Video Games

[laxu]

F*** it. $50 and 2 hours later and I literally cannot find this idiotic DLC. Every article I read and every video I watch is different, but equally unhelpful. Would anyone care to throw me a bone before I rage quit a game I never even got to play?

This “hardcore” FromSoft shit used to impress me. Now… when I’ve just burned through what little free time I had in between playing Overcooked with my kid? Much less so.

EDIT: Never mind. “Press the right thumb stick to go underground.” Dear FromSoft, IT’S BEEN TWO F***ING YEARS!!!

(Part of the reason I’m so salty is because I just read an interview the other day where Miyazaki was going on and on about how he intended Shadow to be playable without resorting to online FAQs, etc. And the very beginning of the content is, “Go to this place that nothing indicates you should go to.”)

There's basically two ways to get there. Follow Varre's questline until he gives you a key item you can use, or kill the Sanguine Noble invader in the Consecrated Snowfields to activate the teleporter nearby. I'd take the teleporter because it unlocks the best rune farming area in the game too so you don't have to necessarily waste time grinding levels, or can be more devil-may-care about losing your precious runes.

I think that quote is just about playing the DLC itself, rather than actually finding the passage to it. This time the DLC entrypoint is actually in a place that makes sense in terms of lore, and having a tough boss is at least preparing you for the DLC difficulty.

 

[mbenigni]

There's basically two ways to get there. Follow Varre's questline until he gives you a key item you can use, or kill the Sanguine Noble invader in the Consecrated Snowfields to activate the teleporter nearby. I'd take the teleporter because it unlocks the best rune farming area in the game too so you don't have to necessarily waste time grinding levels, or can be more devil-may-care about losing your precious runes.

I think that quote is just about playing the DLC itself, rather than actually finding the passage to it. This time the DLC entrypoint is actually in a place that makes sense in terms of lore, and having a tough boss is at least preparing you for the DLC difficulty.

I’m playing with a character that had already finished the main game in full, and I hadn’t gone into NG+. All I had to know was which fast travel point to travel to, and more importantly, how to bring up that particular map (R3).

After ~2 years, R3 was enough of a head scratcher in its own right. As for the entry point making sense per Elden Ring lore… I always thought the presentation of lore in these games was tenuous at best. I don’t know my Miquela from my Michelob. Expecting a player to make a beeline for one of dozens waypoints on a hidden map at the very onset of the new DLC still seems like a bit of a dick move to me.

They could have simply had Candle Maiden v4.5 pop up the first time you rested at a bonfire to give you some kind of clue. That would have been consistent with what’s gone before, and a bit more reasonable. (And hey, Miyazaki, I wouldn’t have needed to resort to Googling for an afternoon. Wasn’t that your stated aim?)

 

[laxu]

I’m playing with a character that had already finished the main game in full, and I hadn’t gone into NG+. All I had to know was which fast travel point to travel to, and more importantly, how to bring up that particular map (R3).

After ~2 years, R3 was enough of a head scratcher in its own right.

I had to look up the R3 button, I've never used it. You could have simply pulled up the list of graces with Y/Triangle and scrolled to the right grace. Granted, if you haven't played the game in a long time it can take time to remember that was even an option even if it says the controls at the bottom of the map.

Don't forget you can also favorite graces with I think right trigger.

As for the entry point making sense per Elden Ring lore… I always thought the presentation of lore in these games was tenuous at best. I don’t know my Miquela from my Michelob. Expecting a player to make a beeline for one of dozens waypoints on a hidden map at the very onset of the new DLC still seems like a bit of a dick move to me.

They could have simply had Candle Maiden v4.5 pop up the first time you rested at a bonfire to give you some kind of clue. That would have been consistent with what’s done before, and a bit more reasonable. (And hey, Miyazaki, I wouldn’t have needed to resort to Googling for an afternoon. Wasn’t that your stated aim?)

Yeah From does not make any of their lore particularly easy to follow when it's littered into item descriptions and cryptic lines from NPCs, with no notebook to refer to later.

From most likely assumes that the people buying the DLC have already scoured every inch of the base game world, and have it in fresh enough memory to find the right spot. Those who buy the base game + DLC as a pack will eventually stumble into the Mohg fight and then organically venture forth into the DLC.

The DLC entrypoints have been pretty vague in all of their games. DS1 and DS2 require you to find specific items and use them in specific places. DS3 makes the first DLC easy to encounter, but the 2nd DLC access is at a very weird point if you haven't beaten the first DLC.

Bloodborne lets you get to the DLC early, but the DLC entrypoint is this weird spot with an invisible enemy that normally just kills you at that point of the game. With the DLC, you'd most likely end up there by accident as a new player.

While I understand why they went with the current one in Elden Ring, I really hoped they would simply expand the game world with a new area that connects to an existing one. But instead it's a very self-contained DLC again.

 

[mbenigni]

From most likely assumes that the people buying the DLC have already scoured every inch of the base game world, and have it in fresh enough memory to find the right spot. Those who buy the base game + DLC as a pack will eventually stumble into the Mohg fight and then organically venture forth into the DLC.

Makes sense. But I would think a vast number of players (if not a majority) would have completed Elden Ring circa its release date, then shelved it (as one does with a loooong game they’ve completed), then taken a renewed interest when the DLC dropped.

I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I had completely forgotten where the base game ended, that there was an underground cocoon, that there was anyone named “Mohg”, etc. in the first place. I may be a FromSoft fanboy, but I also have things IRL I need to keep track of.

 

[laxu]

Seeing a lot of complaints online about Elden Ring DLC performance and difficulty. If even on my 4090 it tanks the fps in some areas I wonder how bad it gets on consoles.

The difficulty for the actual levels is about right, it feels challenging without being overwhelming. There's some really nice levels so far.

The bosses so far have been a shitshow though. I've defeated maybe 6-8. One main boss and stuck on another main boss atm. They do a variety of stuff like this:

• Massive damage to you from most attacks. I'm talking taking off like 40-50% of your health bar in one hit with 45 Vigor. You shouldn't have to put like 1/3 of your levels into health alone. This puts you into a "take damage, drink up" cycle just so you can try to survive their next attack chain.
• Super long combos of 4+ hits. You are basically blocking and dodging to find an opening to attack all the time.
• Very little room for the player to counterattack or heal. A lot of "dodge, dodge, do one hit, dodge again". Makes those fights take a long time.
• Camera issues because the boss is flailing around.
• Poor tells for some attacks. For example one boss did an instakill grab attack and there was really no good tell that it was doing that one.
• So many particle effects on screen that you have a hard time figuring out what is going on.

The boss fights seem entirely built around summoning other players or using NPC summons. No other way to get breathing room to heal.

Large weapon users seem at a significant disadvantage because even if you hyperarmor through an attack to land yours, you still lost 50% of your health bar. I've had to switch to weapons like my rot rapier on some bosses just to have a fighting chance because my Cross-Naginata spear is too slow to not get caught by their next attack, whereas using that weapon against normal enemies is totally fine.

 

[mbenigni]

Seeing a lot of complaints online about Elden Ring DLC performance and difficulty. If even on my 4090 it tanks the fps in some areas I wonder how bad it gets on consoles.

The difficulty for the actual levels is about right, it feels challenging without being overwhelming. There's some really nice levels so far.

The bosses so far have been a shitshow though. I've defeated maybe 6-8. One main boss and stuck on another main boss atm. They do a variety of stuff like this:

• Massive damage to you from most attacks. I'm talking taking off like 40-50% of your health bar in one hit with 45 Vigor. You shouldn't have to put like 1/3 of your levels into health alone. This puts you into a "take damage, drink up" cycle just so you can try to survive their next attack chain.
• Super long combos of 4+ hits. You are basically blocking and dodging to find an opening to attack all the time.
• Very little room for the player to counterattack or heal. A lot of "dodge, dodge, do one hit, dodge again". Makes those fights take a long time.
• Camera issues because the boss is flailing around.
• Poor tells for some attacks. For example one boss did an instakill grab attack and there was really no good tell that it was doing that one.
• So many particle effects on screen that you have a hard time figuring out what is going on.

The boss fights seem entirely built around summoning other players or using NPC summons. No other way to get breathing room to heal.

Large weapon users seem at a significant disadvantage because even if you hyperarmor through an attack to land yours, you still lost 50% of your health bar. I've had to switch to weapons like my rot rapier on some bosses just to have a fighting chance because my Cross-Naginata spear is too slow to not get caught by their next attack, whereas using that weapon against normal enemies is totally fine.

Yeah I’m having a hard time with bosses because my late (ER) game build was centered around a great sword (magma wyrm scalesword) - powerful but slow. I’ve got some quicker options but they havent been upgraded at all. I’m spending a disproportionate amount of time trying to find e.g. smithing stone [1].

To be clear though, despite all of my whinging above, I am completely hooked. Took me a while to blow off the cobwebs, remember how to use the quick access pouch, etc.

 

[laxu]

Yeah I’m having a hard time with bosses because my late (ER) game build was centered around a great sword (magma wyrm scalesword) - powerful but slow. I’ve got some quicker options but they havent been upgraded at all. I’m spending a disproportionate amount of time trying to find e.g. smithing stone [1].

Mines have bellbearings that you can hand to one of the Roundtable Hold NPCs and they will then sell you the upgrade materials. The mine for smithing stone 1 is somewhere in Limgrave, it's even visible on the map as what looks like a cave.

You can also kill any nomadic merchants and hand their bellbearings to the same NPC to have all the shops in one place. At least one has some questline relevance so might want to check wiki before killing them.

You can easily farm tons of runes from the Palace Approach Ledge-Road enemies. To access this I think you need to go through Varre's questline.

 

[mbenigni]

“Unable to summon cooperator” minigame is not great.

Rellana one shot instadeath non-game is not great.

And the love-hate relationship marches on.

 

[Devin]

I keep thinking I'm just about at the end of the DLC yet keep on discovering shit

Shit is so damn good


I will say I'm super salty about one particular DLC weapon situation though lol; I unknowingly screwed myself

 

[Devin]

Rellana one shot instadeath non-game is not great.

At the start of the fight just instantly run straight to her; the beam will fly right over your head and you can punish while she's casting it

This also works any other time she casts that spell

 

[mbenigni]

At the start of the fight just instantly run straight to her; the beam will fly right over your head and you can punish while she's casting it

This also works any other time she casts that spell

The beginning of the fight isn't a problem. I usually run into trouble during the 2nd phase. That sweeping horizontal magic blade thing that has a reach of approximately the diameter of the room... ugh.

(Fun fact: I am wrong 100% of the time as to which of these characters are supposed to be him's and which are supposed to be her's.)

 

[Devin]

Derp I read Rennala but you put Rellana; totally different situation

Yeah Rellana is a beast!! Good luck!

The blade sweep always comes down vertical and then horizontally clockwise (from my experience anyway; not sure if she can change that up but I haven't seen it)

Also for her triple moon attack you will want to jump three times

That said even if you take those two attacks away and she's still very hard IMO


For me personally this is by far the hardest DLC they've put out to date

 

[mbenigni]

Derp I read Rennala but you put Rellana; totally different situation

Yeah Rellana is a beast!! Good luck!

The blade sweep always comes down vertical and then horizontally clockwise (from my experience anyway; not sure if she can change that up but I haven't seen it)

Also for her triple moon attack you will want to jump three times

That said even if you take those two attacks away and she's still very hard IMO


For me personally this is by far the hardest DLC they've put out to date

Those damned names… I’ll never manage to follow the lore.

 

[Aelred]

I blame George RR Martin for the Lore - and Vaati and all the folk who make From Lore videos for a living from item descriptions.

Everyone is G, R or M, and for lands meant to be thousands of years old one generation of a weird royal family is all we get.

Having this dubious Lore being the reason for the DLC placement/portal was a bit odd to me. Was that NPC at the egg the Hoonter of Hoonters (Eileen) from Bloodborne voice?

Having people talk about "Kindly" Miquella actually being a monster is a typical From trope. I have a 150 Build that heasn't beaten the main game in the DLC, and Sir Gifeon Offnir's dialog didn't change. Of course someone referred to as "kindly" would turn out to be anything but.

Playing with someone who is level 11 in the DLC, we got wrecked many times over. She is using the Blessing system for better damage and resistance, but that Vigor is a problem. I get slaughtered at level 268 with 60 vigor. She gets one-shot a lot.

After the mess that was the game release I expected a few server and co-op issues first week, and expect a patch or two soon.

But I do feel it is value for money, although I have only killed a few bosses while exploring. I should go back for a couple now I have more Buff Blessings on board, and have a couple of those Blessings of Marika to use. I don't have many new weapons or spells, but will be moving Golden Vow consumables and the like to my low level main game builds. I have no idea what questlines I've started if any.

The nerf on spears pre-release didn't help my main build, so I'll have to swap to lighter swords or axes.

I think Elden Ring bosses are designed for co-op and Spirit Summons, perhaps even more so in Shadow - so the Unable to Summon thing is really annoying. Password use is smooth if you are playing with people you know online.

 

[mbenigni]

It’s back to the whinging tonight. Rellana. Ridiculousness. I never thought I’d say this about Elden Ring content, but f*** it. I just don’t want to do this anymore.

 

[Aelred]

Rellana is quite the Boss - I tried a few times with a friend and Leda to no avail, especially once the Moon attacks kick in at the final phase.

I'll try again after getting some more Blessings. The fact that they have Buffs/Blessings for Spirit Summons indicates to me that they are intended for use. Maybe there's a new weapon or spell that she's vulnerable to.

But they also have new liver types and stuff. Who uses the livers and meats? Maybe I should try the new ones.

Sorry to hear you aren't enjoying it. It took us 2 1/2 hours to beat the Death Knight in Fog Rift with a level 11 Host, which was curiously rewarding in itself. I had already completed it at 258.

 

[mbenigni]

Rellana is quite the Boss - I tried a few times with a friend and Leda to no avail, especially once the Moon attacks kick in at the final phase.

I'll try again after getting some more Blessings. The fact that they have Buffs/Blessings for Spirit Summons indicates to me that they are intended for use. Maybe there's a new weapon or spell that she's vulnerable to.

But they also have new liver types and stuff. Who uses the livers and meats? Maybe I should try the new ones.

Sorry to hear you aren't enjoying it. It took us 2 1/2 hours to beat the Death Knight in Fog Rift with a level 11 Host, which was curiously rewarding in itself. I had already completed it at 258.

Allegedly, Rellana’s weakness is bleed, so I’ve geared up accordingly. Doing damage isn’t a problem. It’s surviving the last 2 minutes of the fight, when one or two of her AoE attacks will kill instantly, and the radius of those attacks is nearly the entire arena.

I actually bought a couple of the magic resist livers (you’d also want fire), but forgot to use them. It’s just that much more stressful to play the “unable to summon” game for 15 minutes, then burn through valuable consumables, then essentially roll the dice on the hope that the random instantly deadly thing won’t happen at the wrong time this time. (Spoiler alert: it will.)

The whole thing just seems crazy lopsided to me. The bosses (thus far) are almost impassable. (I got past the lion thing, but only survived by hanging back at the end while summoned players finished the job. Behind that boss: another dead end.) Meanwhile, the rest of the enemies/ content are laughably easy. It feels like a hodgepodge.

I’m also getting pretty well fed up with the whole FromSoft, ”Double back and talk to this character another n times wearing this item but only after performing this task in a completely different place with no indication or relation and pretend that’s not completely arbitrary” thing. It’s just lazy.

P.S. Had to Google “Fog Rift”. Looks like I missed that entire section. :O

 

[mbenigni]

I just stumbled on an article explaining that Elden Ring’s improved inventory management has to be enabled in a menu. (Who wouldn’t want this??) I’d been scratching my head thinking, “Huh, inventory still feels like a mess to me.” Maybe this will help me keep better track of notes, maps, random things I have to wear to make people talk, etc…

 

[EOengineer]

I think I’m just wrapping up TOTK after playing it off and on since December. Great game, excited to move on and plug my PS5 back in.

 

[Devin]

Allegedly, Rellana’s weakness is bleed, so I’ve geared up accordingly.

In that case may I recommend the Backhand Blades that you get super early near the start of the DLC. Convert it to bleed
and at +25 they absolutely shred; used those on a few bosses that gave me trouble. The default ash of war gives iframes (or at the very least is extremely evasive) and a fairly strong attack at the same time


I can't stress enough how important it is to explore and pick up as many scadutree blessings as you can find

Also, your damage reductions are quite important (which the scadutree blessings will increase); i feel like in the base game survivability is more about having enough vigor and in the DLC it's more about damage reduction

Also don't be hesitant to situationally re-spec with Renalla; I've probably done it 4 different times so far in the DLC alone just to try out new stuff