Exploration in DLC is confusing?

[Syntaxis]

Hey so I was just wondering if I'm dumb or if others find the exploration of the DLC rather confusing? I've played and completed every Dark Souls game as well as bloodborne and Elden Ring, I'd consider myself a Dark Souls vet and the difficulty was never an issue for me, but the progression the "where the hell do I go factor" is just confusing to me in the DLC. I get the new verticality is what everyone is raving about but to me it's more confusing than anything. Seeing some new region below you or above you and wondering how the ♥♥♥♥ do I get there is awesome, and entering new places like the Cerulean Coast or the beautiful flower place behind shadow keep is AMAZING and these truly are the best areas from soft has probably made and I'm not overstating that. But to have these places be hidden in the smallest cave under the most nondescript ruin of all time is what makes me confused. I haven't been following any NPC quests this first time because normally you don't really have to but dude, I'm trying to follow roads and they lead no where, I'm trying to go find the map fragment, and oop it's at the bottom of this cliff and I can't look at my map to find landmarks to look in.

I'm sure with time and with new playthroughs I'll be more aware of my surroundings and know where to go like all the other games, but for some reason this DLC I just have no idea what I'm doing. I'm at level 14 scadutree and I'm at the second to last boss but like I haven't done Jagged Peak and I have no idea where to get more fragments because yeah the map is either uncovered or stuff is probably hidden in another tiny ass cave.

The DLC is great, and the bosses and areas are TRULY the best they have every conceived but the balancing and way the world unfolds is just unlike any other game they've made and I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing.

Am I just looking at this wrong or does anyone feel somewhat the same way?

[hemorrhage911]

I don't know, the coast is one of their best areas? I guess gameplay really is secondary to most players. That area sucks ass.

[Syntaxis]

Originally posted by hemorrhage911:

I don't know, the coast is one of their best areas? I guess gameplay really is secondary to most players. That area sucks ass.

No I meant in terms of beauty sorry. Not in terms of playing, exploring in the DLC I'd give it to shadow keep, it was short to me but I enjoyed it at least with what I've seen.

[Funpire]

I start bottom right, then work left, down, back to right, up, left again... That way I can try to get an entire area as I move through.

Despite this, I still missed a lot of items and I completely missed Bonny Village, Abyssal Woods, and another place that I found while perusing items on the wiki. I really did enjoy the vertical nature of the map though. I finished the game with +17 / + 8. Not really interested in trying to find what I missed.

[Drax]

Personally I much preferred this type of world design. Much prefer more layered/complex world design and the feeling of uncovering new areas unexpectedly.

I took much more of an issue with how empty the world felt in comparison to the base game. I know it's only an expansion but could have done with a few more openworld bosses and items to find within the world. Ideally a couple more forges and catacombs too. Doesn't help the Furnace Golems are just unfun gimmick fights.

[Syntaxis]

Originally posted by Drax:

Personally I much preferred this type of world design. Much prefer more layered/complex world design and the feeling of uncovering new areas unexpectedly.

I took much more of an issue with how empty the world felt in comparison to the base game. I know it's only an expansion but could have done with a few more openworld bosses and items to find within the world. Ideally a couple more forges and catacombs too. Doesn't help the Furnace Golems are just unfun gimmick fights.

Yeah that's my thing too I think, the world is just upgrade materials, I take time to go down this cool looking path and the one item at the end is a smithing stone level 7, yay, as if I didn't have the bell bearing for that and I can buy infinite of those for like 3k souls, for this reason I'm just like whatever where's the boss.

I've never even tried to fight a furnace golem, I saw online how to kill them and I was just it's not worth wacking at his feet and jumping over his attacks for 20 minutes to get a talisman or bubble tear.

[Hammer_Squirrel]

There was one section I missed for a while because there are two swamps that look nearly identical and I missed exploring through one. The map below the ancient ruins also took a bit of doing, but I was able to get through all of the major areas of the map through reveals, like that map marker, or features on the explored map like notches in mountains or a building or something.

The river area is probably where I spent most of my WTFing but for the most part it wasn’t too bad. I would say it was more involved than the base game, but not enough that I couldn’t figure things out

[Shady_Milkman]

Cerulean Coast is annoyingly well hidden

[epreber0809]

I was surprised how much i did miss myself before I started referring to a guide and I goofed up the NPC quests by crossing... I thought people were just trolling with all the mesages or maybe there was a tough boss beyond but nah... I ended up finding Messmer and thought that was all there was to the black keep... The underground area was a little confusing I'll say that. So I guess somewhat confusing. I would have missed a bunch of fights.