them as a basis for power anymore. Blessings stepped in and took over.

You already have to kill Mogh. You could scale enemies and bosses to him and it'd be just fine. The blessings just messes things up because now you are forced to hunt down all of the fragments.

Originally posted by ilikestamps51:

Now could they have used a different system? Certainly. But they went with blessings and the impact is meaningful and the progression impactful. People complain to hell about Messmer and Rellana and Divine Lion. I downed all of them on the first attempt, and not because I'm some pro RL1 souls vet dodger. I was smacked around for most of the fight and just outhealed and outlasted the bosses, due solely to blessing level. Clearly the other people on these boards didn't bother to do the side content surrounding the main bosses before actually doing the main story bosses. Which is akin to gunning for Margit at lvl 1 instead of doing Weeping Peninsula and coming back at lvl 30-40 with +4 flasks and smithed up weapons.

Now you're forced to do the side content because if you don't the bosses deal a ton of more damage. Also if we already have killed Mogh we should be powerful enough to deal with whatever the DLC throw at us. But they threw a curve ball with this blessing and they keep throwing them until we get all of the fragments. At which they'll throw normal balls again.

Originally posted by ilikestamps51:

In short, there's no which is it issue here. A sense of progression was created by the devs, their intention unknown but the result is clear, and levels wouldn't have had the same impact since they drop off the more of them you have. My friend has a level capped character and was still getting slapped around by the story bosses while I coasted through them with a quarter of his levels due to my patience and exploration thanks to the blessing system. Just like base Elden Ring... you can try Malenia at lvl 80 if you rushed, or lvl 150 if you didn't. Farming the same spot like Moghwyn's Palace was probably something the creators wanted to avoid this time around since we didn't get shadow runes, we got items.

They are still keeping that leveling spot in mogh palace. It'd be fun to have a new place to use because it makes no difference. The blessings just screws you over.

Originally posted by ilikestamps51:

Could they have balanced the DLC around being lvl 1 and asked you to make a new character or do it on NG+? Yes, totally. But they didn't. Considering the what ifs of personal armchair game design is better left for the trolls. We received what we were given and the method works.

It's after Mogh ffs, we are not telling them to balance it around level 1. No one is asking it to be scaled after level 1.

Also majority of the enemies in the DLC are so weak that they die in one hit. They pose no threat. Then you have bosses that makes the hardest boss in the base game look rather tame.