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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Elden Ring: Scadu of the Nerdtree. 94 OC/95 MC. Is it too hard? Poll.

 

Is the DLC too difficult...

Yes 5 17.24%
 
No 13 44.83%
 
A bit but manageable 8 27.59%
 
No opinion 3 10.34%
 
Total:29
Runa216 on 17 July 2024
KLXVER said:

Fair enough. I guess my playstyle kinda circumvents a lot of the problems. Ive never had a problem with the ADP because I use a shield, so I dont need to dodge roll very often. In fact I didnt even know it was a thing in the game even though Ive beaten it like 10 times. lol

Hitboxes I feel are different from boss to boss in every Souls game. Larger enemies are usually harder to hit because they have several lock on targets and just blocks the camera sometimes. Especially some of the dragon fights can be frustrating.

You have to be careful in every Souls game. Use throwing knives and arrows for instance to separate enemies from the herd and pick them off one by one. It might be more of that in DS2 than in other Souls games. I can agree with that.

I think it all comes down to what you think is fair I guess. I personally find DS2 to be the easiest Souls game.

I have more problems with DS3. It feels like 50% of that game takes place in a swamp. And 60% of those are either poison or toxic. Several bosses have multiple life bars. It just feels cheap to me. Like the Sister Friede fight is just awful. The game also feels like its put together with cut content or reused content from previous Souls games. It just doesnt have it own identy imo.

The crazy thing is that I actually do think Dark souls II is the easiest as well. Of all the games I played it's the one I died the least in by a wide margin, beating pretty much every boss either first, second, or third attempt. It just didn't feel hard...which is why it was so much stranger upon my first playing that I was more frustrated. I died less but those deaths never felt fair to me at all because of the aforementioned issues. 

Also, hitboxes aren't about how well you hit the enemies so much as how they hit you. When a boss swings a sword, you expect that the sword itself will dictate what hits you and what doesn't. So you can get a visual representation of where the danger zones are. If he's swinging a 2 meter long sword and you're 2.5 meters away and you still get hit, that's a bad hit box. Like the examples I cited, there were way too many instances like with Sir alone where I was literally behind him when he does his lunge forward to stab, grab attack, and I got teleported from behind him to the end of his blade. That is a bad hit box. The whole game is filled with stuff like that and when compounded with the lack of i-frames for rolling/dodging and the weird lack of feedback you get when you are hit, it makes for a rather consistently frustrating experience. 

I wholly disagree about your criticism of Dark Souls III but that's subjective. I personally think Dark Souls III is the most fun of the three games in the official Dark Souls Trilogy and the more I play it the more I Realize that most of the criticism of it doesn't really make any sense. I know Farron Keep (Poison Swamp 1) in that game gets a lot of hate and I hated it my first few times through, too (I also hate poison swamps), but the more I tried to actually analyze its pros and cons, its design, and how it interacts with the player I actually found it weirdly refreshing and well made. my emotional response was negative but my intellectual response was positive. and this has helped my perception of the game to the point I genuinely don't think there are any 'bad' levels in the game. Some I don't like or like less than others but none that were poorly designed or annoying beyond reprieve. I really do feel like Dark Souls III refined the formula remarkably well. 



My Console Library:

PS5, Switch, XSX

PS4, PS3, PS2, PS1, WiiU, Wii, GCN, N64 SNES, XBO, 360

3DS, DS, GBA, Vita, PSP, Android

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IcaroRibeiro on 17 July 2024

DS2 is easier than 3, 3 is the hardest of the trilogy

DS2 for sure have more annoying mobs barricading some map sessions, so you can just run trough it when backtracking which is a bit annoying


Also bosses are the second easiest of the Souls franchise, behind Demon



LegitHyperbole on 17 July 2024

3 certainly had some of the hardest bosses indeed. The nameless King was nearly as bad as the end boss of Shadow of the Erd Tree, almost.



IcaroRibeiro on 17 July 2024
LegitHyperbole said:

3 certainly had some of the hardest bosses indeed. The nameless King was nearly as bad as the end boss of Shadow of the Erd Tree, almost.

 I've always thought him to the be the hardest boss in the series, but I've beaten him twice last week (DEX Build and Pyromancer Build) and realized his problem was mostly the shit camera in phase 1 that was taking away half of my eastus and leaving me without resources for phase 2

ER multiple fights against dragons made the fight much easier in phase 1. Rolling the right time became more intuitive, and hiding behind the dragon neck helped avoiding his flames 

Second phase is harder. Nameless King hits hard as a truck, if you're meele I advice focusing more on protection talismans and try to swing to his back to get some damage. Greatswords works really nice, some greatsword attack animations literally saved me from being hit haha

If you're a caster, then it's an attraction battle which is much harder. As a Pyromancer I need to invest most of my eastus in HP instead of FP, and could only hit him once, almost never twice. Mastering Rolling was the way here. Good thing is he was weak to both Dark and Fire damage, so Pyromancer is like their natural counter. Spamm some Dark Fire Orb and his lifebar will drain quickly 



Eric2048 on 17 July 2024

Beat Midra. Much fewer attempts needed than Messmer took about 6. Doing Bayle now, he is going to be a tough one.

Last edited by Eric2048 - on 17 July 2024

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HoloDust on 18 July 2024
KLXVER said:
Runa216 said:

Would you like a breakdown? I just wrote 13,000 words just ranking the bosses and throughout it I couldn't help but notice a tonne of little things that kept building up and compounding exponentially. I'll give you the cliffnotes version, though:

1 - ADP. I know it gets beaten down all the time but it's a real problem. Basically, the dodge roll function doesn't work properly if you don't pump like 20 levels into ADP to increase your agility stat. Using items and pretty much everything else is affected by it, too. Far too often, because of the lack of i-frames there are WAY too many instances where I dodge but take damage anyway. 

2 - On from that, the hitboxes are terrible. Again, I know people keep bringing it up but it's a problem for a reason. The game should be fair with what looks like it'll hit you and what will hit you. When an enemy can shoot a laser beam and I'm on the other side of the room and it still hits me, that's bullshit. When I'm BEHIND an enemy and he stabs AWAY from me and I still get grabbed by his attack, that's bullshit. Combine that and the ADP/iFrames and it's just a whole lot of cheap difficulty that is frustrating without any of the fairness that makes the balance so important. 

3 - for some weird reason, sometimes even with the above two issues when you get hit there's no visual representation of it. No character flinch, no subtle vibration or sound effect or animation or light effect. There were way too many times where I dodge rolled or was away from an attack so I thought I avoided it...then I got no indication I got hit, but then I noticed that my health was completely gone. 

4 - The combination of those three aspects means that even with the bosses that are well designed, they aren't fun to play. the lack of i-frames, the shoddy hit boxes, and the tendency to not give proper feedback when hit mean that even bosses that could have been fun in Dark souls 1 or 3 or Elden Ring are still shit because the game is fundamentally broken. and since so many of these problems overlap, it gets exponentially worse the more you play. 

5 - there's way too many instances where the game is just 'haha, fuck you, this is dark souls pissant, suffer'. Like, so many of the levels just swarm you with enemies, not giving you an opportunity to properly do crowd control, too many instance of instant death holes, too many shit gameplay mechanics, too many obtuse puzzles (Even for the famously obtuse dark souls series). The whole point of these games is that they're challenging but (mostly) Fair. Dark Souls II on way too many instances just said 'fuck it' and threw every cheap bullshit tactic at you just to make you suffer. The balance is hard, this game fails there. 

6 - Honestly, I knew Dark Souls II was notoriously bad for the boss run-backs but I didn't realize just how many of the bosses were that bad until I was actually doing analysis on every boss in the game. Even mostly good bosses like Sir Alonne and the Smelter Demon were completely destroyed by bullshit run-backs. I did a thing about all 41 bosses in the game and like 30 of them were notable for the shit that you had to do just to get back to the boss, and this is a clearly intentional design philosophy. 

Because fuck us, I guess.

And that really is the over-arching problem with Dark Souls II. It really does look and feel like exactly what it is, a game that was made to imitate Dark Souls without actually understanding what was good about Dark Souls. It was a game made by a team that knew Dark souls by its 'prepare to die' reputation but didn't understand the underlying philosophy that dictated why all the other games have resonated so deeply, and that is the feeling of overcoming adversity. A game can be hard but it has to feel fair to not feel cheap or frustrating. Cuphead will kill you relentlessly and has no time for failure..but so many of the design elements of that game made it so that getting right back in didn't feel frustrating or infuriating. Dark Souls and now Elden Ring have done a lot of things to make the game HARDER but still make it so that there's less frustration.

The boss runback thing is especially egregious because Dark souls, Bloodborne, and even Demon's Souls to a lesser extent had options to open up shortcuts because they knew that nobody would want to run a gauntlet of enemies and traps every time they wanted to fight a boss. You earned your access to the boss, now you can more or less run to it. There are exceptions but for the most part, Dark Souls and Bloodborne and Dark Souls III and especially Elden Ring were pretty good about making sure that the boss runs were decent. With Dark souls II those instances were the exception. 

It's fine if these issues don't bother you, personally. Everyone gets a subjective opinion about what they value. But these are objective truths about the game's core mechanics, fundamentals, design philosophy, and over-arching intent. 

Personally I don't know how anyone can play a game so broken and cheap to its core and genuinely not see what the big deal is. 

Fair enough. I guess my playstyle kinda circumvents a lot of the problems. Ive never had a problem with the ADP because I use a shield, so I dont need to dodge roll very often. In fact I didnt even know it was a thing in the game even though Ive beaten it like 10 times. lol

Hitboxes I feel are different from boss to boss in every Souls game. Larger enemies are usually harder to hit because they have several lock on targets and just blocks the camera sometimes. Especially some of the dragon fights can be frustrating.

You have to be careful in every Souls game. Use throwing knives and arrows for instance to separate enemies from the herd and pick them off one by one. It might be more of that in DS2 than in other Souls games. I can agree with that.

I think it all comes down to what you think is fair I guess. I personally find DS2 to be the easiest Souls game.

I have more problems with DS3. It feels like 50% of that game takes place in a swamp. And 60% of those are either poison or toxic. Several bosses have multiple life bars. It just feels cheap to me. Like the Sister Friede fight is just awful. The game also feels like its put together with cut content or reused content from previous Souls games. It just doesnt have it own identy imo.

Yeah, that's my take on DSIII as well - while I liked and enjoyed it, it didn't really move the needle much, so it's no wonder that out of 4 Souls I like it the least (I still do like it quite a bit). DS2 has its problems (like any Souls ever really, it's just what type of problem you personally don't mind is the question in the end), but it oozes with identity.



KLAMarine on 18 July 2024
KLXVER said:

Just weird to me how people can love Dark Souls 1 and 3 and yet hate everything about Dark Souls 2.

One person's take:

https://youtu.be/UScsme8didI?si=-M6Hd4PCo3gK9gm8



Runa216 on 22 July 2024

I'm bored.

Anyone on PS4/5 wanna start a new game with a pre-made build? I've accumulated nearly every item in the game and use the save scum item dupe thing (Save to the cloud, shut off automatic saves, trade items out, then re-load the save from the cloud to get revert back to a prior save), and I wanna help others basically start the game with pre-made builds. You know, full set of armor, two weapons, a shield/other, four talismans, and appropriate ashes of war. No runes, though. you still gotta level up.

I am missing a few items from the DLC but aside from that I can make you start as Maliketh. Or as Malenia. Or Radahn. Or anyone, really. Give you all the weapons and items needed to start the game. I'd just invade you via Red Summon sign in the church of Elleh (so you're still at the beginning of the game and can be invaded....and so that we won't get invaded by anyone else if I'm an invader), drop the items, and peace out. All weapons will be base level. Not upgraded.

If interested gimme a list:

Weapon 1 -
Ash of war 1 -
Weapon 2 -
Ash of war 2 -
Shield/other -
Talisman 1 -
Talisman 2 -
Talisman 3 -
Talisman 4 -
Head -
Body -
Arms -
Feet -
Character Name -
Any Materials/Crafting items -

My character name is Fidget. Red Drake Armor with Twin Reduvias.

If curious, the only items that I don't have are:

Ansbach's Set:
Wise Man's Mask
Ansbach's Attire
Ansbach's Manchettes
Ansbach's Boots

Thiollier's Set:
Thiollier's Mask
Thiollier's Garb
Thiollier's Gloves
Thiollier's Trousers

St Trina's Blossom
Finger Robe

And for Weapons/Talismans/Ashes of War, I still need:

OBsidian Lamina (Reaper/Scythe)
Thiollier's Hidden Needle (Fists)
Ansbach's Longbow (Bow)
Golden Lion Shield (Shield)
Retaliatory Crossed Tree (Talisman)
Lacerating Crossed Tree (Talisman)
St. Trina's Smile (Talisman)
Swift Slash (Ash of War)

All of them are linked to quest lines I messed up. If anyone has any of those items may I borrow them for the sake of duplicating them on this character? I can give them right back if you want. Won't cost me anything.



My Console Library:

PS5, Switch, XSX

PS4, PS3, PS2, PS1, WiiU, Wii, GCN, N64 SNES, XBO, 360

3DS, DS, GBA, Vita, PSP, Android

trasharmdsister12 on 23 July 2024

I finished the DLC last night. I think as the DLC went on, my build got more and more overpowered. I beat the final boss on my first try and the optional difficult boss only took me 3 tries. I kinda feel like I robbed myself of a lot of fun with the final boss. I keep hearing about how much trouble they're causing others and I feel like I didn't even see half the move-set. Ah well, it was a great experience and I'll likely do another playthrough of it with a different built in a year or two.



LegitHyperbole on 23 July 2024
trasharmdsister12 said:

I finished the DLC last night. I think as the DLC went on, my build got more and more overpowered. I beat the final boss on my first try and the optional difficult boss only took me 3 tries. I kinda feel like I robbed myself of a lot of fun with the final boss. I keep hearing about how much trouble they're causing others and I feel like I didn't even see half the move-set. Ah well, it was a great experience and I'll likely do another playthrough of it with a different built in a year or two.

Nah, don't feel bad. That boss is atrocious, really well designed in the first half but the second half is an utter mess of over the top shenanigans and flashy BS. You saved yourself grief. Rellana and Messmer and the Dragon on the mountain were much better bosses.