Abysmal Woods.
2 Likes
Best Part
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Got to the dancing lion and was dealing minuscule damage to it. Feeling daunted. Like how the hell could I get any stronger while being nimble like I want to be.
That category of play feels the most aggressively pushed back against in Elden Ring over any other. I guess itās fair. Iāve had the same strategy since Dark Souls, and got a whole game based on builds like that with Bloodborne.
4 Likes
I like how thatās your introduction to the major bosses in the game then like half way through you find some beautiful ancient ruin overlooking a sunset and heās just there chilling
3 Likes
I agree Elden Ring generally favors defensive builds, but it also sounds like your main problem in this specific case is not enough scadutree levels.
3 Likes
Did PS5 recently remove that feature where you can see the profiles of strangers you recently played with? I used to say thanks to people who helped me beat bosses in From Software games, especially if it took us several tries. Or Iād let someone know I managed to win after they were helpful but died just before the end.
Or (less often because Iām bad at video games) Iād get a message from someone I helped. But now I canāt find that option anywhere.
3 Likes
well, Iāve gotten every map piece and Iām at the door of like six huge bosses now so I guess I outghta fight em
4 Likes
do you mean in the same way as the demons in ds1 or like, can you chat
1 Like
Is this a dog?
4 Likes
try jumping
hidden path ahead
if only i had a giant butt hole
fortnite
3 Likes
This was definitely the case. As well as forgetting that I unlearned an old Souls game attitude that summons were ācheapā. Once I got a few Scadutree levels and used a Spirit Ash, that boss was actually quite easy to get down.
2 Likes
When I reached a similar point I decided for some reason to fight Scadutree Avatar first. ā¦ I advise against this
2 Likes
noted.
it is neat how rellana is seemingly the only boss who gates anything other than the final dungeon in thisā¦ after you beat her itās practically a mega man game, you can open the route to every other big terminus just through exploration
3 Likes
Hippopotamus seems to gate a surprisingly large area despite the backdoor into his area. I was fooled into thinking it wasnāt necessary to fight him for a while
As for Rellana she doesnāt gate anything at all actually, thereās a hidden spiritspring into Scadu Land
2 Likes
oh yeah I also have not fought the hippo on account of finding both the front and back door then going āwell nevermindā
2 Likes
Anyway Iām not quite sure I see the point of the DLCās structure. Exploration rewards you with scadu levels whereas bosses donāt reward you with much of anything. Thatās not how Mega Man or Metroidvanias work.
Whatās even weirder is about half the scadu level items are hidden in pretty random places so you can end up about twice as strong if you either explore with a fine-toothed comb or look up their locations online (I ended up doing the latter).
A lot of people are reporting their experience that this is the hardest From DLC ever. That was also my experience when I fought Scadutree Avatar too early, but after I hoovered up every powerup it suddenly turned into the easiest DLC since DkS1. Thatās not what I was aiming for: most early reviews said that the powerups only mitigate the difficulty not trivialize anything, but thatās probably because they didnāt find many of them.
What I enjoy is āwell-calibrated challenge levelā, which From has offered in the past. It seems that in Elden Ring they continue to just abandon this ideal altogether and, in the name of openness and flexibility, polarize the experience between very hard and quite easy except on rare occasions you happen to hit a sweet spot.
7 Likes
One way to spin this positively: in some ways Erdtree reminds me more of Demonās Souls than anything theyāve done in between. The environmental storytelling is so carefully developed: they set up a mood and do a bunch of foreshadowing and then reward you with a twist, a really sweet boss design, or an unexpected path into a new area. The route via abyssal woods into the lordās manor is the clearest example of this, but it does it many other times too.
What is also like the original Demonās Souls is game balance is not the point. You have your Maneaters and you have your pushover gimmick bosses
7 Likes
Mixed feelings at the end. I like quality of the bosses, I think theyāre better than the base game. The environments feel more inspired too. Second half of the base game has some bland places.
I donāt know if I like the map. It starts dense then empties out as your explore towards the edges. I donāt need a lot of content but areas are hard enough to find that itās sad to open up a big new space and find out itās mostly nothing.
The other issue that makes me critical of the emptiness is that itās really hard to find the connective points between areas, and if the size of the map more reflected its actual density of content then it probably wouldnāt be so difficult to understand where things link up.
I agree that fragments seem odd. Theyāre like blue coins in Mario Sunshine where I donāt know which ones I have, where I still need to look, but this isnāt a collectathon so why even introduce the issue. It introduces another problem by removing the incentive for combat. And then lastly the difficulty of the game seems flat but the fragments have a linear growth, which means you spend most of the game either below or above a good level of challenge.
I think Iām looking at the game more critically because the end boss was everything I didnāt want it to be, so Iām definitely being more judgemental in retrospect.
Also my biggest disappointment is probably the abyssal woods and all the really fantastic buildup leading into it but then it turns out to be the most average stealth section.
5 Likes
I think Iām going to re-roll as Guts. Iām tired of my build and just want to hard bonk and maybe shoot a balista instead of using magic.
Thinking of adding arcane so I can add bleed to my big buster and take advantage of arc scaling on said weapon. Ill have to see how the specs look.
5 Likes
bug lady was fun
1 Like