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".

[Morsk]

Originally posted by Xxanno:

All this culminate with the spirit ashes. Let's be honest, SA's are the crutch that makes the game possible to beat regardless of skill or time invested. This in itself are fine, but I fear if this development continues then only the folks that does challenge runs will be able to play the game without a blatent crutch.

This is it. Spirit ashes ruined boss design. I enjoy everything else in the DLC, but bosses are all practicing the timings to dodge a combo.

It's also ruined coop for me, as I don't like to put my summon sign down if I can't kill a boss consistently using <= 5 heals. This used to be only moderately harder than soloing the boss, but now it's a huge challenge.

[Fuzzy.Bunny]

Originally posted by Armando Broncas:

The issues with the bosses are not rare, this bad design was present at the base game specially after reaching mountain top of the giants, everything after that becomes a serious joke.

But I understand the feeling, I felt exaclty the same after beating the base game, I don't agree with the direction of the series anymore.

This is a fair response and, honestly, I'm not sure why so many people keep defending the genuine design problems. If we all are passionate about SoulsBorne, why not be willing to point out where the games can do better?

[Krazy Wallet]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C27NShgTQE4

[RichieJ]

Let's be honest, p1 is not leaving. He's going to make another bait thread in a week to farm jesters again

[Krazy Wallet]

Originally posted by Porcelain:

Let's be honest, p1 is not leaving. He's going to make another bait thread in a week to farm jesters again

In a week? I gave him a day and a half at most.

[John Titor]

Originally posted by Krazy Wallet:

Originally posted by Porcelain:

Let's be honest, p1 is not leaving. He's going to make another bait thread in a week to farm jesters again

In a week? I gave him a day and a half at most.

Bets on the content of said thread?

[Sham!]

Originally posted by John Titor:

Originally posted by Krazy Wallet:

In a week? I gave him a day and a half at most.

Bets on the content of said thread?

"as a souls veteran i cannot belive the sad state of pvp"
i think it's time to spice the formula up a bit, can only make this many threads about pve

[Haru]

Nobody here has yet to present why the core design of these bosses is fundamentally broken beyond "it's too fast".

I've beat the DLC 3 times, every boss, on three different builds. No Youtube guides needed. Or summons.

Seems balanced to me. <SHRUG>

[Krazy Wallet]

Originally posted by John Titor:

Originally posted by Krazy Wallet:

In a week? I gave him a day and a half at most.

Bets on the content of said thread?

Title:
As Someone who Got Gud, this DLC is Bullsh*t

Body of message:
I'm an MLG pro who's done every build known to mankind and the literal Messiah of the souls community, Fromsoft has lost it's edge in boss creation. They've taken the formula and threw in a dose of crap with a spicing of bull. There's no more "your turn, my turn" in the dance, every heal gets punished, they blind you with flashbangs and rah rah rah - 3 paragraphs of unwarranted hate

-signed an objectively correct opinion

[Whiptail]

Cry me a river

[video game “enjoyer”]

"games have gone so mainstream game journalists" bro just admit you're worse than game journalists. Demon souls won gamespots GOTY in 2009, they've been playing these games since you were 4

just admit you're bad at video games

[Fenix]

oh look another post ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about the game by P1...
https://youtu.be/7hC3uyQdQKM

[Banana King]

Originally posted by P1:

Originally posted by Banana King:

Time heals all wounds.

What about an open wound to the hurt caused by a sawn off shotgun? Because that's what Miyazaki has done to me, metaphorically, with the release of this DLC.

Yeah I don't know if there is a cure for being a drama queen.

Your expectations are deluding you to basic reality; developers will try to evolve, improve and attempt new things (incrementally or not) or they will keep pumping out the same thing over and over.

I'd put money you'd be complaining no matter what.

Move on, play other games and you'll be refreshed when you return to the next Fromsoft title.

Good luck.

[Albatross]

Yawn, another boomer that can't keep up

[Sandro]

The only saving grace of this DLC is the art direction, even then it's only relevant in very few areas. The rest - at least 70% of the map is empty; copy paste locations for miles with zero variety in terms of items and henchmen, or beautiful points of interests only to find nothing there: bad design.

Boss difficulty while being atrocious could've been easily ignored by most people if the rest of the areas of the game were perfect. Alas, the rest is 6/10 at best and 3/10 at worst.