For Those Who Didn't Enjoy the DLC, What Aspects Specifically Did You Dislike?

[Jackson]

Not meant to be a hate thread, but the DLC didn't feel very catered to my interests. Was just curious what others disliked.

To distill it down for me, I primarily didn't like how much of a scavenger hunt the Scadutree Fragments felt like. I don't enjoy exploration in any game, and it was a focus for this expansion. The winding paths made getting from point A to B difficult and confusing to me.

More to that, I didn't like how the Shadow Blessing Level interacted with the game, the design of percent damage reduction and percent damage increase caused the enemies to feel bloated to compensate.

I also didn't like the Furnace Golem fights. Their health bar makes the fight drag and makes the encounter feel repetitive. I was also surprised how many more dragons were used in the expansion, as I thought there were already too many in the core game, so those were unwelcome to me, but, maybe others really enjoy them.

I think that's most of my grievances, what were your thoughts?

[MidnightMist]

I like the DLC overall but I think they didn't really do their best work when it comes to boss *set-up* and *presentation*. There is a real lack of build up, a real lack of spectacle. The base game had you very aware of whose "zone" you were in the entire time, their personality was all over their area. Rennala, for example. Huge magic school where the Queen herself sits in a library with massive lore-suggesting cutscenes. Her twin sister? Is just...in a tower. Without a cutscene...or voice lines...

[Fripposo]

bro the more i walk the map, the more sad i get, haha, i really dont like that it feels completely rushed and empty, poor quantity and variety of enemies, besides that trash mobs of little shadow guys and dogs. oh and i too get a weird feeling from the scadu tree scaling system.. its as if fighting enemies to lvl up was no longer important, that said, this two things make sense when put together, like: 'why would u want to fight enemies out on the open field if the reward u receive is no longer important' u know what i mean? really dissapointed with those aspects, and i really think its a missed
out opportunity, because the map interconnection and some legacy dungeons design are still top notch

[Chris1]

Totally agree about the exploration point. I found exploration in the base game was OK because there were lots of different things dotted everywhere, from caves to catacombs to ruins with hidden bosses, to old mining shafts, to jails. It was varied, and it always seemed like there was just another thing just around that corner.

By contrast, the DLC exploration felt terrible. The map was intentionally confusing, almost as if to try to force you to explore every nook and cranny despite there being absolutely nothing there 99% of the time. The scadutree fragments were randomly placed around in ways that made no logical sense (unlike churches with sacred tears or golden trees with seeds along the obvious paths). Again, it just felt like they needed a way to stretch out the exploration of the game to make the DLC seem bigger and more full than it really was.

There was really only two styles of dungeons in the DLC and all the jails felt the same and all the catacombs felt the same. The lava-areas were OK but were all pretty short and not really developed enough.

I also hated how many re-used bosses there were. So much hype about "40 bosses" yet here we go again with Tree Sentinels and Demi-human Queens and copy and pasted dragon bosses.

[Project Purple]

Boss HP and damage mainly

I swapped to a no intelligence strength build and the bosses still suck even when I'm dealing 1700 damage a hit

[Fripposo]

Originally posted by Chris1:

Totally agree about the exploration point. I found exploration in the base game was OK because there were lots of different things dotted everywhere, from caves to catacombs to ruins with hidden bosses, to old mining shafts, to jails. It was varied, and it always seemed like there was just another thing just around that corner.

By contrast, the DLC exploration felt terrible. The map was intentionally confusing, almost as if to try to force you to explore every nook and cranny despite there being absolutely nothing there 99% of the time. The scadutree fragments were randomly placed around in ways that made no logical sense (unlike churches with sacred tears or golden trees with seeds along the obvious paths). Again, it just felt like they needed a way to stretch out the exploration of the game to make the DLC seem bigger and more full than it really was.

There was really only two styles of dungeons in the DLC and all the jails felt the same and all the catacombs felt the same. The lava-areas were OK but were all pretty short and not really developed enough.

I also hated how many re-used bosses there were. So much hype about "40 bosses" yet here we go again with Tree Sentinels and Demi-human Queens and copy and pasted dragon bosses.

totally man, im happy reading this now that it seems the hype is getting colder and there are more people saying this things, praise the sun my brother

[Joeycentral]

Exploration. I feel like you aboslutely need a guide to get to every area or boss unless yhou want to spend weeks wandering around like an idiot wondering where to go next. Like I just want to play the game why do I need to explore? They understood that when they released The Ringed City DLC, so why did that change here?

[Umbral Knight]

- Dancing Tree Lion having more than two damage types.
- Story was asscheeks but I appreciated the dialogue choices.
- If Melina is still alive it doesn't make any sense why she would say nothing in this entire area.
- No covenants STILL.
- Half of the remembrance bosses had no intro cinematic.
- Copy & Pasted Dragons out the wazoo.
- Furnace Golems being an absolute chore to fight after the first time with hardly any decent rewards.
- Many bosses have a ridiculous amount of mobility causing the fights to drag on longer due to how much melee builds have to run around.
- The Lothric Princes did the final boss's shtick better.
- FPS and glitches here and there.

[Supahslm]

Final boss didn't feel like a final boss, not even for the dlc. Was really hoping for something that was a bit more of a bookend like with DS3 and Bloodborne since we really aren't getting any more for Elden Ring after this. I get that technically the DLC takes place before we kill the main game final boss but that's kind of a silly thing considering that difficulty wise most won't progress that way.

Remembrance weapons and spells all look cool but in practice don't feel so good too. That said 95% of this DLC was incredible and loved the little secrets you stumble into.

[Rutabaga]

I haven't finished it yet, but so far, to me, it feels a bit overtuned. Even trash mobs kill you in two to three hits, much like the bosses. With that in consideration, I think maybe they have a bit too much health as well. It's not like i can't do it, but it just feels like it adds so much potential grind to every fight. It gets a bit tedious in the end.

But i don't hate it or anything, so far it's been good. Just a little bit over the top for my taste.

[Rhaegar]

What I disliked the most were the giant areas of the game with barely anything in it. It made exploration utterly uninteresting to me because I felt like I was looking for needles in a haystack. That in turn made me find less blessings, so the game in general was a lot harder than it needed to be on my first playthrough.

I also very much dislike the constant punishment of selfheal. It felt like I spent more time trying to drink and getting interrupted than I spent actually attacking the enemies.

It also feels like there's a clear attempt to make the actual learning process during bossfights as tedious as possible. They all have several phases, which means you need to work out how to respond to a new moveset via trial and error.

Error constantly throws you back to P1 because healing is punished so hard, and damage is often high enough for bosses to kill you in ~2 hits. Worst offender here is of course the last boss, as that guy literally blinds you, so a lot of the time you can't even tell wtf hit you.

[𝑀𝓊𝑔𝑒𝓃]

The bosses with exception of Romina , Midra , Messmer and Metyr , the rest of the bosses felt like a chore to fight

[Jackson]

While there are too many posts to comment on specifically, I genuinely appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts. It's re-assuring it's not "just me", as I have friends who are enjoying the title, and I don't want to drag them down with my negative impressions.

[Fistraiser]

So the reason you all dont like the open world dlc is that you dont like open world exploration ?

[Fripposo]

Originally posted by Jackson:

While there are too many posts to comment on specifically, I genuinely appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts. It's re-assuring it's not "just me", as I have friends who are enjoying the title, and I don't want to drag them down with my negative impressions.

hey man i had a similar feeling on the first days after release, until i started readin this kind of posts and thinkin 'hey, glad its not just me, there really ARE a couple of serious problems with this game', im not trying to lower its price or saying its bad, but come on its not that indisputable ten out of ten that everyone says

[Fripposo]

Originally posted by Fistraiser:

So the reason you all dont like the open world dlc is that you dont like open world exploration ?

open worlds and exploration are my favourite game structure, by far, but i dont like open EMPTY world exploration