Elden Ring - From Software + George RR Martin

Seananigans

Seananigans

Honorary Shit-PhD
<Gold Donor>
13,333
32,995
Vinjin said:
Perhaps, but there's no denying the emptiness in the DLC is exactly that. I mean, there's nothing at all to even pick up in these places save for a couple of cookbooks in AW.

Jagged Peaks had a few items, bosses, etc at least. I was just disappointed in how little there was to actually explore given how much map space it had at first sight.

The base game had some areas with a bit less reward than others, and one can surely argue the legitimacy of some of the items found in those places, but no place I can think of that similar to the Finger ruins or AW. Just MO.
Click to expand...

I'm willing to bet if they did in fact fill all of these "empty" spaces, people would find the DLC (or game) exhausting. Pacing ebbs and flows tend to be good for us whether or not we recognize it explicitly.
 
  • 3Like
Reactions: 2 users
V

Vinjin

Lord Nagafen Raider
430
391
I can appreciate that. This was my first (and only) FromSoft game so I fully acknowledge that I just may not be used to their design.

As stated, I found parts of the DLC to be a bit different/unfinished than any part of the main game, but you certainly could be right in that maybe it just "felt" that way to me b/c the DLC is much smaller than the base game, which is plausible.
 
Bald Brah

Bald Brah

Lord Nagafen Raider
830
933
Filling the emptiness with
Seananigans said:
I'm willing to bet if they did in fact fill all of these "empty" spaces, people would find the DLC (or game) exhausting. Pacing ebbs and flows tend to be good for us whether or not we recognize it explicitly.
Click to expand...

Filling the emptiness with 8 of the same furnace golems with a bazillion hit points each didn't do much for the pacing.
 
Seananigans

Seananigans

Honorary Shit-PhD
<Gold Donor>
13,333
32,995
Bald Brah said:
Filling the emptiness with

Filling the emptiness with 8 of the same furnace golems with a bazillion hit points each didn't do much for the pacing.
Click to expand...

You can pretty much ignore all of them, not sure what the big deal is about them. And an area with a furnace golem isn't an area I'd call "empty."

I thought we were speaking of areas like the finger deserts, abyssal woods, most of cerulean coast, etc.
 
Bald Brah

Bald Brah

Lord Nagafen Raider
830
933
Seananigans said:
You can pretty much ignore all of them, not sure what the big deal is about them. And an area with a furnace golem isn't an area I'd call "empty."

I thought we were speaking of areas like the finger deserts, abyssal woods, most of cerulean coast, etc.
Click to expand...

You can't ignore them if you want the new crystal tears.

They suck because it's a boring ass repetitive fight that goes on forever. No real threat unless you mis-time a jump, but they are super annoying and have a health pool bigger than all the remembrance bosses combined. Just lazy development.
 
Seananigans

Seananigans

Honorary Shit-PhD
<Gold Donor>
13,333
32,995
Bald Brah said:
You can't ignore them if you want the new crystal tears.

They suck because it's a boring ass repetitive fight that goes on forever. No real threat unless you mis-time a jump, but they are super annoying and have a health pool bigger than all the remembrance bosses combined. Just lazy development.
Click to expand...

I mean is that any real difference from the Erdtree Avatars who guarded the tears in the main game? Those were all carbon copies with occasional small ability differences.

Honestly I didn't mind having enemies that we basically had to fight on Torrent, that's unusual enough to be at least somewhat interesting. They take 60 seconds or so, so maybe 10 minutes out of my 30+ hours in the DLC have been dealing with furnace golems.

I get the critique, but turning the critique into a major complaint is what I'm not following.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user
Bald Brah

Bald Brah

Lord Nagafen Raider
830
933
Seananigans said:
I mean is that any real difference from the Erdtree Avatars who guarded the tears in the main game? Those were all carbon copies with occasional small ability differences.

Honestly I didn't mind having enemies that we basically had to fight on Torrent, that's unusual enough to be at least somewhat interesting. They take 60 seconds or so, so maybe 10 minutes out of my 30+ hours in the DLC have been dealing with furnace golems.

I get the critique, but turning the critique into a major complaint is what I'm not following.
Click to expand...

If the erdtree avatar was the only field boss in an entire zone that might be a good comparison, but they are one of about 15.

Here we have 8 golems with not much else. 2 bears, a couple dragons.

Limgrave

FIELD BOSSES AND BOSSES
©Ancient Hero of Zamor
Beastman of Farum Azula
©Bell Bearing Hunter
©Black Knife Assassin
Bloodhound Knight Darriwil
Cemetery Shade
Crucible Knight
Deathbird
Demi-Human Chief
Erdtree Avatar
Erdtree Burial Watchdog
Flying Dragon Agheel
Godrick the Grafted
Grafted Scion
Grave Warden Duelist
Guardian Golem
Leonine Misbegotten
Mad Pumpkin Head
Margit, the Fell Omen
Miranda the Blighted Bloom
Night's Cavalry
Patches
Runebear
Scaly Misbegotten
Soldier of Godrick
Stonedigger Troll
Tibia Mariner
Tree Sentinel
Ulcerated Tree Spirit

Vs

Gravesite plains

FIELD BOSSES AND BOSSES
Blackgaol Knight
Chief Bloodfiend
Demi-Human Swordmaster Onze
Divine Beast Dancing Lion
Furnace Golem
Ghostflame Dragon
Lamenter
Rellana Twin Moon Knight
Red Bear

And gravesite plains is one of the more populated areas in the DLC.
 
Last edited:
Penance

Penance

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
5,978
7,035
They literally take 60 seconds to kill. What's the complaint?

This is an expansion, not a sequel. They're allowed to stretch their assets. Where's that graphic with all the new shit they added. And people still complain lol.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user
Seananigans

Seananigans

Honorary Shit-PhD
<Gold Donor>
13,333
32,995
Bald Brah said:
If the erdtree avatar was the only field boss in an entire zone that might be a good comparison, but they are one of about 15.

Here we have 8 golems with not much else. 2 bears, a couple dragons.

Limgrave

FIELD BOSSES AND BOSSES
©Ancient Hero of Zamor
Beastman of Farum Azula
©Bell Bearing Hunter
©Black Knife Assassin
Bloodhound Knight Darriwil
Cemetery Shade
Crucible Knight
Deathbird
Demi-Human Chief
Erdtree Avatar
Erdtree Burial Watchdog
Flying Dragon Agheel
Godrick the Grafted
Grafted Scion
Grave Warden Duelist
Guardian Golem
Leonine Misbegotten
Mad Pumpkin Head
Margit, the Fell Omen
Miranda the Blighted Bloom
Night's Cavalry
Patches
Runebear
Scaly Misbegotten
Soldier of Godrick
Stonedigger Troll
Tibia Mariner
Tree Sentinel
Ulcerated Tree Spirit

Vs

Gravesite plains

FIELD BOSSES AND BOSSES
Blackgaol Knight
Chief Bloodfiend
Demi-Human Swordmaster Onze
Divine Beast Dancing Lion
Furnace Golem
Ghostflame Dragon
Lamenter
Rellana Twin Moon Knight
Red Bear

And gravesite plains is one of the more populated areas in the DLC.
Click to expand...

Dude, comparing the first zone of the main game to anything in the DLC is a bad faith comparison. Literally every game ever made has a starting area that is more polished and fleshed out than the rest of the game.

Compare Mountaintops or Consecrated Snowfield to Gravesite Plain and you might have a comparison worth looking at.

Again, I understand your critique, the furnace golems are not particularly amazing, but you're losing me with anything beyond that specific statement.
 
Bald Brah

Bald Brah

Lord Nagafen Raider
830
933
Penance said:
They literally take 60 seconds to kill. What's the complaint?

This is an expansion, not a sequel. They're allowed to stretch their assets. Where's that graphic with all the new shit they added. And people still complain lol.
Click to expand...

Complaining because I'm done and have no desire to replay that bullshit. When I happily replayed the base game 5 times.

The expansion wasn't really any more frustrating than the main game boss-wise. I thought all the remembrance fights were very well thought out and very fun. Maybe a bit more unfair than the base game but not terribly so.

What I hated was all the hidden fragments. I only found about half of them without reverting to spoilers. That was stupid. They should have attached them all to remembrance fights if they wanted real progression difficulty.

It's stupid that half your power is from finding some stupid hidden in the middle of no-where bucket head spirits that you can easily kill with 1 light attack. If you can find them.

It's stupid that half the world drops are a smithing stone one, or a cookbook you don't need, or some other useless trivial item. This de-incentivises exploration.

And those golems are fucking annoying. I killed 3 or 4 and there is no way I'm killing the other 5.
 
Penance

Penance

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
5,978
7,035
Bald Brah said:
What I hated was all the hidden fragments. I only found about half of them without reverting to spoilers. That was stupid. They should have attached them all to remembrance fights if they wanted real progression difficulty.

It's stupid that half your power is from finding some stupid hidden in the middle of no-where bucket head spirits that you can easily kill with 1 light attack. If you can find them.

It's stupid that half the world drops are a smithing stone one, or a cookbook you don't need, or some other useless trivial item. This de-incentivises exploration.
Click to expand...
These are valid complaints.

I can respect the alternate progression so they can re-tune the difficulty. But to have your power behind exploration in this manner seems like a slight oversight and cumbersome at best.

The cookbooks are necessary but not as fun as finding in the first since mostly everything is just a tier upgrade instead of a new functioning item.

However

You have to understand that scope is real and these developers can only do so much while inevitably delaying their next big project.
 
Seananigans

Seananigans

Honorary Shit-PhD
<Gold Donor>
13,333
32,995
Bald Brah said:
It's stupid that half the world drops are a smithing stone one, or a cookbook you don't need, or some other useless trivial item. This de-incentivises exploration.
Click to expand...

Yeah man I think they primarily incentivized exploration with... the shadowtree fragments you despise and apparently didn't bother to explore to find despite acknowledging their power and usefulness.

You seem to be in the demographic that cannot ever be pleased by game design.

FWIW I don't think I've ever revisited a DLC area in a FromSoft game on subsequent playthroughs, and I'm not sure I will with ER either. They tend to be areas that are awesome to explore once, and then I'm happy to shelf them away while the main game is replayable quite a bit. I don't see anything inherently "bad design" about that result. It's there if I ever want to go see it again, it's purely optional.
 
Araysar

Loser Araysar

Chief Russia Correspondent / Stock Pals CEO
<Gold Donor>
78,878
156,751
Bald Brah said:
You can't ignore them if you want the new crystal tears.

They suck because it's a boring ass repetitive fight that goes on forever. No real threat unless you mis-time a jump, but they are super annoying and have a health pool bigger than all the remembrance bosses combined. Just lazy development.
Click to expand...


That's the same thing that can be said about Erdtree Avatars in the base game...

Boring, repetitive fight each time except the HP pools get bigger
 
  • 1Truth!
Reactions: 1 user
Phazael

Phazael

Confirmed Beta Shitlord, Fat Bastard
<Aristocrat╭ರ_•́>
14,491
31,025
Bald Brah said:
You can't ignore them if you want the new crystal tears.

They suck because it's a boring ass repetitive fight that goes on forever. No real threat unless you mis-time a jump, but they are super annoying and have a health pool bigger than all the remembrance bosses combined. Just lazy development.
Click to expand...

There is only one that you have to engage on the ground. The rest can all be popped by tossing three Furnace Pots into their pie hole. And everything needed to make more (even the vissage) is farmable. I am more annoyed by the Mario game you have to play to figure out where to toss the Huge Pots from.
 
Hatorade

Hatorade

A nice asshole.
8,383
7,012
Yall using hefty volcano pots on the golems or just swing for days until they fall down? Not sure what the complaint is, use the tools you have or it takes longer.
 
Kirun

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
<Rickshaw Potatoes>
19,113
15,514
Araysar said:
That's the same thing that can be said about Erdtree Avatars in the base game...

Boring, repetitive fight each time except the HP pools get bigger
Click to expand...
Erdtree Avatars went down about 100x faster for me than the retarded golems.

A better comparison for the golems is imagine having to do the Fire Giant fight in every fucking zone. A boring, repetitive fight that is only made difficult by the fact the mob has 100 billion HP.
 
Excidium

Excidium

Trakanon Raider
846
1,317
The golems reminds me of Vex Thal. The only way you lose is if you fall asleep during the fight with trash monsters with hit points of raid bosses.
 
  • 1Like
  • 1Truth!
Reactions: 1 users
ronne

ronne

Nǐ hǎo, yǒu jīn zi ma?
8,193
7,625
Fashion souls has finally gone too far

1720478597971.png
 
  • 3Like
  • 1Worf
Reactions: 3 users
Penance

Penance

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
5,978
7,035
Hatorade said:
Yall using hefty volcano pots on the golems or just swing for days until they fall down? Not sure what the complaint is, use the tools you have or it takes longer.
Click to expand...
Yall swinging for days? I'm just swinging a couple times with death poker. Letting the ashe do like a billion damage.
 
ronne

ronne

Nǐ hǎo, yǒu jīn zi ma?
8,193
7,625
Whoa they let you summon Nepheli to fight her dad at the very end now, that's kinda sweet
 
You must log in or register to reply here.