Now that the dust has settled...

[Lahoo Eckbert]

Can we all agree that the DLC isn't as good as we initially thought it was?

It still exceeded my expectations, but after playing it through and through I couldn't help but realize almost 30-40% of the map is just beautiful scenery with almost no substance. Finger Ruins, Charo's grave, hinterlands and some part Cerulean coast could have been just one small dense area and it would have worked better. I also thought Freya, Leda, Hornsent and Ansbach's quest lines were not very satisfactory. Ymir, Igon and Thoilier questlines were pretty interesting and dynamic but the rest not so much.

Aside from that, it still is my GOTY candidate and likely From's best DLC.

[aqua493xd]

Ill give you that. But in return i want 3 staples.

[Angel]

they absolutely could've done some stuff better I agree

[Bab Peeg]

Reads like those old bait 4chan topics

[Mr. Nobody]

My big issue was I felt like everything outside of the remembrance bosses was just way too easy. I know there is always some level of gap in difficulty between the sidebosses/enemies and major bosses but the DLC felt excessive even by base game standards.

Pretty sure Jori, the Elder Inquisitor was the only non-remembrance boss I died more than twice against which is crazy considering how many times I died versus even the Dancing Lion.

I remember at least a dozen sidebosses in the base game that I struggled a bit against so not having to struggle against literally any of them was a major disapointment. And I know for a fact I died more times to normal enemies in the Haligtree than I did to normal enemies in the entire DLC.

[Chris1]

People who aren't die hard Elden Ring fanatics will probably not be contributing much to the forum in these discussions, especially as time goes on. I suspect most people who were extremely underwhelmed by the DLC have already moved on to other games and don't really care to visit these discussions any more.

Personally I agree the DLC is underwhelming. I've gone through it about 3 times now, and the first time was the worst, I had more fun the second time, but the third it just got boring. I've been through the main game about 10 times and still feel like there is life left in the main game, but the DLC now just feels tacked on and I am not really feeling compelled to finish it again in a subsequent play-through.

Largely empty environment, bosses which aren't very fun to fight who all use the same tactics (fly into the air arena AoE, multi combos, dash forward exactly where the player is, infinite poise hyper armor for 90% of the fight, etc.), and a ridiculous 50 piece scavenger hunt just to make the DLC playable. I think it was fun on my 2nd play-through mainly because it was ridiculously "overtuned" and it was only fun to play once I already knew all the confusing BS related to bosses, the environment, and finding the fragments (silver pot guys, seriously?).

The NPC quests are also pretty much all terrible. Let's not forgot Jolan & Grandam, two individuals who are just kind of "there" in the world with absolutely no weight or interesting angle to their existence whatsoever. What a waste

[BingusDingus]

Not according to the fanatics on the forum who will look for every way imaginable to say your opinion is wrong, even the reddit is nowhere near as bad.

[aqua493xd]

Originally posted by BingusDingus:

Not according to the fanatics on the forum who will look for every way imaginable to say your opinion is wrong, even the reddit is nowhere near as bad.

Then go to reddit

[Nauct]

I just like fighting bosses so it was pretty perfect to me

[Haru]

I feel like the Abyssal Woods is maybe the worst standalone area in the entirety of Fromsoft design, even compared to Lost Izalith. They should've spent less time on that ridiculous amount of empty space and instead built more into the legacy dungeon aspect of it. The Finger Ruins are more akin to huge set pieces, but they don't really add much. It feels sort of out of place. They're farming grounds for Lamprey and that's about it.

Aside from that, I guess I don't really have many if any complaints. Just some more wishes. I wish some lore had been a bit less ambiguous than usual. Most of the NPC questlines are typical From fare. I was also hoping that the jar dungeons would lead to some big reveal or epic jar-themed boss fight, but the enemies encountered at the bottom of them oft feel a bit random.

I didn't think much of the mausoleums. I feel like these could've just worked like optional invasions, or something to that effect, maybe skin to the volcano manor questline. I spent a while working up how to get onto the archipelago at the north of the map, only to find out it only contained one of those fights and nothing else. Does not feel like a good use of space.

That said, it completely met my expectations and I do put it above Ringed City for enjoyment factor.

[Key]

Every day there's someone saying "Now that the dust has settled", "Now that the honeymoon phase is over" "Are we ready to..."

Give it a couple of months. Let people play more than once, let people experiment. Let the balance patches clean up. Stop being so damn impatient.

[Lynfinity]

Originally posted by Lahoo Eckbert:

Can we all agree that the DLC isn't as good as we initially thought it was?

The problem, I reckon, is that some people set up unrealistically high expectations for themselves (what with it being called an expansion and whatnot) and then, of course, it left quite a sour taste in their mouth when they realized most of those expectations were never meant to be.

Still a solid DLC, just not on a "It's gonna be the finest FromSoft work to date!" level of solid.

[Silyon]

Somehow, despite the long time it took to launch and the lack of any known deadline they might have been working under, the DLC still feels rushed and incomplete. OP didn't even mention Moore, because Moore's questline is so easily missed. Every questline, for that matter, gets either advanced or aborted quickly by simple exploration, exploration they also encourage you to do in hunting down the tree fragments to simply survive encounters.

Not to mention there are places where the new lore of the DLC seems to conflict with established lore of the base game. Such as Dragon communion being a cult started by Placidusax to get weakling mortals to do the dirty work of hunting down Bayel for him. Ignoring the base game's description of it being a practice started by mortals lusting after dragon's power, and the fact that you consume the hearts of Ancient Dragons as well as Bayel's Drakes in the process. Or Miquella completely forsaking multiple tasks he had previously dedicated his life to correcting, from Malenia and Godwyn to sheltering the forsaken and downtrodden. Nevermind the left-field butchery of Mohg's and Radahan's characters.

I'm not even touching the obviously barely-tested bossfights. Instead lets talk about all the weapons and spells from the base game that were never fixed to be baseline functional, plus the wide array of new spells and weapons that get added to that pile. It's like the DLC was released with no playtesting or bugfixing in mind, only the glitz and glam of new environments and shiny boss abilities to get killed by.

[Kurobon]

ER is simply very tedious to play after the DLC. and iit made me realize how badly designed is ER.

ER has all the tropes of an open world game, you can literally spend dozens of hours just exploring. Add difficult souls like bosses, that may take a lot of hours or even days to properly beat if you want to try hard or use modest loadouts.

The base game had 2 or 4 very challenging bosses, and the others were reasonable.
However, in this DLC you can spend dozens of hours navigating anew huge map and most bosses are extremely strong and would take many hours or days if you want to beat them legit, and because traversing the game is encouraged to get stronger, that means that the fatigu of exploring is going to be meeting the fatigue of try-harding bosses..

In the Messmer fight specifically, I knew absolutely all his moves but still needed to try for many more hours because he has similar combos that he delays some hits, and his delays were not traditional 4/4 tempo delays of other bosses. I would not consistently dodge them unless I was in absurds level of alertness, this is exhausting. At one point I was about to kill him and he whipped out a full screen flash final move that you can't really practice until you get there.

Messmer is not unbalanced, but in the context of ER, so much content and so many difficult bosses, brain fatigue is real. Most Sekiro fights are much harder than Messmer is going to be. But Sekiro is a short game with a dozen of bosses and you don't really have to fetch a loadout or ride a horse for dozens of hours, so the game is concise and well-designed. ER is not.

Like any open world game, you eventually get exhausted and want to finish it. At that point you can whip out the summons. But this is "open world fatigue" "just let me progress and finish" solution just shows the tedium that ER is..

[Rando the Crit Clown]

Why are so many people surprised that the DLC for Elden Ring is like Elden Ring and trying to pretend like it's suddenly a problem?

[caxshen]

i put the game down after i'm forced to get a guide to learn how to get to the abyssal wood. an entire region hidden behind an illusory wall without any hint is not cool.