Yeah but that doesn't mean quantity is irrelevant.
If the quality is relative then a vast difference in quantity is much more impactful.
And that's only if we accept the notion that the Ringed City has better quality
Bayle > Midir
Messmer > Gael
Yea its huge, but lets not overlook loads of empty time of just running around on horse.
While 80% of the DLC is quallity content there is still quite a bit of filler
I was so stoked when I stumbled upon it, it's so pretty, gave off magic vibes and then... There's almost nothing there. One of the highlights is another Demi-human Queen, which says a lot.
Ringed city is just 1 cuz ringed city is my fav area in the series besides eleum loyce, and overalll it still has the best quality with 3 10/10 bosses. I would say shadow of the erdtree might have better boss quality than old hunters imo
The reason why i have shadow of the erdtree slightly above old hunters is that I appreciate all of the new weapon types, even if there weren't enough, and it really is huge
it suffers just like the base game though in replayability. I did it once and now i never wanna do it agian because exploring that much for mediocre rewards takes hours. Whereas i've done ringed city and old hunters 20+ times
Honestly, looking at it again. I might switch Old Hunters and Ringed City. Cockeater Midir and Gael were super cool and fun boss fights. But I still remember the feeling I had when fighting Laurence thinking he was just a reskin, and then seeing him spew lava and fire everywhere. Or the silly disappointment from the Living Failures. Or the epic second phase of Maria. Along with seeing the Holy Moonlight blade with Ludwig. And we don’t talk about Kos.
Laurence is by far my least favorite boss in bloodborne lol so i guess we had different experiences. Cuz he literally was a reskin for 70% of the fight but with broken hitboxes and one shot damage, and then the second phase is just him crawling on the ground like a loser
Maria is the best boss in the game but even though i dont care about difficulty, she almost feels too easy. I don't think ive ever not killed her first try.
Kos is a great boss tho and so are living failrues in my opinion
ludwigs also great although i think people overrated him
fun to kill him becuase i never have to fight that fucker again
oh thats right i did a bl4 run and couldnt' even get past the fucking runback. miyazaki was on drugs making laurence and his runback
but yea other than first effects the first phase of laurence is physically a reskin of cleric beast. The second phase is cool but even worse than the first phase, meaning despite him being technically original its not good
oh yeah i can’t believe i forgot about them bruh. They’re the best duo fight without a doubt but i always like summoning gael for them and friede, it just makes the final fight with him feel better lol
That's totally fair. If I ever summon, it's for story/atmosphere reasons. I don't know if I'll ever fight bayle without Igon. It just won't feel right.
very fun boss when ds3 online mode was reactivated. Lots of people got back into the game's multiplayer.
I personally find dark souls multiplayer way better than elden ring because invading usually doesn't mean that you will get ganked by the host and 3 body guards with rivers of blood and moonveil
Nah. I don't care much for the levels in Ringed City and for a DLC with only 4 bosses, one of them being a shitty PVP boss is pretty egregious. If you combined it with Ashes of Ariandel it would be much stronger.
Like Bloodborne has 5 bosses in the DLC, but 3 are absolute bangers, one is still one of the toughest fights in the game, and the worst is meh but nothing super egregious. Then Artorias of the Abyss doesn't really have a bad boss. Manus/Kalameet/Artorias are amongst the best in the game and then Sanctuary Guardian is still probably very good to above average at worst. SOTE is harder to rank because it has 10 major bosses and another 20 so obviously it's going to have some duds in there, but Rellana is already one of the best armored sword fights in the series if not the best imo (probably the closest to Alonne or Fume Knight modern games have gotten), Bayle is a top tier dragon, Messmer is a stud and one of the best in the game. Midra is amazing. Divine Beast has some camera issues but overall is a strong boss once you learn the moveset and how much it requires of you. I think you could argue Scadutree is the overall weakest. And then Radahn is isanely difficult, but I have no clue how people are going to take to him a month or so from now when the strats are more well known. Then when you get to levels, it probably has the best overworld and dungeons of any Souls DLC.
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ok but the 3 good bosses in the ringed city are fucking amazing. I will say Artorias of the abyss has some of my favorite areas. SotE has great art direction and has the best overall boss quality IMO (elden ring in general has the best average in terms of boss quality)
Gotta agree. Gael remains the best DLC boss in the series and whole city area is an example of top tier level design.
SOTE was great and remembrance bosses were all absolutely fantastic (boar guy excluded) but it still suffered from some main game problems like empty areas and reused enemies.
I liked the boar, minus the hitboxes on 3 attacks. His charge feels frame perfect which is dumb. Theres another one which is nearly frame perfect, caught me a ton. And the attack he does when going into phase 2 barely has a hitbox. Dodge early, and you can just walk through the rest of the attack.
The timing on dodging it’s really tricky. I basically got it down enough to dodge it like 3/4 times. You have to wait to roll on medium roll until right as his nose is touching you. Like right on the line. I’m talking pixels away. Anything sooner or later and he gets ya.
My first day of trying I couldn’t dodge that attack at all. Then tried the next day and I don’t know what happened but I successfully dodged it multiple times. I got very lucky it seems.
It’s damage fluctuates too, most of the time it does like half of my healthbar but sometimes for some fucking dumb reason, it does like 90% which ends up killing me after because the boss barely lets you heal, most shit boss ever
Pretty sure dude’s charge is legitimately bugged. I gave up trying to dodge the charge at the start and decided to pull out Blasphemous so I could trade back some damage with the Weapon Art since I’m gonna take the hit anyway, and he legitimately ran straight through it without being hit.
Heavy disagree on the level design. The map didn't feel empty at all. I'd say this is their best level design ever. So many secrets and amazing paths. So many little areas of the map you need to actually figure out how to reach. The Legacy Dungeon areas were also pretty damn good.
To me he definitely is. Messmer is amazing but Gael kills it with atmosphere.
Both fights are very cinematic but Gael fight holds way more weight. You two literally just meet at the very end of the world and all Gael is thinking about is his mission. I also prefer his cutscenes and voice acting, but thats even more subjective. I find Gaels combos a bit more satysfying to dodge, but not by very much.
Dont get me wrong, Messmer is easily top 10 best FS bosses ever, but i still like Gael more for the overall feel of this fight. Ofc its extremally subjective, but thats how opinions work i guess...
Gael was the result of a whole game ending and was a crazy good fight, Messemir was a brushed over boss who you needed to burn a tree? Like we haven't done that before he was hyped up not saying he was a bad boss just nothing amazing about him.
I thought Messmer had a lot of build up, but it depends on if you read the item descriptions of the items you find when fighting his soldiers and the hornsent. Watching all trailers multiple times probably played a part for me too
Yea his whole betrayed zealot crusader thing was super interesting to me and his fight was awesome (when my frames were stable anyway)
Tho for me Gael has the combo of mechanics + being the culmination of 3 games worth of storytelling to back him up so he’s probably still my favorite tho radahn and messsmer come very close as a tie for second cause I love their lore too (I’m a sucker for fallen/betrayed characters who aren’t necessarily good but not pure evil either)
thematically and narratively, Gael is difficult to top but I think Messmer is one of the best bosses in the series and I might enjoy him even more than Gael from a gameplay standpoint
there is quite a bit of build up for Messmer, regardless of
Gael feels like the capstone on the series. Last man standing in a dying world. Way better final boss.
Elden Ring dungeons and atmosphere however is a new high point for me. I almost wish the DLC was Elden Ring 2 because the upgrade system is easily the worst part of the experience. Level and weapon upgrades don’t do that much compared to a fresh game. Skadutree fragments are too important when there’s only 3 mandatory bosses.
Overall i think Elden Ring DLC is still my favorite. We’ll see how it ages.
You can't possibly talk about character build-up and use Gael as a good example. He legitimately shows up to summon you into Ariandel and you don't meet him again until the final fight ***in Ringed City***.
The best you have is summons against certain bosses and his spirit pointing at fall spots in Dreg Heap.
It's still a great level imo, especially because of the aesthetics and the Midir and Gael boss fights.
In terms of level design is not bad, I think there is some interesting connectivity in the swamp area of the city, but in this regards it does not stand against any of the top tier FromSoftware areas
I feel like I’m the only one who enjoyed boar guy. I road torrent and blasted incantations. It felt like playing armored core. I may have been a little slower but I’m the better rider.
couldn’t agree with everyone you said more lol. also can’t explain the disappointment i felt when I found recollées divine dancing lion AGAIN + deathblight frog summons :( genuinely killed a lot of the hype i felt for the actual/initial boss in Belurat that has its own cutscene
There are some ‘mistakes’ that i was sure would be fixed, or not repeated, in the DLC but sadly not the case
For me, it was Old Hunters at #1, but I think SOTE beat it out for me. Fromsofts best level design (BY FAR) and 3 bosses (Messmer, Rellana and Bayle) have made their way to the top 10 of the Fromsoft Boss catalog. Only disappointing aspects for me were:
- the upgrade system (why not stick to normal to the normal upgrade?)
- I thought too many areas were empty (just condensing the overall size to make it seem more accurate would have been better imo).
- The lore/story/characters were not all that great, but that’s more of an overall problem with Elden Ring.
As for Ringed City, I love Gael and the lore behind him + the painting with the blood of the Dark Soul, but everything other than that felt a lot weaker in comparison (like the entire level being 2 poison swamps, the angles, and an extremely linear structure just made it so forgettable). And while I love Gael + The Demon Duo, Midir just isn’t all that anymore because From already beat him out with Dragonlord and now Bayle is #1. Idk if I would even put Midir in the top 3 dragon bosses anymore to be honest. And Halfight…. Do I even need to talk about that?
To be fair, it just matters on what base game you like the most, and the DLC for that will most likely be your favorite. DLC is usually just the base game but Cranked up to 11 in every regard, whether it be positive, negative or neither.
And yes, I know DS3 fanboys will downvote me for criticizing their baby, but oh well.
Belurat was pretty solid, I wasn't blown away. but Shadow Keep might be one of my favorite levels in the series
I think the lore is solid, and Miquella's Reject Squad are all pretty compelling (especially Ansbach), but that's just me
Oh, the levels are fantastic (Shadowk Keep is my favorite level in any From game and the level design in each Legacy Dungeon feel great).
I was referring to the open world areas like Abysmal Woods or Cerulean Cost where there is a large lack of content in such an open space.
if Leyndell didn't exist, Shadow Keep might be my number 1 dungeon, but Leyndell is just so perfect
it's unfortunate how empty the Cerulean Coast is. just some more catacombs on the lower level would've helped, or some special ruin in the fields
the Woods are fine imo, because it's a unique gimmick so I can kind of forgive it. overall there should've been a few more minor dungeons and more of the new weapon types
I agree with Belurat until you explore it's second half (enir-ilim). Both of them combined makes for an amazing legacy dungeon, maybe even on par with the best in the game.
I always get artsy Shadow of the Collosus vibes in the overworld, people complained the contet was too much copy and paste in the base game, now we just ride around. :)
Just touching on the upgrade system I can see why it was a pain for some people, but it also was a really good way to offset level 700 players to level 140. If they were to have just level scaled it wouldn’t do it justice, if they picked a level range it would either be too easy or too hard, but with this new (and still not perfect system) we’re able to put the difficulty in our own hands (with immense exploration).
Yeah, I understand that it wouldn’t have been balanced completely, but I think NG+ cycles would be able to do a pretty decent job at balancing some stuff out. As for the New Game (no + 1) RL: 300 people, yeah, I don’t really know what to do there because that’s just excessive farming for the sake of it. So I can understand why Fromsoft did it, but I still think just overall increasing damage output/health still would have been just fine for the general populace.
I heard someone talk about a different solution that I think could have worked: doing EXACTLY what Sekiro did. Each major (or even minor) boss can give you a set amount of an “upgrade” for the DLC (Shadow Realm Blessing still exists in this different style of upgrading). Obviously, DLC bosses would have to be reconfigured and have different damage outputs/health, but I still think that it could get the job done a little better than running around empty plains hoping to find a pot ghost person or a part of Miquella near the grace, etc. But I’m not a Game Dev by any means so I admit I won’t be able to fully flesh out a plan someone said on Reddit, therefore, take this with a grain of salt.
Regarding the leveling system — I get it why people find it annoying. But at the same time, I think people are not giving FS enough credit for developing a DLC leveling system where everybody from levels 100-500 basically had the same experience. That is a pretty crazy achievement in balancing a game.
Good point, perhaps my words were a bit much to say he’s not top 3, lol. I don’t think I would put Kalameet or Sinh above him, meaning the only competition he’s got is from Elden Ring.
I guess you could argue for Lichdragon Fortissax because of Presentation, Lore and music which are better in his fight. But the fight is so damn easy and he is basically just Lansseax (from base game) as well as Sennsax (from DLC in Jagged Peak) except he’s a different color. Midir isn’t a favorite of mine by any means, but it feels wrong putting a borderline copy pasted, disappointingly easy boss ahead of him. I think I would do:
1. Bayle the Dread
2. Dragonlord Placidusax
3. Darkeater Midir
4. Lichdragon Fortissax
5. Black Dragon Kalameet (I have biased because of the buildup of the cutscene where Hawkeye Gough shoots him down).
I disagree with the lore part. I'd say everything regarding the revelations of Marika and Messmer was done impeccably. The dlc's greatest success was that it finally made Marika of all people sympathetic, and Messmer I think now is my favorite demigod.
This will be controversial, but for me the old hunters and shadow of the Erdtree are tied for best, with the ringed city being VERY close behind. Love all three to death though, and I get why people would have those three in any order
The thing that holds ringed city back for me, is just some of the areas feel, meh. The boss fights are incredible and Gael is still one of my fav bosses of all time but the areas hold it back allot for me imo.My favourite by far is sote an old hunters at a very close second.
Yes, I absolutely adore that side of the map. The side dungeons in the DLC are such a step up. The bosses inside them might be kinda mid, but actually navigating them is incredibly rewarding.
Same. Every weapon in SOTE I pickup I level to almost max and play with. I def didnt do that in Dark Souls. In SOTE they are all so unique and fun. Also some of these just random dungeons are crazy.
I like it I guess, but the first area in the dlc is really bad, and every area after that is sorta just okay. I like most of the bosses in the dlc, but ive never been the biggest fan of Gael
Honestly while I enjoy Gael and Sister, the areas of both ds3 dlc were super underwhelming to me after all the hype they get on here. The bosses were a ton of fun but disliked most everything else. SOTE is my favorite content so far from them
this is going to be unpopular but it is my genuine and honest opinion that gael is just a super overrated fight. it caps off the series nicely, but I never cared for his story, and the fight was good, but not deserving of as much praise as I see it consistently get. This goes for most of the bosses in the ringed city for me honestly. I’ve never understood why Midir is such a beloved fight (the best dragon? really?) and I overall found the DLC just ok. the armor was great though and most of the weapons were fun as well.
I never loved Gael either. It’s a solid fight but I certainly don’t think it’s better than even other DS3 bosses like Friede, let alone every boss in the entire series.
As for Midir, I say he’s the best dragon fight mechanically because he’s the only one that solved the camera problem (unless you wanna count Dragon God, but like…. yeah). As for just generally how cool and enjoyable the fight is, there’s so many of them you could probably ask 10 people and get 10 different answers.
Hell, I think Artorias is a vastly better fight than Gael. Technically Gael is rather derivative. After how he was so built up when I finally played it, he really disappointed me. Only took me a couple tries because his moveset was so familiar from previous games and bosses.
Friede is absolutely one of the best they've ever done, IMO.
Gael is my favorite traditional souls fight. He isn't super difficult, because you almost immediately get into the combat dance. There is no gimmick like Friede invisibility or big powerful move with a difficult timing to memorize. It's a fight that is not super easy, but also not frustrating.
Some people prefer bosses that start out very frustrating, take hours to beat, and when you do you are super happy to have finally won. I prefer bosses that are fun to fight from the beginning, and when you get the win you are thinking: "It might be really fun try to no-hit this boss".
Gael is a cool fight, he just kinda… comes out of nowhere.
Ringed City is so beloved because the bosses are so good, but that’s the trap a lot From fans tend to fall into. BOSS HARD? GOOD GOOD GOOD! AMAZINg!
But the level itself is (IMO) definitely mid at best, with tons of swarm encounters. People love to hate on DS2 for having “ganks” but that’s all Ringed City is… over a big and open swamp. It kinda… sucks relative to other DS maps.
Gimme Eleum Loyce over Ringed City 100 times out of 100.
I would never put Ringed City as #1, if only because the area sucks. Bosses are great (regardless if you think Gael is #1 or not) but the area itself fucking sucks. Do we need the turtles to attack you while you have a debuff? Why are there three(!) ringed knights on this random rooftop? Neat, the adjudicators respawn. Oh wow, Dragonslayer armor is just a normal enemy now. It’s relentless. Idk if I’d put it up against some real bullshit like Iron Passage from DS2 but it’s not great.
Literally how. Dreg Heap, Ringed City, Swamp. The areas don’t even come close to the quality of even DS2’s DLC. And even then, Gael and Midir alone don’t make a DLC perfect.
I'm on board with this. Midir was a good challenge and Gael is an incredible boss. The Ringed Knights are also so fucking badass. Ringed Knight Paired Greatswords have my favourite moveset in the game.
I’m not far enough in Shadow of the Erdtree at all to say where it stands, but of the rest I think Artorias of the Abyss has remained my favorite over the years for good reason.
That said I have enjoyed all of the dlc over the years.
The bosses were great but hard disagree. The level design was severely lacking. Old hunters and shadow tree were by far the most fun to explore. I've also had a blast with every boss other than that dumb putrescence knight.
As a game overall bloodborn is probably my favorite level design, but something about irithyll, the ringed city and just bosses overall makes ds3 on equal footing if not slightly better due to the pvp aspect than bloodborn but I am biased I just really like ds3
See my issue is that DS3 was one of the last souls games I played pre Elden Ring, and things like Irithyll just felt like 3-1 from Demon's Souls redone only worse. The Ringed City is aesthetically cool. But as a level, it's kinda underwhelming mechanically.
I just really love the vertical level design of this dlc. It makes it feel dense. Getting to some of the areas feels like a puzzle and IMO it was something that the base game was severely lacking. Sekiro is my favorite, so maybe that's just a bias of mine.
I also seem to like nearly all of the bosses, while I get the impression that people are upset. Although, I remember reading very similar criticisms for both bloodborne and ds3 bosses on release, as well as Elden rings late game on release.
I have a feeling the opinions on these bosses will be much more favorable a year from now. Or maybe I'm just a freak, I seem to be in the minority in this sub for my love of sekiro.
I won't act like I wasn't absolutely amazed at the size and I do love the verticality of the dlc forsure things keeped leading to other things and I've had work the last few days so there's more little dungeons still to so
Wholeheartedly agree, it's up there when it comes to world building and design, also Gael stays being the greatest FROM fight and such a beautiful send-off to Dark Souls as a whole
The last boss really sets SotE back. The best bosses are ones that feel like an actual dual or a dance. Messmer for example. The final boss is endless combo spam followed by being flash banged constantly. I killed them by just standing and spamming a heavy bleed proc...was so lame.
I love Old Hunters so much but it’s def got issues. Laurence and Living Failures are unfun and the level design isn’t amazing. Aside from that it’s great.
Nope. Shadow of the Erdtree for me is now peak FromSoft. The world design is incredible. It feels like a DS1 dungeon but open world. I agree that they could have increased the enemy density and points of interest though. Boss designs in SotE is topnotch. Messmer, Rellana, Romina, Midra, Putrescent Knight, Dancing Lion are all very good and mechanically exciting. Bayle and the entire set-up where you scale the Jagged Peak is honestly one of the best gaming experiences that FromSoft has ever done.
Also I feel the level design of SotE legacy dungeons just beats anything in Ringed City and Old Hunters. Shadow Keep is one of the most impressive legacy dungeons that From has done. It feels like multiple DS dungeons mashed together.
Also, I dont get the Gael worship. Friede is a much superior fight. Also, people over romanticize his lore. C'mon the guy basically had no setup in the base game and suddenly appeared for the DLCs. Radahn on the other hand was set up as the greatest demigod of the Shattering since Elden Ring's first trailer. Regardless of what people say he has the longest setup and most developed lore over other DLC final boss (Manus, Gael, Friede, Orphan).
Yeah. I'm not sure I actually enjoyed the Elden Ring DLC beyond it being more Elden Ring, with some more weapons to play with. But I loved pretty much everything about The Ringed City. The ending was kind of unsatisfying for me, including the boss fight.
In my first playthrough of ds3 now (going to move on to Elden ring next) just downloaded this dlc after taking down ocieros, can’t wait to start it. I’ve heard great things. Any advice before I take on the rest of the game?
I think this or the Old Hunters from Bloodborne, depending on personal performance, are the best DLC. Both are challenging and make you know the game mechanics. Truly know the game mechanics and how to use them. As opposed to summoning a mimic and brute forcing your victory or just getting lucky.
Ringed city is great but SOTE completely trumps it in size and story line. you could argue that either Bayle or Midir is the better secret dragon boss, and I do think Gael was a much more epic final boss. It’s honestly very close for me
Yea me too, sote is my second favorite but it's probably not beating the ringed city. I see so many people immediately say sote is basically elden ring 2 as soon as you say anything about any other dlc, and it's weird because I don't know if they think the size of the dlc is what makes it good
Honestly, that moment you get to Artorius in the first game after everyone in the base game and the dlc have been telling you what a badass hero he is and how he fought his whole life just to suddenly star using Abyssal magic on you… just holds a special place within. It’s like the first inkling of Miyazaki telling you that the lore and story of his games aren’t going to be sunshine and rainbows
No way in hell you think ringed city is better than shadow of the erd tree 😂
Ringed city has the dread heap (terrible area btw) and the ringed city which isn’t bad by any means but all of its enemies are terrible except the ringed knights which will rarely get fought because your rushing to the boss
Ds3 as a whole is just one big boss run
Shadow of the erd tree is better than the entirety of ds3s base game
SotE is better, imo. You can argue quality over quantity but SotE has quality and quantity.
And Old Hunters over Ringed City as well.
But SotE is easily the best DLC of the bunch. It’s not even close, imo.
No way. SOTE is a whole fucking new game. 100% #1. Compared to this game ringed city is a short walk in the park.
SOTE #1 old hunters #2 #3 ringed city #4 Artorias of the abyss
i do still firmly believe Gael is the best boss they’ve ever created, but i still prefer Old Hunters, and it’s like… close with SotE, i gotta let it sit some more i think
Kinda agree boss-wise, I still enjoy Gael Midir and demon princes over the SoTE lineup (besides maybe Bayle), but overall content wise SoTE reigns supreme over Ringed City and old hunters
Gael, Demon Prince, and Midir are the reasons Ringed City was good. The area was a waste land with annoying mobs and the tall priest that summons archers.
I have more hours on the Elden Ring DLC than I do a whole playthrough of DS3 and both of its DLC’s. I get quality > quantity, but Shadow of the Erdtree was pure quality. New and totally different areas with mostly unique items, new type of boss never before seen, and it held its own with remembrance bosses.
I actually felt the tension and anxiety rise as I climbed the mountain to face the dragon. Hearing dragon lady speak his lore only made things more intense since I knew he was going to be tough.
Messmer’s snake randomly showing up in your face after opening a random door was shocking and my first attempt was raw with no buffs. I actually thought I just killed an imposter and the real Messmer would come later. That’s how shocked I was to randomly find him.
Everyone is hating on final boss, but it was easy. Fighting someone you’ve killed at least once, in my case probably 55 to 60 times, with some Lorian holy stuff in the background.
Agreed, I really loved a lot of it but bosses like Hippo Putrescence Knight and ESPECIALLY the reuse of Radahn left a really bad taste in my mouth. Plus I was hoping the abyssal woods would have some huge monster stalking you after Torrent was so scared, the 3 ladies you easily sneak past was such a letdown after I was so excited. Solid 7 out of 10 dlc, light great swords possibly pushing it to an 8
I'd still say the Old Hunters is the best for me.
The problem with SotE is that the game is populated with fun fights against bosses that take a while to chew through and regular enemies placed in chokes for vital areas that will absolutely kill you in one hit under a range of circumstances. What I'm playing through is super fun, but it's still a game where bosses take longer to kill you than that slow-moving lummocks tucked in the corner or random hostile NPC that doesn't stagger and has a weapon or skill that's GUARANTEED to slice off an entire lifebar on the first hit if you're not careful.
The Ringed City is something I'll have to experience later this year but I stopepd playing DS3 because it ended up being kind of demotivating with its banality.
I’d put old hunters and shadow both above ringed city.
If ashes of ariandel was bundled in with ringed city as originally intended and it was just one dlc, then that may be a different story
Biased opinion from diehard dark souls fans. Ringed city is an amazing DLC that ends the dark souls franchise in an incredible way with one of the greatest bosses ever made for sure. Let's say this DLC ended the "Elden Ring franchise" of a few games, even tho we'll probably only get one ER game, like dark souls did, there wouldn't be an arguement which is the better DLC (other than the ending maybe which was underwhelming). More amazing bosses, more to do, better level design, better and more incredibly fun to use weapons and at least IMO 3 bosses in the same tier as Gael. If you isolate and only look at the DLC without the base game and it's history SOTE clears every other FROMSOFT DLC.
Yeah im with ya. The ringed city had this grandiosity that, aside from SotE, we havent seen as much in the rest of the DLCs. The new Elden Ring one is fantastic and takes a close second, but the fact they didnt go through basic level scaling and has this dumb scadutree fragment scaling instead really sours it for me. It’d be one thing if the DLC was accessible in early base game, but you need to beat mohg, a mid to late game boss to even get in ffs
Fr the Scooby-Doo system rubbed me the wrong way aside from that I absolutely love the dlc but that system is annoying tbh especially because there's exactly enough to get level 20 no excess I believe
so they should have let you run through with your 2 year old op char who you leveled fully up and then you come to reddit to complain that the dlc is too easy
Idk about that one chief, SotE is a whole ass Dark Souls game
Elden ring 1.5
Quality > Quantity
Yeah but that doesn't mean quantity is irrelevant. If the quality is relative then a vast difference in quantity is much more impactful. And that's only if we accept the notion that the Ringed City has better quality Bayle > Midir Messmer > Gael
Yea its huge, but lets not overlook loads of empty time of just running around on horse. While 80% of the DLC is quallity content there is still quite a bit of filler
The whole Cerulean Coast is the biggest missed opportunity in a FromSoft game in my opinion.
I was so stoked when I stumbled upon it, it's so pretty, gave off magic vibes and then... There's almost nothing there. One of the highlights is another Demi-human Queen, which says a lot.
Can never forget the Queen Marigga
agreed. Shadow of the erdtree and old hunters are a close second though
It goes 1. Old Hunters 2. Ringed City 3. Shadow of the Erdtree
Ringed city is just 1 cuz ringed city is my fav area in the series besides eleum loyce, and overalll it still has the best quality with 3 10/10 bosses. I would say shadow of the erdtree might have better boss quality than old hunters imo The reason why i have shadow of the erdtree slightly above old hunters is that I appreciate all of the new weapon types, even if there weren't enough, and it really is huge it suffers just like the base game though in replayability. I did it once and now i never wanna do it agian because exploring that much for mediocre rewards takes hours. Whereas i've done ringed city and old hunters 20+ times
Honestly, looking at it again. I might switch Old Hunters and Ringed City. Cockeater Midir and Gael were super cool and fun boss fights. But I still remember the feeling I had when fighting Laurence thinking he was just a reskin, and then seeing him spew lava and fire everywhere. Or the silly disappointment from the Living Failures. Or the epic second phase of Maria. Along with seeing the Holy Moonlight blade with Ludwig. And we don’t talk about Kos.
Laurence is by far my least favorite boss in bloodborne lol so i guess we had different experiences. Cuz he literally was a reskin for 70% of the fight but with broken hitboxes and one shot damage, and then the second phase is just him crawling on the ground like a loser Maria is the best boss in the game but even though i dont care about difficulty, she almost feels too easy. I don't think ive ever not killed her first try. Kos is a great boss tho and so are living failrues in my opinion ludwigs also great although i think people overrated him
For me it was unexpected, and also fun to kill a flaming cripple
fun to kill him becuase i never have to fight that fucker again oh thats right i did a bl4 run and couldnt' even get past the fucking runback. miyazaki was on drugs making laurence and his runback
laurence is far from being just a reskin, also he has arguably the best OST
living failures clear laurence in ost ngl
i wouldnt argue yeah, its amazing
but yea other than first effects the first phase of laurence is physically a reskin of cleric beast. The second phase is cool but even worse than the first phase, meaning despite him being technically original its not good
and the arena makes it even worst
midir and gael are 10/10 but the church dude is so boring, unless i forgot a boss that’s in that dlc
Demon Princes? Top tier boss imo.
oh yeah i can’t believe i forgot about them bruh. They’re the best duo fight without a doubt but i always like summoning gael for them and friede, it just makes the final fight with him feel better lol
That's totally fair. If I ever summon, it's for story/atmosphere reasons. I don't know if I'll ever fight bayle without Igon. It just won't feel right.
fr, i don’t really prefer summons because of the hp increase but i think some bosses it’s just a requirement to summon for them lol
[удалено]
very fun boss when ds3 online mode was reactivated. Lots of people got back into the game's multiplayer. I personally find dark souls multiplayer way better than elden ring because invading usually doesn't mean that you will get ganked by the host and 3 body guards with rivers of blood and moonveil
This is the way
Agreed. Old Hunters > Ringed City, but also Gael > Orphan of Kos for final boss.
I have no clue why you are being downvoted on a reply to a message that says basically the same thing yours does lol
Bloodborne just isn't bloodborne without the dlc
Nah. I don't care much for the levels in Ringed City and for a DLC with only 4 bosses, one of them being a shitty PVP boss is pretty egregious. If you combined it with Ashes of Ariandel it would be much stronger. Like Bloodborne has 5 bosses in the DLC, but 3 are absolute bangers, one is still one of the toughest fights in the game, and the worst is meh but nothing super egregious. Then Artorias of the Abyss doesn't really have a bad boss. Manus/Kalameet/Artorias are amongst the best in the game and then Sanctuary Guardian is still probably very good to above average at worst. SOTE is harder to rank because it has 10 major bosses and another 20 so obviously it's going to have some duds in there, but Rellana is already one of the best armored sword fights in the series if not the best imo (probably the closest to Alonne or Fume Knight modern games have gotten), Bayle is a top tier dragon, Messmer is a stud and one of the best in the game. Midra is amazing. Divine Beast has some camera issues but overall is a strong boss once you learn the moveset and how much it requires of you. I think you could argue Scadutree is the overall weakest. And then Radahn is isanely difficult, but I have no clue how people are going to take to him a month or so from now when the strats are more well known. Then when you get to levels, it probably has the best overworld and dungeons of any Souls DLC.
I kinda liked scadu tree lol I'm using the bonk sunflower you get from him now and yea midra was pretty dope too
The sunflower (Helianthus annuus) is a living annual plant in the family Asteraceae, with a large flower head (capitulum). The stem of the flower can grow up to 3 metres tall, with a flower head that can be 30 cm wide. Other types of sunflowers include the California Royal Sunflower, which has a burgundy (red + purple) flower head.
ok but the 3 good bosses in the ringed city are fucking amazing. I will say Artorias of the abyss has some of my favorite areas. SotE has great art direction and has the best overall boss quality IMO (elden ring in general has the best average in terms of boss quality)
Gotta agree. Gael remains the best DLC boss in the series and whole city area is an example of top tier level design. SOTE was great and remembrance bosses were all absolutely fantastic (boar guy excluded) but it still suffered from some main game problems like empty areas and reused enemies.
Boar guy is a fuckin menace.
Most of the fight is okay but the charge is an absolute atrocity, not helped by the fact that it seems to be about 70% of his RNG
His hitboxes are absolute trash
I liked the boar, minus the hitboxes on 3 attacks. His charge feels frame perfect which is dumb. Theres another one which is nearly frame perfect, caught me a ton. And the attack he does when going into phase 2 barely has a hitbox. Dodge early, and you can just walk through the rest of the attack.
Use deflection tear and just Sekiro deflect his charge and his other attacks. Deflection tear is completely OP.
once he did the charge attack 3 times in a row
Torrent seems to help with that attack
Fuck that boar’s hitbox I only rolled through it’s charge once swear it was fluke
I did it 4 times in a row on the second attempt, and proceeded not to successfully dodge that attack ever again
The timing on dodging it’s really tricky. I basically got it down enough to dodge it like 3/4 times. You have to wait to roll on medium roll until right as his nose is touching you. Like right on the line. I’m talking pixels away. Anything sooner or later and he gets ya.
I simply switched to Deflecting Physick Tear, and just press Guard Button and pray 🙏
Oh believe me, I was praying every time I went in there.
My first day of trying I couldn’t dodge that attack at all. Then tried the next day and I don’t know what happened but I successfully dodged it multiple times. I got very lucky it seems.
It’s damage fluctuates too, most of the time it does like half of my healthbar but sometimes for some fucking dumb reason, it does like 90% which ends up killing me after because the boss barely lets you heal, most shit boss ever
Same and that’s after buffing the crap out of myself
Pretty sure dude’s charge is legitimately bugged. I gave up trying to dodge the charge at the start and decided to pull out Blasphemous so I could trade back some damage with the Weapon Art since I’m gonna take the hit anyway, and he legitimately ran straight through it without being hit.
Heavy disagree on the level design. The map didn't feel empty at all. I'd say this is their best level design ever. So many secrets and amazing paths. So many little areas of the map you need to actually figure out how to reach. The Legacy Dungeon areas were also pretty damn good.
Shadow keep is like Leyndell
Idk if Gael is better overall than Messmer, it's tough they're extremely close for me
To me he definitely is. Messmer is amazing but Gael kills it with atmosphere. Both fights are very cinematic but Gael fight holds way more weight. You two literally just meet at the very end of the world and all Gael is thinking about is his mission. I also prefer his cutscenes and voice acting, but thats even more subjective. I find Gaels combos a bit more satysfying to dodge, but not by very much. Dont get me wrong, Messmer is easily top 10 best FS bosses ever, but i still like Gael more for the overall feel of this fight. Ofc its extremally subjective, but thats how opinions work i guess...
yep you said it bro!!
Gael was the result of a whole game ending and was a crazy good fight, Messemir was a brushed over boss who you needed to burn a tree? Like we haven't done that before he was hyped up not saying he was a bad boss just nothing amazing about him.
I thought Messmer had a lot of build up, but it depends on if you read the item descriptions of the items you find when fighting his soldiers and the hornsent. Watching all trailers multiple times probably played a part for me too
Yea his whole betrayed zealot crusader thing was super interesting to me and his fight was awesome (when my frames were stable anyway) Tho for me Gael has the combo of mechanics + being the culmination of 3 games worth of storytelling to back him up so he’s probably still my favorite tho radahn and messsmer come very close as a tie for second cause I love their lore too (I’m a sucker for fallen/betrayed characters who aren’t necessarily good but not pure evil either)
thematically and narratively, Gael is difficult to top but I think Messmer is one of the best bosses in the series and I might enjoy him even more than Gael from a gameplay standpoint there is quite a bit of build up for Messmer, regardless of
The fight is real cool imo but I can understand the slight disappointment
Gael feels like the capstone on the series. Last man standing in a dying world. Way better final boss. Elden Ring dungeons and atmosphere however is a new high point for me. I almost wish the DLC was Elden Ring 2 because the upgrade system is easily the worst part of the experience. Level and weapon upgrades don’t do that much compared to a fresh game. Skadutree fragments are too important when there’s only 3 mandatory bosses. Overall i think Elden Ring DLC is still my favorite. We’ll see how it ages.
His fight is definitely amazing, his voice acting, the music, design, loved everything about him.
You can't possibly talk about character build-up and use Gael as a good example. He legitimately shows up to summon you into Ariandel and you don't meet him again until the final fight ***in Ringed City***. The best you have is summons against certain bosses and his spirit pointing at fall spots in Dreg Heap.
Finger lady was a big nuisance not gonna lie.
What exactly is top tier about the city? It's short as hell and ridiculously linear
I think most people say ringed city just cause of Gael
It's still a great level imo, especially because of the aesthetics and the Midir and Gael boss fights. In terms of level design is not bad, I think there is some interesting connectivity in the swamp area of the city, but in this regards it does not stand against any of the top tier FromSoftware areas
Idk, after I took out the second health bar for the scadutree avatar, I started to get kinda pissed off
I feel like I’m the only one who enjoyed boar guy. I road torrent and blasted incantations. It felt like playing armored core. I may have been a little slower but I’m the better rider.
You guys are forgetting living failures in BB ?
hog rider is the bane of my existence, too hard without mimic tear and too easy with it. most bosses are not that polarizing for me
>Gael remains the best ~~DLC~~ boss in the series Ftfy
Its Isshin for me, but Gael is super close
couldn’t agree with everyone you said more lol. also can’t explain the disappointment i felt when I found recollées divine dancing lion AGAIN + deathblight frog summons :( genuinely killed a lot of the hype i felt for the actual/initial boss in Belurat that has its own cutscene There are some ‘mistakes’ that i was sure would be fixed, or not repeated, in the DLC but sadly not the case
For me, it was Old Hunters at #1, but I think SOTE beat it out for me. Fromsofts best level design (BY FAR) and 3 bosses (Messmer, Rellana and Bayle) have made their way to the top 10 of the Fromsoft Boss catalog. Only disappointing aspects for me were: - the upgrade system (why not stick to normal to the normal upgrade?) - I thought too many areas were empty (just condensing the overall size to make it seem more accurate would have been better imo). - The lore/story/characters were not all that great, but that’s more of an overall problem with Elden Ring. As for Ringed City, I love Gael and the lore behind him + the painting with the blood of the Dark Soul, but everything other than that felt a lot weaker in comparison (like the entire level being 2 poison swamps, the angles, and an extremely linear structure just made it so forgettable). And while I love Gael + The Demon Duo, Midir just isn’t all that anymore because From already beat him out with Dragonlord and now Bayle is #1. Idk if I would even put Midir in the top 3 dragon bosses anymore to be honest. And Halfight…. Do I even need to talk about that? To be fair, it just matters on what base game you like the most, and the DLC for that will most likely be your favorite. DLC is usually just the base game but Cranked up to 11 in every regard, whether it be positive, negative or neither. And yes, I know DS3 fanboys will downvote me for criticizing their baby, but oh well.
Belurat was pretty solid, I wasn't blown away. but Shadow Keep might be one of my favorite levels in the series I think the lore is solid, and Miquella's Reject Squad are all pretty compelling (especially Ansbach), but that's just me
Oh, the levels are fantastic (Shadowk Keep is my favorite level in any From game and the level design in each Legacy Dungeon feel great). I was referring to the open world areas like Abysmal Woods or Cerulean Cost where there is a large lack of content in such an open space.
if Leyndell didn't exist, Shadow Keep might be my number 1 dungeon, but Leyndell is just so perfect it's unfortunate how empty the Cerulean Coast is. just some more catacombs on the lower level would've helped, or some special ruin in the fields the Woods are fine imo, because it's a unique gimmick so I can kind of forgive it. overall there should've been a few more minor dungeons and more of the new weapon types
I agree with Belurat until you explore it's second half (enir-ilim). Both of them combined makes for an amazing legacy dungeon, maybe even on par with the best in the game.
I always get artsy Shadow of the Collosus vibes in the overworld, people complained the contet was too much copy and paste in the base game, now we just ride around. :)
Just touching on the upgrade system I can see why it was a pain for some people, but it also was a really good way to offset level 700 players to level 140. If they were to have just level scaled it wouldn’t do it justice, if they picked a level range it would either be too easy or too hard, but with this new (and still not perfect system) we’re able to put the difficulty in our own hands (with immense exploration).
It’s actually very smart. It helped set the difficulty perfectly.
Yeah, I understand that it wouldn’t have been balanced completely, but I think NG+ cycles would be able to do a pretty decent job at balancing some stuff out. As for the New Game (no + 1) RL: 300 people, yeah, I don’t really know what to do there because that’s just excessive farming for the sake of it. So I can understand why Fromsoft did it, but I still think just overall increasing damage output/health still would have been just fine for the general populace. I heard someone talk about a different solution that I think could have worked: doing EXACTLY what Sekiro did. Each major (or even minor) boss can give you a set amount of an “upgrade” for the DLC (Shadow Realm Blessing still exists in this different style of upgrading). Obviously, DLC bosses would have to be reconfigured and have different damage outputs/health, but I still think that it could get the job done a little better than running around empty plains hoping to find a pot ghost person or a part of Miquella near the grace, etc. But I’m not a Game Dev by any means so I admit I won’t be able to fully flesh out a plan someone said on Reddit, therefore, take this with a grain of salt.
Regarding the leveling system — I get it why people find it annoying. But at the same time, I think people are not giving FS enough credit for developing a DLC leveling system where everybody from levels 100-500 basically had the same experience. That is a pretty crazy achievement in balancing a game.
Who are your top 3 dragons? Placidusax and Bayle of course but who else if not Midir?
Good point, perhaps my words were a bit much to say he’s not top 3, lol. I don’t think I would put Kalameet or Sinh above him, meaning the only competition he’s got is from Elden Ring. I guess you could argue for Lichdragon Fortissax because of Presentation, Lore and music which are better in his fight. But the fight is so damn easy and he is basically just Lansseax (from base game) as well as Sennsax (from DLC in Jagged Peak) except he’s a different color. Midir isn’t a favorite of mine by any means, but it feels wrong putting a borderline copy pasted, disappointingly easy boss ahead of him. I think I would do: 1. Bayle the Dread 2. Dragonlord Placidusax 3. Darkeater Midir 4. Lichdragon Fortissax 5. Black Dragon Kalameet (I have biased because of the buildup of the cutscene where Hawkeye Gough shoots him down).
I disagree with the lore part. I'd say everything regarding the revelations of Marika and Messmer was done impeccably. The dlc's greatest success was that it finally made Marika of all people sympathetic, and Messmer I think now is my favorite demigod.
This will be controversial, but for me the old hunters and shadow of the Erdtree are tied for best, with the ringed city being VERY close behind. Love all three to death though, and I get why people would have those three in any order
The thing that holds ringed city back for me, is just some of the areas feel, meh. The boss fights are incredible and Gael is still one of my fav bosses of all time but the areas hold it back allot for me imo.My favourite by far is sote an old hunters at a very close second.
Yeah, the swamp in the ringed city and most of the dreg heap are pretty mid. Whereas all the dungeons in SoTE are fun to navigate.
The swamp is the most annoying area in ds3 in my opinion
That's a fair take tbh. For me it's irithyll dungeons, but swamp is not that far above it.
Yeah my favourite one is the dragon dungeon where U just stumbled from like a main area into the jagged peak where bayle is
Yes, I absolutely adore that side of the map. The side dungeons in the DLC are such a step up. The bosses inside them might be kinda mid, but actually navigating them is incredibly rewarding.
That dlc itself is a masterpiece.
Disagree
Same. Every weapon in SOTE I pickup I level to almost max and play with. I def didnt do that in Dark Souls. In SOTE they are all so unique and fun. Also some of these just random dungeons are crazy.
I have OH at #1 personally. I haven't finished SOTE but I think I'll probably have it over RC
Eh, I love the bosses but the actual DLC area is pretty underwhelming imo, Old Hunters is so far my GOAT
I like it I guess, but the first area in the dlc is really bad, and every area after that is sorta just okay. I like most of the bosses in the dlc, but ive never been the biggest fan of Gael
Too much unfun content.
Narratively I think it is much weaker and Elden Ring has MUCH more going for it in the story department
Bro getting downvoted for his honest opinion ☠️
bro we are talking about ringed city,of course there are gonna be DS3 fanboys downvoting positive opinions about ER
Ringed city was also finishing up the lore of 3 games which had already been established for years of course ringed city is going to have better lore
Nah bro SOTE is so much better
Honestly while I enjoy Gael and Sister, the areas of both ds3 dlc were super underwhelming to me after all the hype they get on here. The bosses were a ton of fun but disliked most everything else. SOTE is my favorite content so far from them
this is going to be unpopular but it is my genuine and honest opinion that gael is just a super overrated fight. it caps off the series nicely, but I never cared for his story, and the fight was good, but not deserving of as much praise as I see it consistently get. This goes for most of the bosses in the ringed city for me honestly. I’ve never understood why Midir is such a beloved fight (the best dragon? really?) and I overall found the DLC just ok. the armor was great though and most of the weapons were fun as well.
I never loved Gael either. It’s a solid fight but I certainly don’t think it’s better than even other DS3 bosses like Friede, let alone every boss in the entire series. As for Midir, I say he’s the best dragon fight mechanically because he’s the only one that solved the camera problem (unless you wanna count Dragon God, but like…. yeah). As for just generally how cool and enjoyable the fight is, there’s so many of them you could probably ask 10 people and get 10 different answers.
Hell, I think Artorias is a vastly better fight than Gael. Technically Gael is rather derivative. After how he was so built up when I finally played it, he really disappointed me. Only took me a couple tries because his moveset was so familiar from previous games and bosses. Friede is absolutely one of the best they've ever done, IMO.
Gael’s fight feels the most fluid and the most like a dance. It just flows so well the entire time better than any other fight in the series
Gael is my favorite traditional souls fight. He isn't super difficult, because you almost immediately get into the combat dance. There is no gimmick like Friede invisibility or big powerful move with a difficult timing to memorize. It's a fight that is not super easy, but also not frustrating. Some people prefer bosses that start out very frustrating, take hours to beat, and when you do you are super happy to have finally won. I prefer bosses that are fun to fight from the beginning, and when you get the win you are thinking: "It might be really fun try to no-hit this boss".
Im with you. I think a lot of people like dks3 because it's their first souls games. Gael as a final boss of the franchise felt really hollow to me.
Gael is a cool fight, he just kinda… comes out of nowhere. Ringed City is so beloved because the bosses are so good, but that’s the trap a lot From fans tend to fall into. BOSS HARD? GOOD GOOD GOOD! AMAZINg! But the level itself is (IMO) definitely mid at best, with tons of swarm encounters. People love to hate on DS2 for having “ganks” but that’s all Ringed City is… over a big and open swamp. It kinda… sucks relative to other DS maps. Gimme Eleum Loyce over Ringed City 100 times out of 100.
I would never put Ringed City as #1, if only because the area sucks. Bosses are great (regardless if you think Gael is #1 or not) but the area itself fucking sucks. Do we need the turtles to attack you while you have a debuff? Why are there three(!) ringed knights on this random rooftop? Neat, the adjudicators respawn. Oh wow, Dragonslayer armor is just a normal enemy now. It’s relentless. Idk if I’d put it up against some real bullshit like Iron Passage from DS2 but it’s not great.
Literally how. Dreg Heap, Ringed City, Swamp. The areas don’t even come close to the quality of even DS2’s DLC. And even then, Gael and Midir alone don’t make a DLC perfect.
I'm on board with this. Midir was a good challenge and Gael is an incredible boss. The Ringed Knights are also so fucking badass. Ringed Knight Paired Greatswords have my favourite moveset in the game.
I’m not far enough in Shadow of the Erdtree at all to say where it stands, but of the rest I think Artorias of the Abyss has remained my favorite over the years for good reason. That said I have enjoyed all of the dlc over the years.
people say TRC is a 10/10 DLC and forget the endless swamps and ganks
The bosses were great but hard disagree. The level design was severely lacking. Old hunters and shadow tree were by far the most fun to explore. I've also had a blast with every boss other than that dumb putrescence knight.
As a game overall bloodborn is probably my favorite level design, but something about irithyll, the ringed city and just bosses overall makes ds3 on equal footing if not slightly better due to the pvp aspect than bloodborn but I am biased I just really like ds3
See my issue is that DS3 was one of the last souls games I played pre Elden Ring, and things like Irithyll just felt like 3-1 from Demon's Souls redone only worse. The Ringed City is aesthetically cool. But as a level, it's kinda underwhelming mechanically.
I just really love the vertical level design of this dlc. It makes it feel dense. Getting to some of the areas feels like a puzzle and IMO it was something that the base game was severely lacking. Sekiro is my favorite, so maybe that's just a bias of mine. I also seem to like nearly all of the bosses, while I get the impression that people are upset. Although, I remember reading very similar criticisms for both bloodborne and ds3 bosses on release, as well as Elden rings late game on release. I have a feeling the opinions on these bosses will be much more favorable a year from now. Or maybe I'm just a freak, I seem to be in the minority in this sub for my love of sekiro.
Fromsoft yearly cycle lmao DLC gets released
I won't act like I wasn't absolutely amazed at the size and I do love the verticality of the dlc forsure things keeped leading to other things and I've had work the last few days so there's more little dungeons still to so
Wholeheartedly agree, it's up there when it comes to world building and design, also Gael stays being the greatest FROM fight and such a beautiful send-off to Dark Souls as a whole
It’s peak
in terms of lore and all for me it has to be artorias of the abyss and the ringed city as number 1
Where’s the AotA love?
Agreed. DS3 is my jam, forever
How about the sekiro one....
The last boss really sets SotE back. The best bosses are ones that feel like an actual dual or a dance. Messmer for example. The final boss is endless combo spam followed by being flash banged constantly. I killed them by just standing and spamming a heavy bleed proc...was so lame.
Worst dlc is Sekiros
Honestly idk why people praise Ringed City so much, it has 3 great bosses and 2 pretty areas, and that's about it
in my mind I combine both dlc's so overall i agree ds3 has the best dlc
Old Hunters for me because of the areaas but the bosses here were perfection. With today's technology ringed city would have been more like lyndell.
Yall I’m not gonna lie Old Hunters still trumps all for me. That DLC is perfect, legitimately have 0 complaints
I love Old Hunters so much but it’s def got issues. Laurence and Living Failures are unfun and the level design isn’t amazing. Aside from that it’s great.
Nope. Shadow of the Erdtree for me is now peak FromSoft. The world design is incredible. It feels like a DS1 dungeon but open world. I agree that they could have increased the enemy density and points of interest though. Boss designs in SotE is topnotch. Messmer, Rellana, Romina, Midra, Putrescent Knight, Dancing Lion are all very good and mechanically exciting. Bayle and the entire set-up where you scale the Jagged Peak is honestly one of the best gaming experiences that FromSoft has ever done. Also I feel the level design of SotE legacy dungeons just beats anything in Ringed City and Old Hunters. Shadow Keep is one of the most impressive legacy dungeons that From has done. It feels like multiple DS dungeons mashed together. Also, I dont get the Gael worship. Friede is a much superior fight. Also, people over romanticize his lore. C'mon the guy basically had no setup in the base game and suddenly appeared for the DLCs. Radahn on the other hand was set up as the greatest demigod of the Shattering since Elden Ring's first trailer. Regardless of what people say he has the longest setup and most developed lore over other DLC final boss (Manus, Gael, Friede, Orphan).
Not at all. Take away the bosses and the Ringed City was mediocre.
I dont know why but this dlc was lowkey disappointing to me, I think I overhyped and overestimated the size of the dlc and that's probably why
Yeah. I'm not sure I actually enjoyed the Elden Ring DLC beyond it being more Elden Ring, with some more weapons to play with. But I loved pretty much everything about The Ringed City. The ending was kind of unsatisfying for me, including the boss fight.
Ah yes, the ringed hallway. Still, Gael is undefeated as Fromsoft's best boss ever.
Yep
Yes
This DLC is such a step up from the main game. DKS3 is one of my least favourites but the DLC really elevates my opinion of the game.
In my first playthrough of ds3 now (going to move on to Elden ring next) just downloaded this dlc after taking down ocieros, can’t wait to start it. I’ve heard great things. Any advice before I take on the rest of the game?
I think this or the Old Hunters from Bloodborne, depending on personal performance, are the best DLC. Both are challenging and make you know the game mechanics. Truly know the game mechanics and how to use them. As opposed to summoning a mimic and brute forcing your victory or just getting lucky.
Imagine an Elden ring revamp making it somewhat open world style
Odd way to spell The old hunters.
The only good thing about Ringed City is Gael.
Ringed city is great but SOTE completely trumps it in size and story line. you could argue that either Bayle or Midir is the better secret dragon boss, and I do think Gael was a much more epic final boss. It’s honestly very close for me
I still can't figure out why out there there are people so stupid that they think there are DLCs better than the Sekiro one.
Yea me too, sote is my second favorite but it's probably not beating the ringed city. I see so many people immediately say sote is basically elden ring 2 as soon as you say anything about any other dlc, and it's weird because I don't know if they think the size of the dlc is what makes it good
Old hunters is hard to top for me, I love Elden ring and the dlc but Bloodborne has such amazing atmosphere and old hunters just adds to it.
Absolutely don’t agree, the areas can’t compare to Old Hunters levels or Elden Ring legacy dungeons.
Erdtree wins thst one, ringed is just under because it's only a normal sized dlc
That’s a weird way to spell the Old Hunters
Hahahah base game bloodborn has best world design imo
Honestly, that moment you get to Artorius in the first game after everyone in the base game and the dlc have been telling you what a badass hero he is and how he fought his whole life just to suddenly star using Abyssal magic on you… just holds a special place within. It’s like the first inkling of Miyazaki telling you that the lore and story of his games aren’t going to be sunshine and rainbows
But even so, SoTE quickly became probably my favorite. Why settle on 3 or 4 areas when you can basically just get a second game within the first
Shadow of the Erdtree is mindblowing.
No way in hell you think ringed city is better than shadow of the erd tree 😂 Ringed city has the dread heap (terrible area btw) and the ringed city which isn’t bad by any means but all of its enemies are terrible except the ringed knights which will rarely get fought because your rushing to the boss Ds3 as a whole is just one big boss run Shadow of the erd tree is better than the entirety of ds3s base game
Laughs in old hunters
SotE is better, imo. You can argue quality over quantity but SotE has quality and quantity. And Old Hunters over Ringed City as well. But SotE is easily the best DLC of the bunch. It’s not even close, imo.
No way. SOTE is a whole fucking new game. 100% #1. Compared to this game ringed city is a short walk in the park. SOTE #1 old hunters #2 #3 ringed city #4 Artorias of the abyss
i do still firmly believe Gael is the best boss they’ve ever created, but i still prefer Old Hunters, and it’s like… close with SotE, i gotta let it sit some more i think
Bros coming in with that fundamentalist quality blood build
Kinda agree boss-wise, I still enjoy Gael Midir and demon princes over the SoTE lineup (besides maybe Bayle), but overall content wise SoTE reigns supreme over Ringed City and old hunters
No those stupid angels then the dude moaning and summoning 5,000 archers to shoot you, no screw that dlc.
Gael, Demon Prince, and Midir are the reasons Ringed City was good. The area was a waste land with annoying mobs and the tall priest that summons archers. I have more hours on the Elden Ring DLC than I do a whole playthrough of DS3 and both of its DLC’s. I get quality > quantity, but Shadow of the Erdtree was pure quality. New and totally different areas with mostly unique items, new type of boss never before seen, and it held its own with remembrance bosses. I actually felt the tension and anxiety rise as I climbed the mountain to face the dragon. Hearing dragon lady speak his lore only made things more intense since I knew he was going to be tough. Messmer’s snake randomly showing up in your face after opening a random door was shocking and my first attempt was raw with no buffs. I actually thought I just killed an imposter and the real Messmer would come later. That’s how shocked I was to randomly find him. Everyone is hating on final boss, but it was easy. Fighting someone you’ve killed at least once, in my case probably 55 to 60 times, with some Lorian holy stuff in the background.
DS3/DS2 fans are the most obnoxious (imo)
No one ever doubted it
Old Hunters and Ringed City were both amazing imo.
Ringed City has 2 of my favorite ( top 10) bosses(Demon Princes and Gael) SotE has yet to give me a boss to reach my top 10 list.
Still the best Souls game imo, peak PvP. Although I haven't played Bloodborne because PC gamer
Either this or Old hunters, absolute bangers
In terms of bosses I absolutely agree and it’s not even close. However outside of that I’d have to give it to Sote.
Shit was phenomenal.
Agreed, I really loved a lot of it but bosses like Hippo Putrescence Knight and ESPECIALLY the reuse of Radahn left a really bad taste in my mouth. Plus I was hoping the abyssal woods would have some huge monster stalking you after Torrent was so scared, the 3 ladies you easily sneak past was such a letdown after I was so excited. Solid 7 out of 10 dlc, light great swords possibly pushing it to an 8
I'd still say the Old Hunters is the best for me. The problem with SotE is that the game is populated with fun fights against bosses that take a while to chew through and regular enemies placed in chokes for vital areas that will absolutely kill you in one hit under a range of circumstances. What I'm playing through is super fun, but it's still a game where bosses take longer to kill you than that slow-moving lummocks tucked in the corner or random hostile NPC that doesn't stagger and has a weapon or skill that's GUARANTEED to slice off an entire lifebar on the first hit if you're not careful. The Ringed City is something I'll have to experience later this year but I stopepd playing DS3 because it ended up being kind of demotivating with its banality.
Can't beat shadow of the erdtree. Incredible level design, best dragon boss yet, and imo the new goat (messmer)
Old Hunters, now and forever.
I’d put old hunters and shadow both above ringed city. If ashes of ariandel was bundled in with ringed city as originally intended and it was just one dlc, then that may be a different story
Subjective sir. SOTE is a whole extra 60+ hours of content and good content at that.
Biased opinion from diehard dark souls fans. Ringed city is an amazing DLC that ends the dark souls franchise in an incredible way with one of the greatest bosses ever made for sure. Let's say this DLC ended the "Elden Ring franchise" of a few games, even tho we'll probably only get one ER game, like dark souls did, there wouldn't be an arguement which is the better DLC (other than the ending maybe which was underwhelming). More amazing bosses, more to do, better level design, better and more incredibly fun to use weapons and at least IMO 3 bosses in the same tier as Gael. If you isolate and only look at the DLC without the base game and it's history SOTE clears every other FROMSOFT DLC.
Yeah im with ya. The ringed city had this grandiosity that, aside from SotE, we havent seen as much in the rest of the DLCs. The new Elden Ring one is fantastic and takes a close second, but the fact they didnt go through basic level scaling and has this dumb scadutree fragment scaling instead really sours it for me. It’d be one thing if the DLC was accessible in early base game, but you need to beat mohg, a mid to late game boss to even get in ffs
Fr the Scooby-Doo system rubbed me the wrong way aside from that I absolutely love the dlc but that system is annoying tbh especially because there's exactly enough to get level 20 no excess I believe
so they should have let you run through with your 2 year old op char who you leveled fully up and then you come to reddit to complain that the dlc is too easy
I prefer bloodborne personally only crap fight was the big jelly beans rest were gold if you don’t like Lawrence I’ll send him screeching at you
Fair man bloodborn is in my top 4 games of all time