Souls Veteran here. I'll never play another FromSoft game again.

[P1]

Firstly, let me explain by saying I am a souls veteran. I have been playing since demon souls, and have completed the DS trilogy multiple times under multiple different builds. When Elden Ring came, I enjoyed it even though it had a lot of differences from the mainline souls game. So when the DLC was announced, I couldn't wait to try it. All the 10/10 from media outlets had me hyped. Then I got the DLC upon release and was left disappointed and almost feel swindled by all the media hype.

Firstly, the DLC is a huge let down. And before they come at me saying "git gud", I want to state this is not a complaint about the difficult or DLC being hard, but it being tedious and boring.

Same copy-pasted ghost dragon dude copy-pasted everywhere. Shadow dudes literally spammed everywhere. A New level-up system that copies Zelda BoTW by forcing you to search empty maps for shrines - I mean "scadutree" fragments to be powered up, or you'll get one shot in full bullgoat armor by a shadow dude. The bosses are the worst designs of any Souls game, in fact they don't even belong in a souls game, and should be in some fast-paced action combat game. Having bosses that unleash 50 combos followed by 20 aerial combos followed by 10 arena wide AoE attacks while you control a clunky dark souls character is just a cheap attempt at artifial difficult and tedious. Oh, and most bosses literally instantly attack you before you barely even step through the foggate.

If this is the direction souls games are going now, I will never play another one again. I want a SOULS game, not some ANIME style combat. It seems like now since souls games have gone so mainstream game journalists and die hard fanboys will just pretend from games can not have a single flaw and are always perfect. I really hope miyazakis next game just boots up to nothing but a screen featuring a picture of him taking a massive, stinky dump. Fromsoft die hard fanboys will be praising it and discussing the hidden lore of the sweetcorn hidden in the right corner of miyazakis dump, and telling anybody who complains to "git gud".

[p0k314NET]

As for me, I'm totally disappointed with this DLC. It's made haphazardly, without any idea, where the "bullet sponges" and AoE make it "difficult". All the bosses act like they have ADHD and what's worse they use the same basic moveset! Additionally scaling is implemented - it is NOT based on weaponry and builds, but on collectibles that replace BASIC items such as weapons or armor (because it's much easier and cheaper for the developer!). Scaling and collectibles instead of refined enemy mechanics and new items! What a trash level of development! Mechanics from MMO or HnS in skill based game. C'mon... The amount of junk for crafting is so unbelievable that I began to ask myself if it wasn't Don't Starve by any chance - but that's how it is, when you're making a mess, and you have to fill this empty world with something/anything. The world is poor copypasta from base game: the same textures, the same objects, the same esthetic. This is terrible. Also, no progress in technical matters: it's the same old engine for which 60 fps is the maximum, and it doesn't reach them smoothly either. No DLSS or FSR in 2024 is like spit into face of customers. I'm downright discouraged. This DLC is so bad that I could write and write, but what's the point - reeks of the same B-team that was responsible for the failure of Dark Souls 2.

It's clearly show that something very bad is going on in FromSoftware. Considering that their capitalization after the release of Elden Ring increased more than 10 times - that means they have a lot of money.

I'm not waiting for more FromSoftware games, they have nothing to offer me. I'm not angry, I'm extremely disappointed.

At the moment, it is FromSoftware's worst-rated production in 15 years, since Ninja Blade. If something like this doesn't indicate a crisis in the studio, what else would it indicate?

/That's it from my side, I'm closing the chapter called FromSoftware after more than 14 years of extraordinary productions. What has a beginning, has an end. That's just the way it is. Time to move on./

[A̴̛͔̓̃̈́͘͝ngel]

The summons ruined the saga, it's impossible to balance a boss for a 2vs1 fight, and they chose the worst way: making chaotic battles where you're more occupied fighting with the camera than with the boss.

[Courier Six]

Първоначално публикувано от FauxFurry:

The discussions around this game might have been a lot more interesting if criticism of elements of this game's design were shared more widely sooner. Here are a bit more of them to consider.
https://youtu.be/sfqeGSzBugk?si=MXfs3f4icALFkfXs
https://youtu.be/0X_zSDAcfzA?si=-6xTKJVQjaHzNfyB

I watched the first video and that was really badly formed opinions. I don't have the will to watch the second video

[NONAME]

Първоначално публикувано от Porcelain:

Първоначално публикувано от Professor Chadstein:

I have work, I can’t spend all my time playing the game killing birds for souls

I do too, so does majority of players. I'm not going to knock you down for playing the game however you want to play, since it's your money. But I will 100% disagree with cheating to win. That takes away the entire point out of playing these games.

It's just plain unnecessary, considering how many powerful builds there are.
All you need is too google one of them and the game will become tolerable, if not outright easy.

[Ichi-niiPL]

The DLC has issues no doubt about that.

The difficulty itself isn't much of an issue aside from Radahn p2 which is just badly designed in my opinion. Rellana and Mesmer are tough but they are certainly beatable once you learn the bosses moveset even without buffs/summons or cheese builds.

The problems are elsewhere - there are several huge areas that are empty, even if they look great. For example - it took me like 2h to explore those damn insanity woods and i got nothing to show for it - a complete waste of time.
Another thing is lack of achievements, which is a huge letdown for me, as i like collecting them - that's just plain laziness, was it really that hard to make achievs for boss kills or finishing NPC questlines etc.? - also i think adding new ending to base game based on Miquella would be great too - it's a wasted potential.
Next issue is the price which at 40$ is too expensive for DLC - 30$ would be more appropriate in my opinion (i paid like 25$ on CDkeys), if they wanted to charge more then they should've made more content and release Elden Ring 2 - which i think might've been original goal when looking at map size, but FS realized they don't have enough content for it halfway and so DLC was born.

Another issue is performance issues, if even on 13600K/2x16gb 4000mhz cl16/4080/990pro - i can experience them then what about ppl with mid/low-tier machines. I can name two boss fights where i had severe fps drops on my rig(radahn p2 & one open world dragon) - and quite a few more in regular open world exploration.

Those are the negatives, there are ofc plenty of positives the story, artwork, NPC questlines, interesting bosses and cool new weapons and gear and so on. I generally have positive impression of DLC but i'm not blind to the issues it has and it does have quite a few of those. I rate it as 75-80/100 myself, i'm baffled by the 10/10 reviews i see personally - base game was worth such a score, DLC on it's own is not worth such high note.
"Anyway that's all i got for you today, go away now " ;)

[Dedut]

Git gud

[Andi]

Първоначално публикувано от FauxFurry:

Първоначално публикувано от Andi:

i'm sure there are more that don't share that dark and violent theme. Anime has always been for teens since the beginning so naturally those themes weren't prominent early on. when evangelion came out everyone praised it for breaking the mold. that's because it DID break the mold for introducing darker themes. you would go on to say "what about serial experiments lain or x anime or y anime", but at the end of the day, anime is such a vast genre. there's an anime for any subgenre you can think of. And in the grandscheme of things these shows with dark themes you're talking about don't make up a fraction of all the anime produced back then. Anyway, why do you think taking inspiration from an anime means you have to present your inspired work in an anime-like fashion? If a souls game dropped today and berserk didn't exist, would you still call it an anime game?

'Anime' is split into 4 super demographics with smaller sub-demographics, that being Shojou (girls), Shounen (boys), Seinen (men) and Josei (women). The majority of Japanese animation bought over to the West fall into the Shounen and Shojou demo categories as they are easier sells but that does not mean that is what they are limited to. Many of the series that people have used as a counter-example are Seinen (such as Berserk, Jin-Roh, Ninja Scrolls).

Shounen was unisex at first and has come before seinen. Seinen was only popularized much later on after some of the mature shows garnering an audience. Whether or not shounen/shoujo are easier sells in the west do not matter. Shounen is still more popular in japan by a large margin and has two to three times the produced shows compared to other categories. Also, seinen =/= dark and gloomy, even though it is the common perception in the west. Keep in mind, crayon shin chan is slso a seinen show.

[Mecharion]

The same clowns then every day. Get a hobby.. or job.. or whatever..

[Herbalacious]

Yeah I get it. I'm a huge fromsoft fan also. DS3, Bloodborne, Sekiro are their best games by far. DS1 was great but once you figure out you can backstab 90% of enemies the game becomes stupid easy. DS2 PvP was a whole experience tho that was a ton of fun back in the day. The designated spots for red summons were just hilariously epic - also, Rat Covenant lmao.

Blah blah, anyway I get what you're saying but I'm not gonna go that extreme with never buying their games again. Master baiting in the title, but I do kinda agree with you on some points.

The scadu fragments was to ensure this game was going to be a challenge for all level ranges so I get why they did it, but this game doesn't need that. If people are levelling over 150 it's cus they want an easier time playing and want to use more weapons/spells/incants whatever. Not everyone has 40 hours a week to put into a video game to git gud. Let them have it if they want to keep levelling up imo. Scale the difficulty to the rest of the game, but maybe slightly harder.

As for the boss fights, they were way harder pre patch yo. They really did attack you immediately after crossing the fog wall. A certain mounted boss was total BS imo pre patch lol. I'm wrapping up my 2nd play thru and it's not like that now you have time to summon for most scenarios if you need to. Something to remember, summoning npc's inside the boss arena will not scale the boss hp up. If you do summon before the fog wall tho it will.

The boss fights in the DLC are def a lot more aggressive than the rest of the game. The attack combos for a few of the bosses just seem to last a long time so it feels like there isn't any openings sometimes. Still the same strategy applies tho. Learn their attacks and combos and just focus on trying to survive don't even worry about attacking just dodge and block and backstep whatever, try attacking after their big heavy attacks or after their combo to look for an opening to learn when it's safe to get 1 or 2 hits in, backup and be ready to avoid the next wave of attacks, apply status effects and finding a way to build up poise damage to stagger like jumping attacks or guard counters is also a smart way to play.

No way to know any of this stuff tho without dying a lot and just going for it. But you need to have a strategy before just charging it - Otherwise expect to die a lot more.

[Sham!]

Първоначално публикувано от Haru:

Първоначално публикувано от Nauct:

I'd agree about damage sponging, I've played games with that, this game does not have it at all. My RL1 is doing 4700+ per attack to Messmer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnQUz9mJvrY
Even at 0 Skadoos the boss runs are only a few minutes at RL1. If anything they need more HP

Especially Romina, honestly.

Nobody moans about her because she's not actively kicking in anyone's teeth, but if other bosses are 'overtuned', I'd argue she's extremely undertuned for her placement in the DLC.

i run a truck on her (him?) and i was so confused, was expecting it to just pull a malenia and give me the "wait. ." and turn into a butterfly or smth but nah

still a nice fight overall like most bosses from the dlc, people just focus on the one or two odd ones

[AlmaDarkSpell]

Fromsoftware veteran also speaking here.

If I'm going to be honest, it didn't surprise me. I have been playing From games for more than 10 years, and I have seen how with each new title, the difficulty was increased to a large extent artificially. After seeing Malenia, Malekith or Radahn, I expected a huge level of aggressiveness in the DLC bosses.

And that's what we got. The pattern has always been the same. Less and less window to heal, less and less window to attack. The need to learn all bosses patterns almost perfectly. The waves of instakill attacks. Same over and over.

But like someone said. cheese bosses deserve cheese strategies. I have no problem using each and every one of the tools that the game gives me to make it easy. And if that includes summoning other players to get the boss off me quickly, so be it.

For me Fromsoftware made 3 perfect games, and those are: Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne. That's all.

[Messmer needs me?]

Първоначално публикувано от P1:

Firstly, let me explain by saying I am a souls veteran.

lmao
in this house we salute our brave boys fighting overseas for us
dunno where this souls place is though
anyway thank you for your service mr veteran sir

[Haru]

I'd argue that Dark Souls 3 is a derivative rehash of Dark Souls, with uninspired areas, amazing ideas that never made it to the finish line, maybe five bosses - including DLC bosses - that actually feel worth fighting. The player is far too strong and unbalanced compared to most of what they're fighting.

At least in Elden Ring, I build as a GOD to fight GODS.

[Asmodia]

Първоначално публикувано от Lateralus:

Първоначално публикувано от Professor Chadstein:

I have work, I can’t spend all my time playing the game killing birds for souls

Then play something else. The game is clearly not meant for you. You just admitted to using cheats on a souls game, you're gonna be clowned on hard for that and you used the "I have a life" excuse. Which is a piss poor excuse cause so do other people and they dont feel the need to cheat.

Also Mohgwyn Palace overlook you dingus. You dont have to, just kill the albinaurics for souls. Its the best method.

Im being a bit mean here, I know but cheating in a souls game is whack man.

First time I’ve ever used an engine. Played each game on PlayStation before switching to ds3 on pc

[Courier Six]

Първоначално публикувано от AlmaDarkSpell:

Fromsoftware veteran also speaking here.

If I'm going to be honest, it didn't surprise me. I have been playing From games for more than 10 years, and I have seen how with each new title, the difficulty was increased to a large extent artificially. After seeing Malenia, Malekith or Radahn, I expected a huge level of aggressiveness in the DLC bosses.

And that's what we got. The pattern has always been the same. Less and less window to heal, less and less window to attack. The need to learn all bosses patterns almost perfectly. The waves of instakill attacks. Same over and over.

But like someone said. cheese bosses deserve cheese strategies. I have no problem using each and every one of the tools that the game gives me to make it easy. And if that includes summoning other players to get the boss off me quickly, so be it.

For me Fromsoftware made 3 perfect games, and those are: Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne. That's all.

Demon Souls was far from perfect, but it's still pretty good. DS1, Bloodborne, and Sekiro are fromsoft's magnum opus.