From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Only reason he killed me the first time was because he caught me off guard while I was riding Torrent.

 

[Crayll]

I'm one of those stubborn idiots who beat Elden Ring without summons or spirit ashes. Malenia was an exercise of frustration for me, but in the end i beat her and it felt like an accomplishment.

Will the dlc hand me my ass as much as that woman? Anyone else here trying to solo?

What level range should my character be for a solo run on the dlc?

It's very doable. I'm currently stuck on the final boss, but otherwise I cleared all of them without summons or spirit ashes.
I'd rate one as about as difficult as Malenia. The final boss is harder, up there with From's most challenging.
I went in at 130, ending at 180.

 

[Xorazm]

I get the same feeling exploring a lot of the big, beautiful, but completely empty areas. There's a dazzling first impression, it all looks amazing, and a lot of care obviously went into it, but then over time I get a creeping, unsettling, unfamiliar feeling that I've never gotten in a From game ... boredom.

Another seemingly regurgitated criticism I just don't get. There's points of interest, and either a new full structure, or mini dungeon, or in general something significant to fight or find easily within less than 2-4 minutes of travel in any direction at any given time. Are you guys who are complaining about this crouch-walking everywhere, or just massive sufferers of ADHD? I just don't get it.

Mostly, yes, I'd say most of the overworld is immaculate, but there are massive chunks of the map that are curiously, almost bizarrely barren. Part of this is being spoilt by how tight From's design has been to this point, even within the DLC, but I spent way too long running around some vast, beautiful, majestically designed spaces expecting to find something - a boss, an item, a cave, a shortcut, even a mini-boss ... anything. All I came up with was some cackling lady in a shack spouting typical From nonsense, some cookbooks, and globs of crafting mats. To be very clear, I do not give a shit about crafting, not now, not ever, not until the heat death of the universe, and I hate its forced insertion the way some people feel about unwelcome penises and the way many of you feel about pronouns.

To put this in terms that might resonate better, imagine if you spent a good hour running around convinced that there had to be some point to a place that took some doing to find, something of value to make the trip worthwhile, only to find a few scraps of paper that said "there are more than two genders." You've gained nothing, and by that point you don't even have the energy you be mad.

It's worse than that, you've just become indifferent.

 

[Val Doom]

The very first DLC area is unnecessarily large and empty, it could've been half the size. Not a very interesting theme either. Didn't explore copypaste Altus yet but by the looks of it it's just more fields of grass

 

[Xorazm]

I'm one of those stubborn idiots who beat Elden Ring without summons or spirit ashes. Malenia was an exercise of frustration for me, but in the end i beat her and it felt like an accomplishment.

Will the dlc hand me my ass as much as that woman? Anyone else here trying to solo?

What level range should my character be for a solo run on the dlc?

Yeah, this is me, and probably why I'm not as high on the DLC as a lot of people are. I absolutely insist on learning a boss until I can whip it all on my own completely solo, and then I'll drop co-op signs until I can twiddle the boss around like a basketball. This goes for all the Souls games, and a whole clutch of Soulslikes (which is something it seems like you have to say).

For me, it's always been the most fun way to approach their games, but I'm not sure if it's really the most fun way to approach this one. The people who seem to be having the most fun are either breezing through with summons or making crunchy tweaks to their build, and that's just not for me - I want to win because I solved the puzzle, broke the pattern. And you can do that here, but there's an awful lot standing between you and getting there. Which some people love. It's a little past me.

Folks have already noted that the bosses hit like trucks and have massive health pools, so I won't re-litigate that. I want to note, though, that I swear the bosses don't just have two phases, but something like three or four phases that amps/alters their aggression and moveset the farther into the fight you get. I can't prove this, so I could be wrong, but I swear that, on Rellana at least, I'd find a dodge opening that worked fine at 90% health that suddenly would get me thumped around 75% health because another move came out - and that makes cracking the boss puzzle complicated to the point that some might find it an engaging challenge, but I just happen to find rather tiresome.

This is combined with the fact that on certain bosses the camera does the classic From thing of flipping its shit, so that on top of the challenge of precisely locating where the hitboxes are (because we're well past swords at this point, a magical AOE is going to blast out somewhere), you have to deal with a camera having an autism freakout. Or the boss will rear up to a point where you can't even see what's coming, until you're a pancake on the floor. Again, there's the obvious response of learning when to unlock the camera, and sure that's part of the fun for some people, but I get my satisfaction from fighting a monster, not mechanics.

Honestly, level hardly matters. I'd say 150 at a minimum, with the more critical thing ensuring you're between 50 and 60 vigor. There's supposed to be a unique leveling system in the DLC based on collecting items, but some of them are hidden up a ghost's invisible asshole and - again, I'm just going off impression - I swear they don't do jack fucking shit. I wouldn't be surprised if an early patch raises their impact, because I keep an eye on my damage output, and going up five levels and returning to a boss I could barely see an impact. Crunchy youtubers will figure this out and break the math down, I'm sure, but that's my impression, at least. And the generally underwhelming itemization takes a toll on the exploration.

So you've got to look over all this and decide whether or not it's for you. I was elated when I whipped Melania too, but I'm taking a break from the DLC because I'm finding too often that I'm muttering "....the fuck just happened" or "where is the boss, the fuck is it doing now ... oh I'm dead, nice" or "where was the fucking hitbox on that thing."

And then when I do pull off that solo victory, I don't want to hang around and co-op, I don't want to relive the victory and push for greater mastery, I don't want more of it, I don't feel elated. I just feel relieved that it's over, and that's when I know it's not working for me, that I'm burnt out and need to just chill and take a step back, let my energies recharge.

So that's one person's report. Take it as one voice among plenty. It's gorgeous and lavish and I want to love it as much as other people do (legacy dungeons and catacombs frequently deliver), and maybe one day I'll learn to. But I've always enjoyed besting their challenges and, in this one, single, humble person's take, it's an odd feeling to look at the icon on my desktop, one I've waited years in eager anticipation for, and just a few days in just think "....nah."

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Damn Shadow Keep looks fucking awesome. I'll take a break there. I got burned out on running around the overworld and going through caves fighting side bosses. They've all been pretty easy so far. That very first Knight was the only one to give me any problems but that was most likely rust. I don't feel like I've done much in the main quest. Only completed two legacy dungeons so far.

 

[Mortmal]

Have you finished the game ?

The game? Yes. The DLC, no.

Then you will change your mind toward the end: many unfun bosses with questionable hitboxes and full AOEs all over the place. It's doable; I did it, but it was unfun. Additionally, in all the DLC, there isn't a single new sorcery I found worth using. I had to resort to Rock Sling to stagger bosses or just an ice build on Mesmer. Not a single new thing was of use to me.

 

[Cryomancer]

Then you will change your mind toward the end: many unfun bosses with questionable hitboxes and full AOEs all over the place. It's doable; I did it, but it was unfun. Additionally, in all the DLC, there isn't a single new sorcery I found worth using. I had to resort to Rock Sling to stagger bosses or just an ice build on Mesmer. Not a single new thing was of use to me.

I have heard that one finger sorcery is great to stun lock enemies but didn't got it yet.

So far the hardest boss that I beat is mesmer. He was quite hard. Took 14 tries for me to beat and I had to unequip the ring who makes me deal more mag damage and take more damage and use the defense boost + easy to stag in the mix to win against him.

 

[Ravielsk]

So you've got to look over all this and decide whether or not it's for you. I was elated when I whipped Melania too, but I'm taking a break from the DLC because I'm finding too often that I'm muttering "....the fuck just happened" or "where is the boss, the fuck is it doing now ... oh I'm dead, nice" or "where was the fucking hitbox on that thing."

#GitGud #EverySoulsgaym

No, I am joking but seriously the spastic bosses are a serious problem. They all feel like they have been designed for wolf step(before they nerfed it) or greatshield players and nothing in between. The blessings do help but you need to get it to around 15+ before it starts to make an actual difference. I strongly suspect that the next patch will be tweaking things in one way or another because as it stands the DLC is often more tedious than anything else.

And the generally underwhelming itemization takes a toll on the exploration

100% agree. Ever since the modding tools were update I was doing nothing but going back and forth between the game and Smithbox. I am strongly convinced someone at From does not understand what is and what is not an upside.

Rellana's swords for example have split scaling, split damage and deal literary 0 poise damage(aka you can hit a basic mouse mid attack with the weapon art and it will not even flinch) BUT it technically has two weapon arts instead of one. Both suck and the weapon is useless for about 90% of the encounters but you have two. The only time its the preferred option is when you have a bunch of weak enemies that are also susceptible to fire(because nothing is weak to magic).
Then right next to it you have Milady that does higher damage, can have its ash of war swapped and also staggers opponents but I guess it can only have one ash of war at a time so it balances it all out.
Or how about Sword of Night a weapon that only scales with DEX, poorly might I add, and deals supremely low damage but it has bleed and technically the waterflow dance ash of war. Completely unusable against 90% of enemies because of its low damage and long wind up time but somehow its a missable reward for a lengthy questline.

Many weapons in the DLC are not good for the base game let alone for the DLC(even with blessings) yet they are all presented like some giga rewards.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I'm one of those stubborn idiots who beat Elden Ring without summons or spirit ashes. Malenia was an exercise of frustration for me, but in the end i beat her and it felt like an accomplishment.

Will the dlc hand me my ass as much as that woman? Anyone else here trying to solo?

What level range should my character be for a solo run on the dlc?

Malenia seems pretty easy compared to the story bosses. Even the first story boss is more aggressive and has harder to dodge attacks. Large weapons have an especially hard time with some of these because speed is a real thing here. You have bosses who will charge you down with questionable hit boxes only to immediately launch into a big AOE spell and charge you again.

Mostly, yes, I'd say most of the overworld is immaculate, but there are massive chunks of the map that are curiously, almost bizarrely barren. Part of this is being spoilt by how tight From's design has been to this point, even within the DLC, but I spent way too long running around some vast, beautiful, majestically designed spaces expecting to find something - a boss, an item, a cave, a shortcut, even a mini-boss ... anything. All I came up with was some cackling lady in a shack spouting typical From nonsense, some cookbooks, and globs of crafting mats. To be very clear, I do not give a shit about crafting, not now, not ever, not until the heat death of the universe, and I hate its forced insertion the way some people feel about unwelcome penises and the way many of you feel about pronouns.

The irony is From changed all the mushrooms to weapon upgrades and they're just as useless because you never have enough souls to level up from exploring so you buy loads of them to use your souls up after you get your boss level.

Then you will change your mind toward the end: many unfun bosses with questionable hitboxes and full AOEs all over the place. It's doable; I did it, but it was unfun. Additionally, in all the DLC, there isn't a single new sorcery I found worth using. I had to resort to Rock Sling to stagger bosses or just an ice build on Mesmer. Not a single new thing was of use to me.

I tried to force using a new weapon and I couldn't find a single one I wanted to use. Hand of Malenia has carried me through the DLC. It's range on guard counters and being able to water fowl some of the bullshit invaders made a world of difference.

No, I am joking but seriously the spastic bosses are a serious problem. They all feel like they have been designed for wolf step(before they nerfed it) or greatshield players and nothing in between. The blessings do help but you need to get it to around 15+ before it starts to make an actual difference. I strongly suspect that the next patch will be tweaking things in one way or another because as it stands the DLC is often more tedious than anything else.

Every From game launches like this. There's no exceptions. This is bad but it's not abnormal. From can and will patch this to make it much easier soon.

 

[cvv]

they now rely so much on these tricky animations. Prolonged windups, sudden quick attacks as soon as you attack

Lies of P took that philosophy and pumped it up full of steroids.

Shit's already starting to get out of control, if everyone starts doing that I'm out.

 

[Multidirectional]

they now rely so much on these tricky animations. Prolonged windups, sudden quick attacks as soon as you attack

Lies of P took that philosophy and pumped it up full of steroids.

Shit's already starting to get out of control, if everyone starts doing that I'm out.

Yeah I've been annoyed by this shit for quite a while, probably a large part of why I spent hundreds of hours in Nioh 2. It's nice to play a game where combat is challenging but doesn't feel like designed to piss me off.

 

[Hell Swarm]

they now rely so much on these tricky animations. Prolonged windups, sudden quick attacks as soon as you attack

Lies of P took that philosophy and pumped it up full of steroids.

Shit's already starting to get out of control, if everyone starts doing that I'm out.

Yeah I've been annoyed by this shit for quite a while, probably a large part of why I spent hundreds of hours in Nioh 2. It's nice to play a game where combat is challenging but doesn't feel like designed to piss me off.

What's wrong, can't handle a 12 hit combo with multiple delayed attacks and input reading? Haha kid. Guess you just suck!

In all seriousness I don't understand how you're supposed to approach a game like Elden ring as your first souls like. I know of people who struggled with base game playing through it again to level up for the DLC and I can't see any way they will over come these bosses. I've been at this since PS3 Demon's souls and I've never seen anything as bad as these bosses. I've never thought I'll have to eat shit on this attack because there's no reasonable way to avoid it.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I honestly still don't get the issue. Just learn and adapt. The timing for rolling is now on par with the timing for parry. That to me seems like a good opportunity to just learn parry while you are at it if you were ever too lazy to do it before, especially given how useful parry is in Elden Ring (more so than past Souls i'd say).

I'm not watching videos as i want to keep myself in the dark as much as possible, but so far all the complaints seem identical to the complaints people had for the base game, and for me there wasn't anything wrong with the base game.

Just learn the timings, and don't forget positioning, which i think a lot of people still seem to ignore, probably because it wasn't that useful in the past, but it is now.

 

[Silva]

they now rely so much on these tricky animations. Prolonged windups, sudden quick attacks as soon as you attack

Lies of P took that philosophy and pumped it up full of steroids.

Shit's already starting to get out of control, if everyone starts doing that I'm out.

Truth be told, even if Lies of P bosses do exagerate in the delay department, it's combat system is SO MUCH better than anything seen here. There's actual usefulness and balance between blocking-parrying-rolling, instead of the nonsense rolling fest seen here. It's a callback to DS1/2 in a way, and gives me hopes that From combat is not completely lost.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Enemies tracking your movement and attacks (I am sure that this already was a thing in the older Souls games, but it certainly wasn't that blatantly obvious)

Bosses are now adapted to multiple opponents as well. Some combos have clear switch points where they can spin around and hit another player and continue the combo. Mesmer has specific attacks designed to hit in a 360 arc unless dodged. Boss tracking isn't as bad as Dark souls 2 but it's got some quirks.

I honestly still don't get the issue. Just learn and adapt. The timing for rolling is now on par with the timing for parry. That to me seems like a good opportunity to just learn parry while you are at it if you were ever too lazy to do it before, especially given how useful parry is in Elden Ring (more so than past Souls i'd say).

I'm not watching videos as i want to keep myself in the dark as much as possible, but so far all the complaints seem identical to the complaints people had for the base game, and for me there wasn't anything wrong with the base game.

Just learn the timings, and don't forget positioning, which i think a lot of people still seem to ignore, probably because it wasn't that useful in the past, but it is now.

You defend anything From do no matter how badly it's designed. I'm waiting for your 3 paragraph rant on how fire golems hit box is totally fair and there's not an issue with being hit by it when you're 5 foot away from it's hand and behind it's legs.

Galius has some serious hit box issues right now too. His charge is far too tight to dodge when you can often clear his body completely and still take a hit. Feels like something they will fix.

 

[abija]

In all seriousness I don't understand how you're supposed to approach a game like Elden ring as your first souls like. I know of people who struggled with base game playing through it again to level up for the DLC and I can't see any way they will over come these bosses. I've been at this since PS3 Demon's souls and I've never seen anything as bad as these bosses. I've never thought I'll have to eat shit on this attack because there's no reasonable way to avoid it.

A new player should breeze using summons and weapon art spam while being overleveled and not concern himself with ethical bullshit. And by the time he gets to dlc he has 100+ hours of "dark souls" under his belt.

 

[Silva]

In all seriousness I don't understand how you're supposed to approach a game like Elden ring as your first souls like. I know of people who struggled with base game playing through it again to level up for the DLC and I can't see any way they will over come these bosses. I've been at this since PS3 Demon's souls and I've never seen anything as bad as these bosses. I've never thought I'll have to eat shit on this attack because there's no reasonable way to avoid it.

A new player should breeze using summons and weapon art spam while being overleveled and not concern himself with ethical bullshit. And by the time he gets to dlc he has 100+ hours of "dark souls" under his belt.

So, avoiding interacting with the bosses altogether. That's the problem with From bosses these days, they're designed to be cheesed. It's analogous to designing this super intricate level and then giving the player a flying carpet option to ignore it altogether.

 

[Hell Swarm]

In all seriousness I don't understand how you're supposed to approach a game like Elden ring as your first souls like. I know of people who struggled with base game playing through it again to level up for the DLC and I can't see any way they will over come these bosses. I've been at this since PS3 Demon's souls and I've never seen anything as bad as these bosses. I've never thought I'll have to eat shit on this attack because there's no reasonable way to avoid it.

A new player should breeze using summons and weapon art spam while being overleveled and not concern himself with ethical bullshit. And by the time he gets to dlc he has 100+ hours of "dark souls" under his belt.

I have 2,000+ hours of Dark souls under my belt. I have the weapon from the hardest boss in the base game and I have a mimic tier with 2 healing items it can use to fully restore it's health. And I'm thinking the last boss seems mighty difficult having +15/7 of DLC upgrades. Which is just unreasonable levels of expectation. I know he'll be nerfed within a month but that's really not the point. I'm not having fun cross referencing a map to check what pick ups I have/haven't got because Elden ring's map SUCKS and it's too big and complex to run around randomly and expect people to find the majority of upgrades.

Here's my problem with From design where we are now.

Crystal lizard runs away and disappears if not hit > Crystal lizard teleports around or explodes > Crystal lizard is now a normal looking shadow enemy holding a pot surrounded by 10 other enemies (3 holding pots) and disappears but it contains essential upgrade material

This is just bullshit escelation when no one stopped to ask "If this fun any more?" because it's got to the point where it's tedious to explore an open world because you're missing 20% of your potential damage/armour and the games expecting you to have it.

I played some on the Steam deck and the journos are talking the usual garbage about From games. Rock Paper Shotgun have an article on how great it is on the deck. It keeps usually above 30 FPS and some times even hits 50! WOWZERS. Except when you start fighting later bosses you will hit 15-20 FPS on their bigger attacks and you will have to try and time your dodges with the game visibly slowing down. It doesn't have the texture cache stuttering problem but it does have unacceptable frame rates on moves that 1 shot you. And that's without the increased input buffering/dropping inputs and other shit the lower FPS problems cause.

 

[abija]

So, avoiding interacting with the bosses altogether. That's the problem with From bosses these days, they're designed to be cheesed. It's analogous to designing this super intricate level and then giving the player a flying carpet option to ignore it altogether.

Why is everyone exaggerating this subject so much? Summons aren't trivializing fights unless specifically built for it.

The reason they do anime bosses with absurd moves is that they think it's cool. Same for the miriad of tools you get in the game. There's not some hidden agenda behind the design to get 100 more deaths from streamers that finish the game in 1 weekend anyway. Might be that their internal team is slightly better than they estimate for balance. But I'd rather have that than the actual trend of piss easy games.

 

[Dr1f7]

Most of the DLC bosses have felt like this for me, pistol being me + spirit ashes. I wonder why they didn't disable spirit ashes for certain boss fights. Like, this is a git gud boss encounter. You have to master it. Isshin style. Hesitation is defeat.

dingchads where u @

 

[Hell Swarm]

So, avoiding interacting with the bosses altogether. That's the problem with From bosses these days, they're designed to be cheesed. It's analogous to designing this super intricate level and then giving the player a flying carpet option to ignore it altogether.

Why is everyone exaggerating this subject so much? Summons aren't trivializing fights unless specifically built for it.

The reason they do anime bosses with absurd moves is that they think it's cool. Same for the miriad of tools you get in the game. There's not some hidden agenda behind the design to get 100 more deaths from streamers that finish the game in 1 weekend anyway. Might be that their internal team is slightly better than they estimate for balance. But I'd rather have that than the actual trend of piss easy games.

You should try reading some of the guides for how to beat bosses in Elden Ring. I opened one yesterday to check I'd beaten all the bosses before I started the last one and they had difficulty ratings by them and literally every boss guide was "Use Comet Azur and summon mimic tear". That's the entire strategy the game journos have been using to beat the game.

Dark souls 2 marketing confirmed From are aware of their reputation and they keep ramping up the difficulty and complexity to keep the reputation going and because they have to escalate. Froms community have done so many stupid challenge runs they've had to make the games keep up with that challenge to keep those people entertained. The problem is now we're at the same point as Everquest got. Where the hardcore raiders started to define the new content, which they would finish in a week and complain it was too easy and needed to be more raid (boss) focused. So eventually the game becomes 1 week of hardcore grinding for the 0.1% of the community grinding who then bitch there needs to be more content for them while everyone else is left behind. Eventually you end up with a series only those people can beat and everyone else stops even trying any more. I'd like for those people to have super bosses to fight, designed to fuck with them but I don't think the first boss of the DLC should make you think "Well that's bullshit" multiple times in a fight where your best option is damage racing it rather than learning to dodge through it's attacks.

 

[Reinhardt]

if anything there need to be more boss fights where you go offensive instead of "roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, attack ONCE(if you missed this opportunity - roll 20 more times until next window. if you tried to attack more than once - you are dead.)"

 

[Ramnozack]

Milady has got to be my new favorite weapon I love this thing, so good

 

[Stoned Ape]

Messmer Soldier's Greatspear seems pretty good. Infusable, similar length to the Treespear and has the double hit charged R2. Not quite as long as Siluria's Spear or Mohg's trident thingy, but looks much nicer than either IMO. Can be dropped by the two Messmer Soldiers with spears sitting around a fire to the South West of the Castle Front Site of grace. Took me a long time to get it to drop though...