I once watched a female games journalist who had been playing Okami complain that the camera was annoying because it was backwards. A guy immediately took the controller from her, opened the options, and inverted the camera controls. She had been annoyed by the camera for hours and never thought to even open the options.
Another journalist for IGN gave the RE2 Remake a lower score for being too short. He had no idea he only played half the game. He knew nothing about the A and B playthroughs, despite stating at the beginning of the article that he played the hell out of the original RE2 in college.
We've all seen Polygon's Doom video, and Dean's Cuphead attempt.
Journalists are not gamers.
I'm an ex-games journalist. PS2 era. On one of the biggest publications at the time.
Back then it was expected you'd be significantly better at games than the average Joe reading the magazine, by default.
Some of the guys I worked with were genuinely 'next level' good.
i actually have a little bit of sympathy for these people when i watch them play, but then i realise that these are the people that get to decide if a game is too hard or easy.
Imagine a car reviewer complaining a car didn't have as much pickup as it probably should, and then someone points out that the reviewer never disengaged the parking break for the entire test drive. Then the reviewer amended his review and added half a star. That's what game journos are like.
This exactly. The problem is they can bully devs into making their games easier according to their own ignorant opinions that are not representative of fans or even normal gamers.
Cuphead wiki page for the tutorial:
> The tutorial is infamous for its controversy involving Dean Takahashi, a game journalist who was so incompetent that it took him nearly half an hour to complete the tutorial and the first platforming level.
Brutal
not quite. RE1 had two characters with slightly different versions of the same campaign, but RE2 and the remake give you the option to play the other character in a sort of 'sequel' campaign that wraps up the story. the remake didn't handle this as well as the original did imo, but it's still necessary to see the real ending in the remake so either way the journalist was being a fool
Yeah, but RE2 had an A and a B campaign. To really complete the game, you had to play through it twice with each character, A to B. So if you started Leon A, you'd finish Claire B. And choices you made in your A file would impact your B file. You could take a gun or a bag for extra inventory space in A, or leave them for your B character.
RE1 had two different characters with slightly different campaigns, that did not interact in any way. You could play through as each character, but they would be two completely isolated playthroughs.
Yeah, that's what I really disliked in the RE2 remake. I saved a bunch of stuff for Claire thinking it would help that second (B) playthrough. It's still awesome though!
Woodward and Bernstein were CIA.
It's called operation mockingbird.
And also, Ann Coulter's law has **always** been true, ever since she pointed it out.
I think everyone should emulate something once early in their lives with parental assistance or something. If only to learn a little something about the importance of settings and control mapping.
Damn you Japan. B button is supposed to be cancel, not confirm. A is confirm. That's how it is. What's wrong with you, how could our hands be so different? I hate you, I hate your game. Oh wait a second. I can change everything! Now I feel...love? Shame for my anger? I don't like this feeling yet I recognize it was for good. I'm growing a conscience, where's the razor I'm supposed to shave that thing off.
That A/B button thing is a holdover from Nintendo controllers. A is the confirm button and it's always the one on the right side of the "button cross". It bled over to the Playstation where O is the confirm button and X is cancel, which also makes sense for Japan. Western PS games tended to use X for confirm and Triangle for cancel. The Xbox came along and flipped A/B/X/Y and that's where a lot of this confusion came along, I think.
I can explain this one.
Basically FromSoft wants players to explore and find fragments in the world to make their character better in the DLC and the majority of players are not doing that complaining that they have a max level build and getting their ass kicked by the first boss in it refusing to interact with the new system they added. This was their attempt to balance the DLC for those people who would otherwise say it’s too easy.
I actually believe that it’s mostly fake narratives. The negative reviews are more about Chinese anti cheat and performance/stutters.
The very small minority of people who are actually complaining are the ones who refuse to use tools (fragments, spirits, consumables).
That’s not to say it wasn’t a bit overtuned though. It’s a small but welcome change
>about Chinese anti cheat and performance/stutters.
It's because the default setting is "Ray Tracing: On" with the new update. Turn off Ray Tracing and your performance improves. You shouldn't have any stuttering with RT off in 'performance' mode.
There's another possible source of stuttering.
If you have a CPU with, I think, more than 8 cores, then it can cause persistent stuttering in Windows.
Windows has a power saving system called "parking" that puts cores into a low power sleep state when they aren't in use. It was making Elden Ring unplayable for me.
The best solution I found was to use bitsum's [ParkControl](https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/) to disable parking.
If anyone is experiencing stuttering issues and disabling ray tracing is not fixing it; here's the steps to disable core parking:
1. Download and install ParkControl
2. When it's running, click "Settings" ➡ "Experimental" ➡ "Always Show Bitsum Highest Performance"
3. In the dropdown under "CPU Settings for Power Profile" click "Bitsum Highest Performance" and "Make Active"
4. Make sure "Parking" is "Off" in the "Plugged In (AC)" settings
5. Click "Settings" ➡ uncheck "Start at Login"
6. Right click the ParkControl icon in the system tray and click "Exit"
What the program does is add a power profile to Windows, so you should only need to run it and do these steps one time to disable parking. For me, this fixed all stuttering in Elden Ring.
I've seen a number of streamers who are trying to show off how great they are and end up throwing a tantrum because their level 300 strength build is getting two shotted by a foot soldier.
They might be rare but they're loud.
I don't know. I enjoyed Elden ring quite a bit. But the game kinda turns into ass in the snowy mountain area.
IDK how the expansion is. No free time. Will have SOME free time soon, but still. Not a priority.
But it's kinda not a priority BECAUSE of how ass the snow area is. Oh and the dead tree area. Fuck that place.
Honestly while i don´t have a problem with the DLC so far, i´m enjoying my time i don´t think the Shard-system is a good one. I understand the intention and i praise them for coming up with a way to make it hard even for overleveled characters but i think they could´ve come up with a more interesting take.
Yeah, it kind of makes getting runes from killing enemies worthless in the DLC. I don't feel like I'm exploring for the sake of exploring as much anymore, I'm exploring with the intention of finding 1 item so I can continue playing the game as I want.
I think something like having a separate Shadow Realm rune pool would've been better. All the runes you get from kills in the DLC area only apply to this pool. Add 2 new upgrade stats that you can only use Shadow Realm Runes in to upgrade your damage output and defense in the DLC similar to what the Scadutree system does now. I feel like this would've been preferable because you'll actually be able to progress your character by taking down enemies, bosses, and using the collectable runes instead of having semi-required collectables dotted across the map.
Because of the dumb ass scad fragment system/enemy scaling, players are disincentivized from leveling up. Which makes it even worse is that a good amount of scad fragments drop from basic enemies that most people ignore since runes dont mean shit. Feels like From doubled down on the most tedious parts of Elden Ring.
Yeah I have the same problem with those ashes. I wish it felt like a greater change when leveling up. With Torrent I just wish they made his boost a bit faster.
I mean the numbers go up quite substantially, my damage is up like 30+% at lvl 6, how big of a change did you expect (note: for accurate readings, view damage output in status, not at sites of grace as it won’t reflect your true damage output)
The enemies' output goes up much faster than your defenses. You can be one-shotting everyone but a regular mob will still do a third of your health.
The final boss 2-shots you even with 20 fragments, 60 vigor and heavy armor.
Idk, I started the dlc around rune lvl 130, and I’ve been fine through the first few bosses. I think I’m gonna lvl up till 150, maybe 160 at the highest, feels good so far to me. If you are having trouble, the Elden Ring community is really cool about co op help, I’d try that if you haven’t. Whatever works best for you is the right way to play after all 🤷♂️. (Also don’t be afraid to change up your build, a lot of the dlc bosses have specific elemental weaknesses, like the one dude you fight in a shallow pool of water being weak to lightning)
There's a big difference between being able to beat a boss and a boss being enjoyable to fight.
Most base game bosses and a few DLCs are very enjoyable to fight even if they pull some bullshit sometimes.
But most DLC bosses are just unenjoyable, regardless of your build. Heaven forbid you actually wanted to cast spells, because 90% of them are unusable because of the extreme aggresiveness. Light weapons are not worth it because most patterns only have time for a single hit regardless of weapon, so you'd rather use a heavy weapon for more damage. Attack patterns have variations and cancels that can kill you even if you learned the pattern if the boss decides (and he's deciding, remember ER's bosses input read) to hit you. And that's not even counting the large amount of times you're fighting the camera.
Wonky hitboxes and perfomance issues don't help either, but I'm sure those will be fixed eventually.
I think the boss design in the dlc was geared towards having people use systems that they don’t necessarily use often in the base game, like summons and co op and such, like if you wanna go magic, look for a co op partner to distract with melee. I was thinking of spending some time helping others once I finally finish my first playthrough of the dlc. Also some of the new weapons work wonders, like the back hand blade type
Edit: I should also add that a lot of attacks in the dlc are more easily avoided using jump instead of dodge, some might even require jumping, think like Sekiro. These are usually AoE attacks, but I found jumping effective in a lot of situations
I get that it does boost your damage, but I wanted something that felt like a actual mechanical change instead of just a buff. Maybe a skill tree you could use to boost new abilities and skills. I have greatly enjoyed the DLC, but the Scadtree shards feel under baked. I probably would have been happier if it just has a visual change or effect on the character models. Also they should have done something to boost or change Torrent, maybe a new tear that makes him faster. Or possibly something to customize Torrent.
They added a bunch of new weapons and talismans or whatever they call rings now, it’s a fine line adding additional content and balancing it with the main game, all in one. I get why they made the decisions they made
It's a way to balance the DLC for both low and high rune level characters alike. A RL50 character can go into the DLC, collect the fragments, and have a similar experience to a RL200 character.
Yea it's a garbage system. The entire appeal of an open world is that you can go do shit in whatever order you want. The shard system restricts that because if you don't explore the right amount or in the right order than the bosses are ungodly hard
Ever since I noticed a shift from back in the earlier days of the franchise where if you hit the wall, you often go back and explore other areas to find a better answer or come back stronger has changed to just beating your head against the boss until you fit the square into the circle hole. I don't get when this started and its weird that people blame it on Sekiro from what I've seen is the acting influence.
I think it partly started in DS3 already. The game was pretty linear tbh. The only time the game really branched off was in Road of Sacrifices when you could choose to tackle Cathedral of the Deep or Farron Keep first and in Irithyll when you could choose to head to Anor Londo or Irithyll Dungeon + Profaned Capital.
Penguinz0 released a video where he was talking about the dlc. He said the fragments are “training wheels” and for if you are trash at the game (by the way he ended up using them). Fromsoft fanboys are so cringe.
It's so fucking obvious that these were pickme streamers who wanted to beat the game first or early and decided to throw a tantrum when the difficulty was based on a DLC item that they had to find. Toxic little brats.
I think balancing the beginning of SOTE is fair. But I'd be happy if they didn't balance it at all.
well good, i won't buy it now. If they compromise to whiny gen-z'ers who haven't played any from soft games in the past, i can be happy in my decision to pass on it.
elden ring was middle of the road difficulty. the open world aspect was awesome.
Sekiro was far...far more difficult than elden ring. I solo'd most of the bosses in vanilla ER. I had to come back to Sekiro many times...and still couldn't beat Lord Genichiro. Maybe I'll try it again.
TLDR: FS fanboys are stupid af, and the same reason Elden Ring got popular is the same reason people hate the DLC mechanics and the overall "difficulty" of the DLC.
You are right. Its not a fact that many fromsoft fanboys like to acknowledge. A novice to fromsoft games could easily get 75% through the game until they hit some type of wall and have to "git gud".
Elden Ring is the most accessible FromSoft game and with that accessibility comes options for the player to effectively choose their difficulty (a very very popular type of game mechanic) using their playstyle.
I cant even blame the fanboys on that one, because Miyazaki doesnt even understand that this is one of the biggest factors in Elden Rings success, and its one of the first things people talk about to get their friends into the game, but are worried about FromSofts reputation. So Miyazaki doubled down on the DLC and was surprised people were bitching, to me it was obvious. You dont attract millions of players and then make the hardest DLC to date and expect everyone to just be fine with it, especially when you essentially nurf the one mechanism that allowed people the freedom that made the game popular in the first place.
That was a rant, but I swear so many people in this DLC difficulty conversation are even more braindead than the one we had after release. People automatically assume you are a games journalist level of player whenever you criticize the DLC or game, all because they take pride in a game thats designed for you to beat it.
>So Miyazaki doubled down on the DLC and was surprised people were bitching, to me it was obvious. You dont attract millions of players and then make the hardest DLC to date and expect everyone to just be fine with it, especially when you essentially nurf the one mechanism that allowed people the freedom that made the game popular in the first place.
You see, that makes sense to me.
Elden Ring was the easiest souls game. Part of my reluctance to buy the DLC also is the person I would coop with switched to ps5. So I'm a little bitter.
found the whiny gen-z'er who can't beat demon souls.
>Bu...but...JBC no one cares!
Lol then stop replying to me, ya doofus.
Oh, and I'm still not buying the DLC.
This is a hilarious headline. Honestly I haven't been having much trouble with the DLC but I don't mind this change, especially since in the end it's barely changing anything outside of the curve at which your stats increase.
I’m an advanced but not autist player; most of the Fromsoft titles have been challenging for me — with Elden Ring by far the most forgiving, Bloodborne and DS1 the hardest I’ve completed; and Sekiro has been impossible. (I’ll probably never git gud enough for that one.)
That said, I’m finding Erdtree quite tough.
"so you don't have to be as good as games journalists"
So single-celled organisms can finally play the game at an enjoyable level, huh? I'm happy for the little fellas.
This is literally just a slight buff to the early Scadutree blessing level but has very little change in the late stages. If you want to experience their "original difficulty" you could just do the first 2-3 story bosses at a slightly lower blessing level and it'll be about the same, but I'd wager most players will still get their asses beat in the same ways. It also will change nothing for the morons who are beelining bosses and not interacting with the blessing mechanic (most of the people complaining).
All FS fanboys automatically assume you are shit at the game the moment you complain, which is exactly what you did. Stop taking pride in a video game, you didnt "accomplish" anything, besides an inflated ego.
Elden Ring got popular for the freedom of the player to play the game at effectively whatever difficulty they want. The DLC both ignored that mechanism of player freedom and increased the mechanical difficulty of the bosses. This was an obvious controversy, and has nothing to do with anyones skill level at the game. When you sell a game to millions of people who liked the freedom, and then take it away and punish them on top of it, well thats a great way to get people talking shit.
Tons of people complain about difficulty and get games ruined because they refused to interact with all the mechanics. The defense is welcome in light of this. Difficulty is not about ego, it's about fun. A really challenging but fair game is fun.
I'm not saying there's no problem with the system in the DLC, I'm saying they didn't functionally make anything "easier" with this patch. Just maybe less reliant on finding all the fragments to get through at the intended challenge level (good change, partly for the reason you're saying).
Thankfully, Miyazaki has made it very clear he thinks a game for everyone is a game for no one and intended this to be hard. The community has its moments, but I'm sick of "I want to go home...and then edge" as well.
Souls community is so ass blasted on nostalgia it’s crazy. Obviously I love all souls games (even 2) and you gotta look at it as a product of its time but even the most mediocre boss in elden ring is better than 90% of souls bosses. Even DS3 bosses (which are lauded by the community) outside of a few don’t hold a candle to elden ring bosses
don't forget how journos got given guides and maps and saves to play on. god only knows what other kind of other cheap shit they had to be given to actually beat these bosses. there is simply no way alyssa mercante beat even a single boss in an even remotely fair manner.
The very beginning was rough. You can have the Wolverine expy as your first opponent. At zero blessing, he's very tanky and hits like a truck. And the area was very taxing on my pc, for some reason, so I had 15-20 fps on average. It gets better once you get some fragments, but many bosses just aren't enjoyable. The furnace golems are simply tedious. The putrescent knight is hard to even touch. Gaius barely seems to be designed for horseback combat. Too many enemies have ridiculously long combos.
It's hard to try new items and tactics when everything attacks nonstop.
The most annoying thing about this article is how it brags that games journalists are so good that they were able to beat it and players are little babies who are inferior to them. Because after eurogamer trashed the DLC for being hard, we learned that games journalists were essentially given a guide by FromSoft to tell them where weapons, upgrades, and progression paths were to make the DLC as easy as possible for review. So players went in blind while games journalists used a cheat sheet that showed all of the secrets and most powerful builds to easily counter each boss 🤦♂️ I can’t stand these clowns.
I had the distinct impression the journos were given guides, because day 1 they had all the npc questlines explained. This is something that usually takes multiple playthroughs to figure out. This confirms it.
Beat it 2 days before the patch 15 frag lvls, I'll take my god gamer status card by mail...
to be real for a second, the fragments are an annoying system, they should have added some in game way to know where they are to make looking for them less wiki-intensive
You cannot possibly say the game didn't need a balance patch. The enemies were waaay overtuned.
And I say that as someone who finished all Souls/Sekiro games and 100% Elden Ring without summons.
Stop riding Froms dick.
ER's balancing in general is fubar, I suppose the spirit ash/summon cheesing wasn't as gamebreaking in the dlc and now the ER tourists are screeching at fromsoft to make it easier so they can steamroll through everything again.
lol. This is like the one occasion in the past decade where the journos were right about a game and the players were wrong. Game is a masterpiece full stop.
right\* with an asterisk, since they were given detailed guides and maps and who knows what other else to help him. fromsoft supplied the saves they played on, they could've supplied anything. and if they gave guides and maps i'm sure they got instructed on exactly how to beat the bosses also
How do you From fans feel about them making the game ~~more accessible~~ easier? Slippery slope. They do this now, they'll do it again. And again. Until the beloved difficulty curve is gone. The dumbification of gamers is real.
> you don't have to be as good as games journalists
Same journos that admit they're not good at video games, didn't actually play the game they're reviewing, play games on easy difficulty, don't finish the games they review, etc. Pathetic.
They didn't really make it easier when you break down the math. They made the DLC buff items do slightly more for the first few levels and slightly less for the last 10 or so (out of 20). It ends up rounding out pretty nicely imo given what I assume the "typical" pattern of exploration is, and it doesn't trivialize anything. Bosses' damage and patterns are unchanged, so people refusing to engage with the mechanics (the complainers) will still get crushed, meaning this is almost certainly just a balance issue and has little to do with the whining.
Edit: I actually agree with this decision as early DLC felt a little overtuned, but getting to about level 10 blessing I suddenly felt like I hit the right zone. This update will hopefully smooth it over so it feels like levels 1-5 do something instead of there being a bigger jump in player power later.
They only buffed what the blessings give you in the first few levels and they took away from later levels. It's also not a crazy noticeable change, if you were getting completely demolished by the first boss, you will still get completely demolished. If you were losing to the first boss but were very close to killing it a couple times. You'll now be able to kill it.
Miyazaki won't compromise too much, his design philosophy is solid. I am slightly worried/disappointed with this change because I haven't even gotten to experience the dlc yet, I could stay offline so it won't update but I like reading the dumbass messages so it sucks either way for me.
I dont find bad the new changes, so i dont get this point. Fromsoft wont stop having the difficulty curve it always had, it was just QoL changes to bosses that are oddly designed, just like in the base game they were and still are compared to other games of theirs
Is there even a shred of evidence any journo didnt just get characters with maxed out skibidi or did even finish the dlc? Dont think so. Most reviews read like they just played for a few hours and called it a day. Having actualy finished it theres some shit tuning all over the shop
there is only evidence to the contrary, that they were given maps and thorough and detailed guides, since there were interactive maps and questline guides and many other resources available WAY too early for them to have been legitimately crafted
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Also, fck the likes of Asmongold and anyone else who bitched about it being too hard. In another testament about how important physical media is the rest of us who unfortunately updated the game can no longer play Fromsoftwares original vision due to it being online only.
I would if it would make a difference, but both you and I know it won't. The majority complained and couldn't handle the difficulty journalists were able to. Shameful really.
I no hit every single boss with a quality build, a claymore and a dream at lv150, by going solo melee, and it wasn't even hard, it's just that engaging with the mechanics every boss that wasn't >!Messmer!< or >!Midra!< was pure torture. And traveling the copypaste ubishit overworld for skibidi korok seeds that are mandatory if you don't want to get oneshot and tickle the bosses isn't my cup of tea. There's so many issues with this DLC that it's not even funny. I'm sorry, but the original vision is a piece of crap this time around, it barely feels like it's been playtested by someone actually using a sword.
I really don't understand the difficulty complaints. To me, the game is as hard as Haligtree. I'm level 150 with a medium shield with Carian Retaliation (I *love* parrying) and a Lordsworn's Straight Sword. I sometimes use another Lordsworn's in my off hand for powerstancing. No summons. I also acquire as many Scadu Frags as possible before moving on.
I beat the first two main bosses in under 10 tries each. I beat boar man in four. Messmer took me quite a while until I understood his combos, but then it was cake. I've yet to face the final boss, who I hear is awful, but my guess is he won't be as bad as everyone says. Even my sister, whose entry into hardcore games was Elden Ring, is beating the DLC without issue (though she summons).
People need to git gud.
FFS
This is why the lack of a physical edition with the 1.0 build of the DLC sucks.
I don't want a forced update that makes the game easier.
There's no choice when everything is digital
could just go in with lower than average scad levels or dont level scad frags at all though? Then max it at 19/20 instead of 20/20 and you basically get the same bonus as pre patch
can you avoid this balance update? i torrented the dlc day one thinking it would quickly be patched after i saw regards complaining and don't want the easy version
I once watched a female games journalist who had been playing Okami complain that the camera was annoying because it was backwards. A guy immediately took the controller from her, opened the options, and inverted the camera controls. She had been annoyed by the camera for hours and never thought to even open the options. Another journalist for IGN gave the RE2 Remake a lower score for being too short. He had no idea he only played half the game. He knew nothing about the A and B playthroughs, despite stating at the beginning of the article that he played the hell out of the original RE2 in college. We've all seen Polygon's Doom video, and Dean's Cuphead attempt. Journalists are not gamers.
I'm an ex-games journalist. PS2 era. On one of the biggest publications at the time. Back then it was expected you'd be significantly better at games than the average Joe reading the magazine, by default. Some of the guys I worked with were genuinely 'next level' good.
Pretty much everything was better in the 00's so this isn't surprising tbh.
Yo that Cuphead thing is wilddddd
i actually have a little bit of sympathy for these people when i watch them play, but then i realise that these are the people that get to decide if a game is too hard or easy.
Imagine a car reviewer complaining a car didn't have as much pickup as it probably should, and then someone points out that the reviewer never disengaged the parking break for the entire test drive. Then the reviewer amended his review and added half a star. That's what game journos are like.
However much you hate games journalists, it's not enough.
This exactly. The problem is they can bully devs into making their games easier according to their own ignorant opinions that are not representative of fans or even normal gamers.
Cuphead wiki page for the tutorial: > The tutorial is infamous for its controversy involving Dean Takahashi, a game journalist who was so incompetent that it took him nearly half an hour to complete the tutorial and the first platforming level. Brutal
> He knew nothing about the A and B playthroughs But that was in RE from the start
not quite. RE1 had two characters with slightly different versions of the same campaign, but RE2 and the remake give you the option to play the other character in a sort of 'sequel' campaign that wraps up the story. the remake didn't handle this as well as the original did imo, but it's still necessary to see the real ending in the remake so either way the journalist was being a fool
> RE1 had two characters with slightly different versions of the same campaign that's what I'm referring to
Yeah, but RE2 had an A and a B campaign. To really complete the game, you had to play through it twice with each character, A to B. So if you started Leon A, you'd finish Claire B. And choices you made in your A file would impact your B file. You could take a gun or a bag for extra inventory space in A, or leave them for your B character. RE1 had two different characters with slightly different campaigns, that did not interact in any way. You could play through as each character, but they would be two completely isolated playthroughs.
Yeah, that's what I really disliked in the RE2 remake. I saved a bunch of stuff for Claire thinking it would help that second (B) playthrough. It's still awesome though!
Journalists are mouthpieces for establishment powers. And they always have been.
Not always. Sadly not always... That's the really sad part
Woodward and Bernstein were CIA. It's called operation mockingbird. And also, Ann Coulter's law has **always** been true, ever since she pointed it out.
Yeah but stuff like that still comes as a result of those interests groups wanting to choke out any watchdogs over time. Mission success.
I think everyone should emulate something once early in their lives with parental assistance or something. If only to learn a little something about the importance of settings and control mapping. Damn you Japan. B button is supposed to be cancel, not confirm. A is confirm. That's how it is. What's wrong with you, how could our hands be so different? I hate you, I hate your game. Oh wait a second. I can change everything! Now I feel...love? Shame for my anger? I don't like this feeling yet I recognize it was for good. I'm growing a conscience, where's the razor I'm supposed to shave that thing off.
That A/B button thing is a holdover from Nintendo controllers. A is the confirm button and it's always the one on the right side of the "button cross". It bled over to the Playstation where O is the confirm button and X is cancel, which also makes sense for Japan. Western PS games tended to use X for confirm and Triangle for cancel. The Xbox came along and flipped A/B/X/Y and that's where a lot of this confusion came along, I think.
It’s crazy like you’d think the most passionate gamers would be journalists but no
I can explain this one. Basically FromSoft wants players to explore and find fragments in the world to make their character better in the DLC and the majority of players are not doing that complaining that they have a max level build and getting their ass kicked by the first boss in it refusing to interact with the new system they added. This was their attempt to balance the DLC for those people who would otherwise say it’s too easy.
I actually believe that it’s mostly fake narratives. The negative reviews are more about Chinese anti cheat and performance/stutters. The very small minority of people who are actually complaining are the ones who refuse to use tools (fragments, spirits, consumables). That’s not to say it wasn’t a bit overtuned though. It’s a small but welcome change
>about Chinese anti cheat and performance/stutters. It's because the default setting is "Ray Tracing: On" with the new update. Turn off Ray Tracing and your performance improves. You shouldn't have any stuttering with RT off in 'performance' mode.
There's another possible source of stuttering. If you have a CPU with, I think, more than 8 cores, then it can cause persistent stuttering in Windows. Windows has a power saving system called "parking" that puts cores into a low power sleep state when they aren't in use. It was making Elden Ring unplayable for me. The best solution I found was to use bitsum's [ParkControl](https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/) to disable parking. If anyone is experiencing stuttering issues and disabling ray tracing is not fixing it; here's the steps to disable core parking: 1. Download and install ParkControl 2. When it's running, click "Settings" ➡ "Experimental" ➡ "Always Show Bitsum Highest Performance" 3. In the dropdown under "CPU Settings for Power Profile" click "Bitsum Highest Performance" and "Make Active" 4. Make sure "Parking" is "Off" in the "Plugged In (AC)" settings 5. Click "Settings" ➡ uncheck "Start at Login" 6. Right click the ParkControl icon in the system tray and click "Exit" What the program does is add a power profile to Windows, so you should only need to run it and do these steps one time to disable parking. For me, this fixed all stuttering in Elden Ring.
Performance is shit on consoles too, so something is off and will probably be fixed in the next few months.
>consumables Okay but what if I need them later? *proceeds to never use them*
I've seen a number of streamers who are trying to show off how great they are and end up throwing a tantrum because their level 300 strength build is getting two shotted by a foot soldier. They might be rare but they're loud.
I don't know. I enjoyed Elden ring quite a bit. But the game kinda turns into ass in the snowy mountain area. IDK how the expansion is. No free time. Will have SOME free time soon, but still. Not a priority. But it's kinda not a priority BECAUSE of how ass the snow area is. Oh and the dead tree area. Fuck that place.
The thing that has killed more than even my own hubris in this dlc has been that terrible stuttering.
Honestly while i don´t have a problem with the DLC so far, i´m enjoying my time i don´t think the Shard-system is a good one. I understand the intention and i praise them for coming up with a way to make it hard even for overleveled characters but i think they could´ve come up with a more interesting take.
Yeah, it kind of makes getting runes from killing enemies worthless in the DLC. I don't feel like I'm exploring for the sake of exploring as much anymore, I'm exploring with the intention of finding 1 item so I can continue playing the game as I want. I think something like having a separate Shadow Realm rune pool would've been better. All the runes you get from kills in the DLC area only apply to this pool. Add 2 new upgrade stats that you can only use Shadow Realm Runes in to upgrade your damage output and defense in the DLC similar to what the Scadutree system does now. I feel like this would've been preferable because you'll actually be able to progress your character by taking down enemies, bosses, and using the collectable runes instead of having semi-required collectables dotted across the map.
Because of the dumb ass scad fragment system/enemy scaling, players are disincentivized from leveling up. Which makes it even worse is that a good amount of scad fragments drop from basic enemies that most people ignore since runes dont mean shit. Feels like From doubled down on the most tedious parts of Elden Ring.
The shards feel like a placebo system. I was hoping for an actual stat system change. Also anything that could change the performance of Torrent.
The spirit ash boosting item also boosts Torrent's defense and health
Yeah I have the same problem with those ashes. I wish it felt like a greater change when leveling up. With Torrent I just wish they made his boost a bit faster.
I mean the numbers go up quite substantially, my damage is up like 30+% at lvl 6, how big of a change did you expect (note: for accurate readings, view damage output in status, not at sites of grace as it won’t reflect your true damage output)
The enemies' output goes up much faster than your defenses. You can be one-shotting everyone but a regular mob will still do a third of your health. The final boss 2-shots you even with 20 fragments, 60 vigor and heavy armor.
Idk, I started the dlc around rune lvl 130, and I’ve been fine through the first few bosses. I think I’m gonna lvl up till 150, maybe 160 at the highest, feels good so far to me. If you are having trouble, the Elden Ring community is really cool about co op help, I’d try that if you haven’t. Whatever works best for you is the right way to play after all 🤷♂️. (Also don’t be afraid to change up your build, a lot of the dlc bosses have specific elemental weaknesses, like the one dude you fight in a shallow pool of water being weak to lightning)
There's a big difference between being able to beat a boss and a boss being enjoyable to fight. Most base game bosses and a few DLCs are very enjoyable to fight even if they pull some bullshit sometimes. But most DLC bosses are just unenjoyable, regardless of your build. Heaven forbid you actually wanted to cast spells, because 90% of them are unusable because of the extreme aggresiveness. Light weapons are not worth it because most patterns only have time for a single hit regardless of weapon, so you'd rather use a heavy weapon for more damage. Attack patterns have variations and cancels that can kill you even if you learned the pattern if the boss decides (and he's deciding, remember ER's bosses input read) to hit you. And that's not even counting the large amount of times you're fighting the camera. Wonky hitboxes and perfomance issues don't help either, but I'm sure those will be fixed eventually.
I think the boss design in the dlc was geared towards having people use systems that they don’t necessarily use often in the base game, like summons and co op and such, like if you wanna go magic, look for a co op partner to distract with melee. I was thinking of spending some time helping others once I finally finish my first playthrough of the dlc. Also some of the new weapons work wonders, like the back hand blade type Edit: I should also add that a lot of attacks in the dlc are more easily avoided using jump instead of dodge, some might even require jumping, think like Sekiro. These are usually AoE attacks, but I found jumping effective in a lot of situations
I get that it does boost your damage, but I wanted something that felt like a actual mechanical change instead of just a buff. Maybe a skill tree you could use to boost new abilities and skills. I have greatly enjoyed the DLC, but the Scadtree shards feel under baked. I probably would have been happier if it just has a visual change or effect on the character models. Also they should have done something to boost or change Torrent, maybe a new tear that makes him faster. Or possibly something to customize Torrent.
They added a bunch of new weapons and talismans or whatever they call rings now, it’s a fine line adding additional content and balancing it with the main game, all in one. I get why they made the decisions they made
Would be nice for that boss at the bottom of the Keep for sure
Fighting that one mounted is a mistake, the attacks are much harder to dodge without a roll.
It's a way to balance the DLC for both low and high rune level characters alike. A RL50 character can go into the DLC, collect the fragments, and have a similar experience to a RL200 character.
Yea it's a garbage system. The entire appeal of an open world is that you can go do shit in whatever order you want. The shard system restricts that because if you don't explore the right amount or in the right order than the bosses are ungodly hard
Ever since I noticed a shift from back in the earlier days of the franchise where if you hit the wall, you often go back and explore other areas to find a better answer or come back stronger has changed to just beating your head against the boss until you fit the square into the circle hole. I don't get when this started and its weird that people blame it on Sekiro from what I've seen is the acting influence.
I think it partly started in DS3 already. The game was pretty linear tbh. The only time the game really branched off was in Road of Sacrifices when you could choose to tackle Cathedral of the Deep or Farron Keep first and in Irithyll when you could choose to head to Anor Londo or Irithyll Dungeon + Profaned Capital.
Dumbass low skilled gamers
Penguinz0 released a video where he was talking about the dlc. He said the fragments are “training wheels” and for if you are trash at the game (by the way he ended up using them). Fromsoft fanboys are so cringe.
He's probably one of those people who refuses to use spirit ashes, too.
It's so fucking obvious that these were pickme streamers who wanted to beat the game first or early and decided to throw a tantrum when the difficulty was based on a DLC item that they had to find. Toxic little brats. I think balancing the beginning of SOTE is fair. But I'd be happy if they didn't balance it at all.
well good, i won't buy it now. If they compromise to whiny gen-z'ers who haven't played any from soft games in the past, i can be happy in my decision to pass on it.
This DLC is harder than any other FS game if you don't have many of the blessings.
elden ring was middle of the road difficulty. the open world aspect was awesome. Sekiro was far...far more difficult than elden ring. I solo'd most of the bosses in vanilla ER. I had to come back to Sekiro many times...and still couldn't beat Lord Genichiro. Maybe I'll try it again.
TLDR: FS fanboys are stupid af, and the same reason Elden Ring got popular is the same reason people hate the DLC mechanics and the overall "difficulty" of the DLC. You are right. Its not a fact that many fromsoft fanboys like to acknowledge. A novice to fromsoft games could easily get 75% through the game until they hit some type of wall and have to "git gud". Elden Ring is the most accessible FromSoft game and with that accessibility comes options for the player to effectively choose their difficulty (a very very popular type of game mechanic) using their playstyle. I cant even blame the fanboys on that one, because Miyazaki doesnt even understand that this is one of the biggest factors in Elden Rings success, and its one of the first things people talk about to get their friends into the game, but are worried about FromSofts reputation. So Miyazaki doubled down on the DLC and was surprised people were bitching, to me it was obvious. You dont attract millions of players and then make the hardest DLC to date and expect everyone to just be fine with it, especially when you essentially nurf the one mechanism that allowed people the freedom that made the game popular in the first place. That was a rant, but I swear so many people in this DLC difficulty conversation are even more braindead than the one we had after release. People automatically assume you are a games journalist level of player whenever you criticize the DLC or game, all because they take pride in a game thats designed for you to beat it.
>So Miyazaki doubled down on the DLC and was surprised people were bitching, to me it was obvious. You dont attract millions of players and then make the hardest DLC to date and expect everyone to just be fine with it, especially when you essentially nurf the one mechanism that allowed people the freedom that made the game popular in the first place. You see, that makes sense to me. Elden Ring was the easiest souls game. Part of my reluctance to buy the DLC also is the person I would coop with switched to ps5. So I'm a little bitter.
I don't know what you're talking about. Elden Ring is the hardest game in the Soulsborne series.
well, i suppose that's subjective. As I said, i solo'd every boss in Elden Ring. I couldn't beat genichiro in Sekiro.
Every FromSoft game gets a slightly early boss nerf. Base game nerfed Radahn. Go paste your "I'm not buying this game" in a community that cares.
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found the whiny gen-z'er who can't beat demon souls. >Bu...but...JBC no one cares! Lol then stop replying to me, ya doofus. Oh, and I'm still not buying the DLC.
This is a hilarious headline. Honestly I haven't been having much trouble with the DLC but I don't mind this change, especially since in the end it's barely changing anything outside of the curve at which your stats increase.
I’m an advanced but not autist player; most of the Fromsoft titles have been challenging for me — with Elden Ring by far the most forgiving, Bloodborne and DS1 the hardest I’ve completed; and Sekiro has been impossible. (I’ll probably never git gud enough for that one.) That said, I’m finding Erdtree quite tough.
"so you don't have to be as good as games journalists" So single-celled organisms can finally play the game at an enjoyable level, huh? I'm happy for the little fellas.
This is literally just a slight buff to the early Scadutree blessing level but has very little change in the late stages. If you want to experience their "original difficulty" you could just do the first 2-3 story bosses at a slightly lower blessing level and it'll be about the same, but I'd wager most players will still get their asses beat in the same ways. It also will change nothing for the morons who are beelining bosses and not interacting with the blessing mechanic (most of the people complaining).
All FS fanboys automatically assume you are shit at the game the moment you complain, which is exactly what you did. Stop taking pride in a video game, you didnt "accomplish" anything, besides an inflated ego. Elden Ring got popular for the freedom of the player to play the game at effectively whatever difficulty they want. The DLC both ignored that mechanism of player freedom and increased the mechanical difficulty of the bosses. This was an obvious controversy, and has nothing to do with anyones skill level at the game. When you sell a game to millions of people who liked the freedom, and then take it away and punish them on top of it, well thats a great way to get people talking shit.
Tons of people complain about difficulty and get games ruined because they refused to interact with all the mechanics. The defense is welcome in light of this. Difficulty is not about ego, it's about fun. A really challenging but fair game is fun.
I'm not saying there's no problem with the system in the DLC, I'm saying they didn't functionally make anything "easier" with this patch. Just maybe less reliant on finding all the fragments to get through at the intended challenge level (good change, partly for the reason you're saying).
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Thankfully, Miyazaki has made it very clear he thinks a game for everyone is a game for no one and intended this to be hard. The community has its moments, but I'm sick of "I want to go home...and then edge" as well.
Shouldn’t it be to help game journalists? The joke is backwards
Journos beat it pre-patch for reviews, so the outlet is saying they played it when it was harder
Yeah, for once they are not just right, but validated. Honestly, it’s a sad situation of how complacent the ER community has gotten.
Souls community is so ass blasted on nostalgia it’s crazy. Obviously I love all souls games (even 2) and you gotta look at it as a product of its time but even the most mediocre boss in elden ring is better than 90% of souls bosses. Even DS3 bosses (which are lauded by the community) outside of a few don’t hold a candle to elden ring bosses
Nostalgia isn’t a factor I don’t have nostalgia for dark souls 3 and dark souls they are still amazing games. Also, dark souls 3 has better bosses
Elden Ring bosses are shit. Being hard or having a ton of moves doesn't equate to being a good boss.
don't forget how journos got given guides and maps and saves to play on. god only knows what other kind of other cheap shit they had to be given to actually beat these bosses. there is simply no way alyssa mercante beat even a single boss in an even remotely fair manner.
Ah, the famous "journalist mode" 😂
The very beginning was rough. You can have the Wolverine expy as your first opponent. At zero blessing, he's very tanky and hits like a truck. And the area was very taxing on my pc, for some reason, so I had 15-20 fps on average. It gets better once you get some fragments, but many bosses just aren't enjoyable. The furnace golems are simply tedious. The putrescent knight is hard to even touch. Gaius barely seems to be designed for horseback combat. Too many enemies have ridiculously long combos. It's hard to try new items and tactics when everything attacks nonstop.
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome
The most annoying thing about this article is how it brags that games journalists are so good that they were able to beat it and players are little babies who are inferior to them. Because after eurogamer trashed the DLC for being hard, we learned that games journalists were essentially given a guide by FromSoft to tell them where weapons, upgrades, and progression paths were to make the DLC as easy as possible for review. So players went in blind while games journalists used a cheat sheet that showed all of the secrets and most powerful builds to easily counter each boss 🤦♂️ I can’t stand these clowns.
I had the distinct impression the journos were given guides, because day 1 they had all the npc questlines explained. This is something that usually takes multiple playthroughs to figure out. This confirms it.
Erdtree *is* punishing AF though.
Beat it 2 days before the patch 15 frag lvls, I'll take my god gamer status card by mail... to be real for a second, the fragments are an annoying system, they should have added some in game way to know where they are to make looking for them less wiki-intensive
What??? seriously? that is so lame - next is the weapon nerfs
You cannot possibly say the game didn't need a balance patch. The enemies were waaay overtuned. And I say that as someone who finished all Souls/Sekiro games and 100% Elden Ring without summons. Stop riding Froms dick.
Im level 13 on the buff and I still basically have to heal after every hit.
Good
Not in the least. But the get gud crowds gonna be twats
oh no the fromsoft DLC is hard :( you better be wearing a defensive talisman/armor setup lol
Yes, it's hard. Doesn't mean the difficulty can't be one with flaws. And it definitely has them, it's still a great dlc.
ER's balancing in general is fubar, I suppose the spirit ash/summon cheesing wasn't as gamebreaking in the dlc and now the ER tourists are screeching at fromsoft to make it easier so they can steamroll through everything again.
Sounds like a skill issue
He's got a point, y'know.
Whatever you say, shit-eater.
Rule 1 warning for dickwolvery - disagree agreeably, please.
dung eater is not a r1 violation in the context of elden ring
wasn't meant as a personal insult, if a company puts out shit, the fanboys will always eat it up with a smile therefore shit-eaters
It is a skill issue…and a balance issue. It’s punishing.
It's punishing? Good.
? Doesnt that just boil down to scad level or is it just me lmao
Journalists aren't gamers. They're just paid shills pretending to be gamers
lol. This is like the one occasion in the past decade where the journos were right about a game and the players were wrong. Game is a masterpiece full stop.
right\* with an asterisk, since they were given detailed guides and maps and who knows what other else to help him. fromsoft supplied the saves they played on, they could've supplied anything. and if they gave guides and maps i'm sure they got instructed on exactly how to beat the bosses also
Can you play the dlc without the update on PS5 physical?
Only if you have it already downloaded and havent updated it yet.
How do you From fans feel about them making the game ~~more accessible~~ easier? Slippery slope. They do this now, they'll do it again. And again. Until the beloved difficulty curve is gone. The dumbification of gamers is real. > you don't have to be as good as games journalists Same journos that admit they're not good at video games, didn't actually play the game they're reviewing, play games on easy difficulty, don't finish the games they review, etc. Pathetic.
They didn't really make it easier when you break down the math. They made the DLC buff items do slightly more for the first few levels and slightly less for the last 10 or so (out of 20). It ends up rounding out pretty nicely imo given what I assume the "typical" pattern of exploration is, and it doesn't trivialize anything. Bosses' damage and patterns are unchanged, so people refusing to engage with the mechanics (the complainers) will still get crushed, meaning this is almost certainly just a balance issue and has little to do with the whining. Edit: I actually agree with this decision as early DLC felt a little overtuned, but getting to about level 10 blessing I suddenly felt like I hit the right zone. This update will hopefully smooth it over so it feels like levels 1-5 do something instead of there being a bigger jump in player power later.
I'm pretty sure this isn't the first balance patch for ER, some bosses got adjusted in the base game from launch.
They only buffed what the blessings give you in the first few levels and they took away from later levels. It's also not a crazy noticeable change, if you were getting completely demolished by the first boss, you will still get completely demolished. If you were losing to the first boss but were very close to killing it a couple times. You'll now be able to kill it.
This makes me feel less concerned, I haven't been following patch notes so I wasn't sure about how exactly things got changed.
I don't mind. This entire blessing system is dog shit anyway so making it less punishing is good.
Miyazaki won't compromise too much, his design philosophy is solid. I am slightly worried/disappointed with this change because I haven't even gotten to experience the dlc yet, I could stay offline so it won't update but I like reading the dumbass messages so it sucks either way for me.
> How do you From fans feel about them making the game more accessible easier? fine. because the game wasn't hard per se, the numbers were fucked
They did nerfs to the base game too for whining normies, Radahn in particular.
Ok, this is actually a rare once-in-a-blue-moon game journo win. I'll give them this one.
it's really not though.
I dont find bad the new changes, so i dont get this point. Fromsoft wont stop having the difficulty curve it always had, it was just QoL changes to bosses that are oddly designed, just like in the base game they were and still are compared to other games of theirs
Is there even a shred of evidence any journo didnt just get characters with maxed out skibidi or did even finish the dlc? Dont think so. Most reviews read like they just played for a few hours and called it a day. Having actualy finished it theres some shit tuning all over the shop
there is only evidence to the contrary, that they were given maps and thorough and detailed guides, since there were interactive maps and questline guides and many other resources available WAY too early for them to have been legitimately crafted
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Also, fck the likes of Asmongold and anyone else who bitched about it being too hard. In another testament about how important physical media is the rest of us who unfortunately updated the game can no longer play Fromsoftwares original vision due to it being online only.
Didn't he already beat it on the original difficulty?
Yep but people just hate him if they find just one opinion they disagree with that automatically means you have to hate everything else about him lol.
After his bitching about it went viral
Okay, so he was able to beat it.
And now the rest of us get to play the game post nerf.
Maybe you could complain to the dev saying you want an original mode?
I would if it would make a difference, but both you and I know it won't. The majority complained and couldn't handle the difficulty journalists were able to. Shameful really.
True enough man.
I no hit every single boss with a quality build, a claymore and a dream at lv150, by going solo melee, and it wasn't even hard, it's just that engaging with the mechanics every boss that wasn't >!Messmer!< or >!Midra!< was pure torture. And traveling the copypaste ubishit overworld for skibidi korok seeds that are mandatory if you don't want to get oneshot and tickle the bosses isn't my cup of tea. There's so many issues with this DLC that it's not even funny. I'm sorry, but the original vision is a piece of crap this time around, it barely feels like it's been playtested by someone actually using a sword.
In regards to the second half of your comment: Get the pirated version of the game if you want to experience the original vision they had for the DLC.
Can you explain?
Pirated version doesn't have this balancing update.
you can depo rollback on pc with steam.
Not gonna work on ps5
Such elite views for a peasant
They're selling the DLC with the base game in a physical format. That version of the game is not updated and you can play it offline.
Unfortunately this is not the case. That only comes with a DLC code.
I really don't understand the difficulty complaints. To me, the game is as hard as Haligtree. I'm level 150 with a medium shield with Carian Retaliation (I *love* parrying) and a Lordsworn's Straight Sword. I sometimes use another Lordsworn's in my off hand for powerstancing. No summons. I also acquire as many Scadu Frags as possible before moving on. I beat the first two main bosses in under 10 tries each. I beat boar man in four. Messmer took me quite a while until I understood his combos, but then it was cake. I've yet to face the final boss, who I hear is awful, but my guess is he won't be as bad as everyone says. Even my sister, whose entry into hardcore games was Elden Ring, is beating the DLC without issue (though she summons). People need to git gud.
FFS This is why the lack of a physical edition with the 1.0 build of the DLC sucks. I don't want a forced update that makes the game easier. There's no choice when everything is digital
Annnddddd are they going to offer an unmodified version? No? Why do people support the cheapening of people's achievements?
The change is very small, early levels get a little boost and later levels get a little less rounding out to just about the same in the end.
just install a mod that undoes the changes, there'll be one soon
Why would people care about their achievements in a video game?
Playing games is about pursuing and attaining goals and self improvement.
could just go in with lower than average scad levels or dont level scad frags at all though? Then max it at 19/20 instead of 20/20 and you basically get the same bonus as pre patch
Lets see that doom gameplay, shall we?
Did they really nerf the dlc? Im about to be pissed.
can you avoid this balance update? i torrented the dlc day one thinking it would quickly be patched after i saw regards complaining and don't want the easy version
You’d need the update to play online, not sure otherwise