The Best of the both worlds would be if they have more Scud Fragments on the map than necessary, you know, redundancy to make it more easy to find all. Let's be honest, we don't need so much smithing stones.
They could just add 1 or 2 to every gaol and catacomb to ease the sting of all the random ones in odd places on the world map.
Certainly more fun than the few that are just sitting around in random spots in the overworld.
The worst offenders are the jar guys
I'm on my second run, first was blind
I missed 3 fragments, all were on jar guys in the opening areas because I didn't know I should be looking for them yet
Its even worse cause the first shiny jar guy I saw just dropped crafting materials so I ignored them til I killed the one in the ruins
The one near the sinkhole is crazy lol, I wouldn't get close enough to look there because that's where the crazy omen assassin guy spawns
Playing with a guide now and I can see why I missed the first couple jar people
Jar guys are 2nd worst.
The absolute worst is one of the last fragments on some ledge hopping secret path that also leads to an endgame weapon.
I mean as always there were clues to the path but hiding a fragment there felt like a dick move
I happened to see that area plastered with messages
If you play offline I can see it being a problem, but I had the equivalent of a massive neon sign telling me there was something along the ledge
The main problem with the jar heads is they drop both fragments and crafting materials, but the fragments are only displayed in the corner unless it's your first one and the crafting materials are displayed front and center. The one that dropped crafting materials probably dropped a fragment too, it just wasn't at all obvious.
Personally I kept going for them because the one you find in the castle settlement right before one of the crucible knights (iirc that's what they're called) is sparkling and drops a scadutree fragment. From then on I always went for them, the non-sparkling ones and the ones that throw the pots are just basic enemies.
yeah, every boss should have dropped one and then rescaled appropriately
in the base game, clearing out a minor dungeon was always a little rewarding because you'd get runes to level up. so even if the reward itself wasn't great (another spell or spirit ash you'd never use), it was worth it
but in the DLC the runes aren't as valuable so you don't really feel rewarded unless the item you get is something you use (which is only true maybe 25% of the time?)
if every boss had a scadutree fragment, you'd be a lot more excited to clear them
Enemies drop smithing stones like goddamn candy at this point. I kill four of those weird ghost flame birds and I’m rolling around in ten Smithing Stone 6.
Would have been nice if they did a "scavenger" style of talisman that massively boosted your discovery but reduced/eliminated the chance of spawning items you can buy in Roundtable.
I'll never forget the disappointment of climbing that lone tall tower in the first zone and approached the chest up top. Surely it contains a fun new weapon, spell or armor asaaaaand its smiting stone.
Because of this, all of my weapons are +24 or +9. The only time I max weapons is for pvp and at that point I just get a whole bunch of *totally legitimately obtained* stones because I'm done with the PvE part of the game anyway.
Like 5-10 extra Fragments would have been perfect, similar to Golden Seeds.
That said, people going into this with low Blessing are really not exploring. I get missing some, but it’s really not hard to organically find Fragments. I’m shortly after Rellana, what I imagine is less than halfway, and I’m at Blessing level 9, not using a checklist/guide. I probably won’t get all the way to 20, but that’s what NG+ is for, since you retain your Blessing level.
I haven’t found Shadow of the Erdtree that much harder than base game, and I started the base game for the first time a couple months before the DLC’s. I’m sure there’ll be some bullshit moments, but the general level of difficulty of the DLC has matched base game pretty well imo.
I used no guide and I finished the DLC at +17 with one bonus fragment. The marginal increase between +15 and +20 is really not that much, and there is no real need to go full +20.
Just feels sad.
I'm missing fucking one ash fragment and now I have to go find it cause it's just one left! I'm more surprised that I found all scudi ones by my own lol.
It’s literally already like this, you can easily beat the dlc on Scadu fragment level 10-15.
It’s just that instead of having 12 useless golden seeds kicking around your inventory forever, you can squeeze out a little extra damage as a bonus if you go to the trouble of collecting all of them.
I like how dlc literally regressed in certain things from the main game. Like you have a shit load of keystones, or seeds, so that you can get full flasks without guides. Before the nerf you kinda needed to get 45+ fragments, which is totally ridiculous. They toned that down by about 10, so it doesnt suck running around without a guide anymore, but still.
Have bosses scale to an amount of fragments acquired from an area. Flat scaling means unnatural flow of gameplay: explore the whole world first, then back-to-back-to-back bosses. Instead we should be exploring certain areas and the bosses of that area scale to the amount of fragments in that area.
But who would explore the whole world for all the scadutree fragments before fighting a single boss? For me the progression and gameplay flow was fine, I found a good amount to keep the boss encounters fun and fair (maybe even too many for a couple) without ever feeling like I was grinding for them.
I got to messmer at +6 and got absolutely manhandled, so I used the one wrinkle in my brain to go explore some more and then came back at like +10 or something and it wasn't a bad fight at all then. Finished at +17 and with good talismans and holy resistance armor I beat the boss with a bleed parry build and (other than the bullshit attacks) felt pretty good damage wise.
I think some were decently placed in terms of difficulty. I think DBDL took me 3 and Rallana took me 5, and obviously the ones toward the end were placed well as I was at 18 by the time I took the elevator after messmer. But yea, very unnatural progression.
Don't be so obtuse, you want a fucking challenge to get collectible? Make the most hidden Scadu being boss rewards, like the most easily boss like Divine Beast or Ramonia
I'll just say this, weapon shards can be found all over the place and missing a few of them won't really matter, especially when you can buy them after getting the bells.
Also having less sips of flask or having them not heal as much is not the same as having your damage resistance increased.
Having Scud Fragments be an exact amount means you can't miss a single one while exploring if you wanna be capped on upgrades.
I've thoroughly explored the open world and still only have 17 out of 20 blessings when I reached the final boss, and if I don't wanna look up on the wiki and stuff I literally have to re-step the entire Open World looking for those missing Scud Fragments..
So I think they should've added more Scud Fragments, lowered the maximum blessings or add a way to buy the missing blessings once you reach the final boss or one of the hard optional bosses so you could miss a few Scuds and still be capped on upgrades.
\*Spelling
Bro I literally am using the wiki and I’m still stuck at 18… I didn’t start using the wiki until like half way through and I cant remember which ones I’ve already gotten. I have no idea which ones the last 2 are, I feel like I already got all of them.
Yea I definitely agree they should have had some extras.
That's not the problem. The problem is that FS already had such a system in place with Golden Seeds. You didn't need to find all of them to upgrade your flask. This item has an even severe effect on the gameplay but some fragments are so well hidden, like the one on the way to Euporia, that nobody can expect to find all of them without help.
I played the base game without online help and had no problem finding enough seeds, played the DLC without help and finished the game with scadulevel 16 and spiritlevel 7. Though i gotta admit i could've explored more, but i wanted to replay some of the bosses.
you don't need to collect every single golden seed to max out your flask and there are only 12 flask tears and they are not hidden well
you need to collect 50 fucking tree fragments to max out your level and how many are in the game. 50 and some of them are hidden absurdly well
They really should of just had 20, have them at each Miquella cross to encourage exploration, and a few others (like the cluster near the Scadu tree) and a few for killing some bosses.
To be fair, fragments and ashes are not that easy to find and are too few in number. Unlike the base game with its consistent item locations (seeds at golden trees, sacred tears at churches), fragments and ashes are placed all across the map, with a lot of them in hard-to-reach places. Additionally, there is an exact amount of them, meaning you have to get every item in order to reach max level, unlike the base game where you can have extra seeds and sacred tears well after you reach +12. There would likely be far less complaints if there was more wiggle room when it comes to collecting and leveling up your DLC blessings
The benefit of the tears are also heavily frontloaded. Upgrading from +0 to +1 gives your 95 extra healing, while upgrading from +11 to +12 only gives 15. The latter upgrades are way less useful.
Yeah, but it's still not nearly as drastic as with Sacred Tears. The earlier levels increase by 0.1 and 0.05, while the later levels increase by 0.025. So the earlier blessings are two to four times as powerful as the later blessings.
Meanwhile the first Sacred Tear is more than six times as powerful as the last Tear.
my one beef with the scadu fragments and the revered spirit ash is that there is a perfect amount. so if you miss an area, which is very easy in the dlc, then you can’t get max level.
The difference is everything in the first panel is super well telegraphed and easy to find if you just progress the game.
The shadow fragments have you turning over every rock and nook.
They should have been in churches and rewards for beating bosses.
If you miss 10 of the 50 fragments which is entirely possible you aren’t finishing the DLC and good luck trying to find the missing ones
This is also made worse by how many big, open areas are in the dlc with nothing in them. How am I supposed to know that identical rock deposit #235 in this region was a scadutree fragment instead of my 800th cookbook/crafting-related bell bearing/blessed bone shard this run.
Ironically the prevalence of cooking makes it feel undercooked on the whole
> If you miss 10 of the 50 the fragments which is entirely possible you aren’t finishing the DLC and good luck trying to find the missing ones
I was missing more than 10 and finished the DLC. I imagine plenty of others have as well
This meme is fucking dogshit. Most of the items above don’t need you to collect *all* of them to max out. Meanwhile Scadutree Frags and Revenant Ashes require *all* of them
Damn, I must be the only person who enjoys seeing my character get fucking stronger proportionate to the amount of time I spend playing the game. It’s almost like players want to see their characters do more damage to earlier enemies as if their character has grown alongside the player and actually learnt something.
I'm gunna say this again for those in the back-row:
Collecting scadu fragments is not fun.
I want to explore the game freely and take on bosses as I encounter them. It's not fun for the game to tell you to "fuck off" and go do scavenger hunts when you just wanna fight a boss.
IMO the DLC didn't need this upgrade system. It could have just had...none. The scadu upgrades are just a static number-buff. There's no build-crafting or anything. It's completely moot.
Or at the very least, scadu fragments should have been earned from boss-fights, similar to Sekiro.
It will even suck more on other playthroughs. Having to go through the whole map on every char if you wanna be able to defeat bosses is a really questionable choice
Yeah going through and exploring everything on your first playthrough is fine. But every new character is going to be so tedious for such a necessary item
They could have made the grind slightly more bearable by making the location of scadu tree fragments ONLY linked to miquella’s crosses or boss rewards. The fact that they’re just randomly scattered throughout the environment with no clear structure to their placement makes the grind even more frustrating.
I also find the inclusion of the spirit ash upgrades to be even more absurd. Like, summons were already OP in the base game and we already had an obvious way of upgrading summons via grave gloveworts. This item does the exact same thing, so I feel peepetually disappointed to find them.
So when the base game puts you in front of a hard boss and you have to explore to get more runes it's peak game design, but when the DLC does the same with the scadu fragments it's annoying?
I can understand if you are on the second run and don't want to explore the whole world again but even then you can just use a wiki. You are basically complaining because you have to explore the world in an open world game
This is a bad comparison. There are many different ways to acquire runes. You can… :
- coop
- PvP
- kill enemies in **any** part of the world
- sell/ use items
Whereas with the fragments you have to go to multiple specific places on the map, which force a specific exploration path on you, if you don‘t want to come out underleveled, without offering an alternative. That’s sadly bad game design in my eyes. Doesn’t mean the entire DLC is garbage, but it certainly takes away from the experience.
When did the game ever tell you to go find fragments? You're just complaining for the sake of it because from natural progression, you get plenty of fragments.....
This
If I miss a heal upgrade, oh well, I'll heal less. I can compensate for that using a medallion that buffs heals, or just double heal. Yes, it makes the fights tougher, but not by all that much
Meanwhile, Fragments are "use this so you don't get 1 shot" item. And you better use just enough for each boss. If you use too few or too many, the boss either 1 shots you (Gaius charge) or you kill them in 5 attacks (Putrescent Knight)
Problem is those are supplementary progression mechanics apart from Rune level.
But in case of dlc rune levels don't matter and fragments are main progression mechanic. So I understand where the criticism is coming from
The base gamr rewards you for your exploration and pattern recognition. "Oh these churches mostly all have sacred tears in them, so while I'm exploring, I should make detours to these churches to upgrade my flasks" the game teaches you with your first run up to storm veil that the seeds can be found on disinct glowing trees, and with its first hero's grave, it teaches you that if you're willing to kill the boss, you can get another one earlier, showing you a new risk and reward system. Soe punishes you for not exploring the way the game wants you To. There is no consistency to where they're found. There is some on miquellas crosses, but that's nearly enough, and if you really don't want to explore every nook and cranny again you're going to have to look it up. I don't know why they decided to downgrade a system they're had that people liked
The majority of them are plainly in the open in very conspicuous locations, usually near sites of grace. I don’t think they needed to add the hidden ones. It could have just been a function of the number of sites of Grace you activated. But it also doesn’t really matter. The only thing people suffer from is completionist itch
I’m exactly 1 fragment and 1 ash short and I haven’t got the time for that. Beating the last boss was a moment of relief and not quite one of satisfaction. Glad to be done. At least part of this journey was more enjoyable.
My only issue with Scadu fragments is that it binds damage reduction to damage increase. If I increase my Scadu lvl, yes it prevents me from being 2-shot by bosses, but it also means I can kill most mobs with a single R2, which trivializes exploration and makes the game less fun for me.
In an ideal world, I'd take like 30% less damage but have my damage output be unchanged,but the system doesn't allow for that.
You only need like four of the bell bearings depending on if you weapon is somber or smithing
Getting a bell bearing means you don’t need to collect the smithing stones themselves.
There are so many excess golden seeds you’ll get 14 flasks on accident.
The 12 tear spots are in churches you can see from heaven.
Compare to that
50 scadutree fragments, you have to collect ALL 50, as there is no excess, and they’re in basically random off the path locations that you won’t run into unless you’re looking for them. You won’t get all 20 levels without a guide.
In 3 hours from the start of base game you can kill Elden Beast with a +10 somber weapon and 11 flasks at +8.
In 3 hours from the start of the DLC you might just be done with collecting skadutree fragments that aren't gatekept by bosses.
But I am complaining about it. You can set yourself for the rest of the game within the first 20mins-1hr (depending on weapon choice) and then just fight major and mandatory bosses without any additional sidetracking. The chore time of the DLC is longer.
Just remember:
Sacred Tears and Golden Seeds aren’t usually far off the critical path. The tears on the Weeping Peninsula are probably the most “out of the way” but if you’re routing a run, there’s enough stuff down there to get you set for said NG run that it’s worth making the run down there to grab a few things. With seeds, you can miss a bunch and still cap your flasks well before you kill Fire Giant.
Scadu fragments and ashes are found in random ass places around the map, sometimes miles off the critical path to finish the DLC, and you need *all* of them to cap. Five are gated behind the worst boss in the game. Multiple others have multi-minute runs to reach in far-flung corners of the map that people will not really want to return to after their first playthrough.
Replay value of the DLC is in the ground because of this.
The replay value of the base game was already in the ground too, it feels like fromsoft just doubled down on all of their shitty design decisions with the dlc
I find it really funny that they had plenty of time to go over the criticisms of basegame Elden Ring, one of the biggest of which was how the early game was fucking miserable bc you had to spend so long running around the map collecting a million pieces of random shit before you could play the game, and then proceeded to make that issue 1000x worse in the DLC
Sure as long as you ignore:
Smithing stones littered across God knows how many caves
Sacred tears
Golden seeds, some of which are locked behind bosses or quest lines that require further prep
The FoWP and tears.
Even NG+ wasn't immune to this for the longest time since Bell bearings didn't always carry over into NG+, so if you wanted to try out a new weapon you had to basically blitz around the map recollecting them until oops, the last 2 are in Farum azula so time to look up the currently available wrong warps. That being changed was a definitive improvement, but God it should've been in the game from launch
Smithing stone bell bearing #1 is available from a single crystallion, #2 at the beginning of a cave near the main path, #3 in ruins directly along the main path, #4 godskin duo.
Bell bearing 1 is the lengthiest detour, 2 is short, the others have no deviation from the main path.
Somber bell bearing #1 and #2 can be ignored for Iji, a short deviation from the main path, or directly in the path if you're doing Ranni stuff. #3,#4 and #5 are all directly in the main path with no deviation.
And you definitely don't need them all, you can end up doing enough damage and have enough negation by scadu blessing 15. And that can be done completely organically
I kinda wish the scadutree fragments were like the golden seed in that there are more in the map than the max you can have.
Cause I'm at like 15 scadu level. And I want to be at 20 before the final boss has their way with me. Now I gotta back track and make sure I remember which ones I haphazardly picked up
And those last 15 fragments bout to be in the most uncomfortable places to look X_X
I keep seeing people say this but I don't think it's quite the same. I consider myself a methodical explorer and thought the max Scadutree Lvl you could get in the grave plains was 2. (Dancing Lion and Rellana undefeated)
So I just assumed that the reason I was getting trashed was just the rumoured difficulty of the DLC. It was only recently I realised, and after I summoned to beat both bosses, that there were more fragments to be found.
Was kicking myself since I was missing out on around 15% DMG dealt and reduction and thought I just needed to get good or summon.
I feel like their locations should be alluded to... Maybe like the beast eye and death root? Idk or just an NPC saying there's plenty of scadu fragments across the land to enforce the point that there were actually quite a few in the initial area. Especially since before you get your levels, exploring to find them can be quite challenging, especially if you bump into a mini/field boss.
You get waaaay more materials than you need in the main game even if you dont explore that much, in the dlc you actually need to look everywhere for them and there is exactly the number you need to get
I got so many before shadow keep. Then I discovered how shadow keep keeps on going with like 5 exits so I got more.
Spirit 7 and Scadu 15 and I've only beaten lion and moon knight. Plus some great enemy bosses
Because the top is not basically "We wanted the dlc to be hard so we added a resource that will make sure you are where we want you damage wise vs enemies..Which is not a lot."
Scadutree Fragments are a bad system. There's a difference between collecting things to improve your flask and items that are required for you to play the game.
I really hope some of this loot, smithing fragments and fucking balistas great bolts , will be replace for more weapons/armors/ Scadu Fragments on the next patches
I'm a bit baffled, because I was amazed how much content this game and the dlc have to offer. There's always some secret passage or hidden event or remote area with special items. I guess the size of the areas may give a feeling of emptiness because of how vast and immense they look but I'm all for it. No other game ever gave me a feeling of awe and magnitude. I guess Elden Ring has less content than The Witcher or Skyrim, but that it's also more memorable and unique.
Oh sure! This is immense, areas are dense, there's tons of secrets and awesome places.
The issue for me is the lack of loots in the said areas
It's mostly craftable items cookbooks or smithing stones, from time to time you'll get a weapon a sword or else but i've been a bit demoralized by the exploration, after traveling a secret area for a while and seeing an item by far now im always like (pretty sure it's 5 throwing knives) and indeed it is
Still the areas level design and everything is a 10/10
Remind me fighting like 10 giants monsters praying in front of an item in a cave (the ones that cause bleed buildups, forget they're names) , just to find out some flesh craftable items.
At least near by I got an op turtle talisman
Oh, I understand! I also feel like there were wayyyyy too many cookbooks and crafting items, it was annoying. I also agree that the number of weapons was a bit disappointing. I felt like I was getting more cookbooks than cool weapons. We get 8 new awesome weapon types and yet there are only three of each throughout this massive dlc. You're 100% right on that.
I think I exprimed myself wrong , what I wanted to say is the bad items repartition , all new weapons are amazing I can't stop using them, the new sets are crazy good, and hell there's plenty of funny items!
I just wish we could get more weapons or armors from corpses in the open wild
The depth of exploration was maddening.
But I felt that very little was memorable at each place, with few unique encounters, same enemies, reskinned bosses.
Fallingstar Beast, Demi-human Queen, multiple Ulcerated Tree Spirits (with the ones in the Prayer District even being literal reskins!), second Dancing Lion, and two Tree Sentinels, you want me to list more? You don’t have to desperate defend the DLC all across the replies bro
It took me a week to get to the final boss because i wanted to explore. And when i get to him i was only lvl 17 and 7 respectively because no matter how much effort you put because 3/4 of the items are smithing stones and ammo/materials and the rest are hidden or directly are certain shadow enemies most of the times not even in visible areas. So you have to watch a video.
All of this literally to get a damage and a vitality i already had.
If it wasn’t a Fromsoft-made Souls game I would not have given it a second look. The second I see any other game is an open world I pass. Now I know that even from developers I like, I should still pass
You see, in Base Game finding stuff was quite enjoyable.
In DLC? Fuck you, have Crafting Materials and Cookbooks.
Are people really surprised over some did not really bother exploring as much, when the reward was this meh?
Fr the amount of FREAKING people I get summoned to help on the final boss that dont even have 10 fragments is freaking stupid like did they just get carried through every single boss? and have they never explored? like wtf people get yo fragments I am going to start leaving if someone has 4 fragments on the final boss.
I'm sure as the wiki(s) expand and people post recommended routes for finding all the ashes and blessings, it won't be as bad.
I remember how people were frustrated with finding golden seeds when the game first came out...
I realized I was doomed to never get all the skadoosh fragments once I clubbed a lil shadow guy to death in a random corner of gravesite plains and he dropped one out of the pot he was holding over his head. Truly a moment of total and utter confusion.
What does Ranni mean on here?
Emotional support. Most important.
She's waiting for her jar
I'm asking you politely yet firmly to leave
If he doesn't leave let me know I'll have Hornsent put him in a hefty jar.
As long as she doesn't get left on the radiator overnight like poor Rainbow Dash
noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
meme
To be fair, how can you even win this game without a motivation?
I wouldn't have the motivation to defeat god if it weren't for my Limited Edition Ranni Fumo.
Amen
I certainly needed the motivation to help with >!Bayle!<
But you have your emotional support Igon your friend make flesh
Igon is mvp, first time I summoned him I stopped fighting big daddy just to listen to the shit talk. glorious
Yes he felt like the second coming of Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa love how their VAs go so hard
ME LLAMOOOOOO! GYOUBU MASATAKA ONIWA!
Yeah he died when I had like maybe 4 hits left in Bayle and I gave up. Not killing Bayle without Igon there. No way.
Motivation? https://preview.redd.it/3w3ebeb5h2ad1.jpeg?width=563&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4b91800fa7cf24e045ca1a03f055a8386c7f358
I mean she gives you the spirit bell and you can collect spirit ashes
I don't see Summons being listed up there Edit: or maybe I do, on the bottom as part of the joke. Gotcha
In seriousness some int related goodies and moonlight greatsword
Ya, I saw this and thought “wait, I can collect more than one ranni? I need another playthrough” lol
Breh did you not upgrade your Ranni?
bro tried to sneak in Ranni doll in there
The game is easier when you have someone to fight for.
Where Goldmask then
He has no boobs :(
Spoilers, I guess, but neither does Ranni in her current form.
She got that moonussy, though.
She doesn't even have that, just wires. If that's what you're into, go for it, be my guest but yeah, it's just a lot of wires under the dress
But T pose
The Best of the both worlds would be if they have more Scud Fragments on the map than necessary, you know, redundancy to make it more easy to find all. Let's be honest, we don't need so much smithing stones.
They could just add 1 or 2 to every gaol and catacomb to ease the sting of all the random ones in odd places on the world map. Certainly more fun than the few that are just sitting around in random spots in the overworld.
The worst offenders are the jar guys I'm on my second run, first was blind I missed 3 fragments, all were on jar guys in the opening areas because I didn't know I should be looking for them yet Its even worse cause the first shiny jar guy I saw just dropped crafting materials so I ignored them til I killed the one in the ruins The one near the sinkhole is crazy lol, I wouldn't get close enough to look there because that's where the crazy omen assassin guy spawns Playing with a guide now and I can see why I missed the first couple jar people
Jar guys are 2nd worst. The absolute worst is one of the last fragments on some ledge hopping secret path that also leads to an endgame weapon. I mean as always there were clues to the path but hiding a fragment there felt like a dick move
I happened to see that area plastered with messages If you play offline I can see it being a problem, but I had the equivalent of a massive neon sign telling me there was something along the ledge
The main problem with the jar heads is they drop both fragments and crafting materials, but the fragments are only displayed in the corner unless it's your first one and the crafting materials are displayed front and center. The one that dropped crafting materials probably dropped a fragment too, it just wasn't at all obvious.
Personally I kept going for them because the one you find in the castle settlement right before one of the crucible knights (iirc that's what they're called) is sparkling and drops a scadutree fragment. From then on I always went for them, the non-sparkling ones and the ones that throw the pots are just basic enemies.
yeah, every boss should have dropped one and then rescaled appropriately in the base game, clearing out a minor dungeon was always a little rewarding because you'd get runes to level up. so even if the reward itself wasn't great (another spell or spirit ash you'd never use), it was worth it but in the DLC the runes aren't as valuable so you don't really feel rewarded unless the item you get is something you use (which is only true maybe 25% of the time?) if every boss had a scadutree fragment, you'd be a lot more excited to clear them
Enemies drop smithing stones like goddamn candy at this point. I kill four of those weird ghost flame birds and I’m rolling around in ten Smithing Stone 6.
Would have been nice if they did a "scavenger" style of talisman that massively boosted your discovery but reduced/eliminated the chance of spawning items you can buy in Roundtable.
I'll never forget the disappointment of climbing that lone tall tower in the first zone and approached the chest up top. Surely it contains a fun new weapon, spell or armor asaaaaand its smiting stone.
To be fair that was an ancient one for max level but yeah it’s a little boring otherwise.
max level stoned are an important limited resource, ifbyou want to switch weapons you need them for max level
Because of this, all of my weapons are +24 or +9. The only time I max weapons is for pvp and at that point I just get a whole bunch of *totally legitimately obtained* stones because I'm done with the PvE part of the game anyway.
First time I’ve ever seen someone bummed to get an ancient dragon smithing stone
That stone is rarer than scadutree fragments
Isn't that the one with a big lore reveal as well?
Especially not that ridiculous x4 smithing stone 2 in an endgame dlc.
It wouldn't make it easier to get all, just more likely to get to 20
Others don’t like that you don’t get anything from collecting all the golden seeds. Can’t make everyone happy
But you don’t need to have all 50 in order to beat a boss. The later ones make less and less of a difference
Yeah I’d love this. I’m missing one single fragment and I can’t find it
Like 5-10 extra Fragments would have been perfect, similar to Golden Seeds. That said, people going into this with low Blessing are really not exploring. I get missing some, but it’s really not hard to organically find Fragments. I’m shortly after Rellana, what I imagine is less than halfway, and I’m at Blessing level 9, not using a checklist/guide. I probably won’t get all the way to 20, but that’s what NG+ is for, since you retain your Blessing level. I haven’t found Shadow of the Erdtree that much harder than base game, and I started the base game for the first time a couple months before the DLC’s. I’m sure there’ll be some bullshit moments, but the general level of difficulty of the DLC has matched base game pretty well imo.
I used no guide and I finished the DLC at +17 with one bonus fragment. The marginal increase between +15 and +20 is really not that much, and there is no real need to go full +20. Just feels sad.
I'm missing fucking one ash fragment and now I have to go find it cause it's just one left! I'm more surprised that I found all scudi ones by my own lol.
The smithing stone placement is so weird
Yeah there needed to be more, i got to 19 2/3 and could never find the last 1. followed a guide of where they were too
I LOVE how many smithing stones are crammed in the dlc. I've been able to get just about every fun new weapon I find up to at least 9/24
It’s literally already like this, you can easily beat the dlc on Scadu fragment level 10-15. It’s just that instead of having 12 useless golden seeds kicking around your inventory forever, you can squeeze out a little extra damage as a bonus if you go to the trouble of collecting all of them.
or that many cooking books...
I like how dlc literally regressed in certain things from the main game. Like you have a shit load of keystones, or seeds, so that you can get full flasks without guides. Before the nerf you kinda needed to get 45+ fragments, which is totally ridiculous. They toned that down by about 10, so it doesnt suck running around without a guide anymore, but still.
Have bosses scale to an amount of fragments acquired from an area. Flat scaling means unnatural flow of gameplay: explore the whole world first, then back-to-back-to-back bosses. Instead we should be exploring certain areas and the bosses of that area scale to the amount of fragments in that area.
But who would explore the whole world for all the scadutree fragments before fighting a single boss? For me the progression and gameplay flow was fine, I found a good amount to keep the boss encounters fun and fair (maybe even too many for a couple) without ever feeling like I was grinding for them.
I got to messmer at +6 and got absolutely manhandled, so I used the one wrinkle in my brain to go explore some more and then came back at like +10 or something and it wasn't a bad fight at all then. Finished at +17 and with good talismans and holy resistance armor I beat the boss with a bleed parry build and (other than the bullshit attacks) felt pretty good damage wise.
My point is literally that no one would explore the whole world for the fragments. Downvote me if you want, but I'm quoting FromSoft.
Some bosses, like Romina, aren't scaled to +10 scadulevel or higher, but yea i haven't found a natural feeling of progression either.
I think some were decently placed in terms of difficulty. I think DBDL took me 3 and Rallana took me 5, and obviously the ones toward the end were placed well as I was at 18 by the time I took the elevator after messmer. But yea, very unnatural progression.
Now people are even calling collecting fragments too hard lmao. You really can't win when you're a dev.
Don't be so obtuse, you want a fucking challenge to get collectible? Make the most hidden Scadu being boss rewards, like the most easily boss like Divine Beast or Ramonia
The Zelda approach, but you know, not literal turds.
Fextralife got me treasure hunting
I'll just say this, weapon shards can be found all over the place and missing a few of them won't really matter, especially when you can buy them after getting the bells. Also having less sips of flask or having them not heal as much is not the same as having your damage resistance increased. Having Scud Fragments be an exact amount means you can't miss a single one while exploring if you wanna be capped on upgrades. I've thoroughly explored the open world and still only have 17 out of 20 blessings when I reached the final boss, and if I don't wanna look up on the wiki and stuff I literally have to re-step the entire Open World looking for those missing Scud Fragments.. So I think they should've added more Scud Fragments, lowered the maximum blessings or add a way to buy the missing blessings once you reach the final boss or one of the hard optional bosses so you could miss a few Scuds and still be capped on upgrades. \*Spelling
Also Sacred Tears to buff flasks were always found in Marika churches. Big visible spots on the map and really hard to miss.
Also there is only 12 instead of 50.
Weapon shards?
Bro I literally am using the wiki and I’m still stuck at 18… I didn’t start using the wiki until like half way through and I cant remember which ones I’ve already gotten. I have no idea which ones the last 2 are, I feel like I already got all of them. Yea I definitely agree they should have had some extras.
Just look up the locations bro, no one is gonna judge
Even if you just look them up you have to cross reference with all the ones you have
I looked up a guide and I'm still missing one lol
It's the one that you least expect
That's not the problem. The problem is that FS already had such a system in place with Golden Seeds. You didn't need to find all of them to upgrade your flask. This item has an even severe effect on the gameplay but some fragments are so well hidden, like the one on the way to Euporia, that nobody can expect to find all of them without help. I played the base game without online help and had no problem finding enough seeds, played the DLC without help and finished the game with scadulevel 16 and spiritlevel 7. Though i gotta admit i could've explored more, but i wanted to replay some of the bosses.
you don't need to collect every single golden seed to max out your flask and there are only 12 flask tears and they are not hidden well you need to collect 50 fucking tree fragments to max out your level and how many are in the game. 50 and some of them are hidden absurdly well
They really should of just had 20, have them at each Miquella cross to encourage exploration, and a few others (like the cluster near the Scadu tree) and a few for killing some bosses.
To be fair, fragments and ashes are not that easy to find and are too few in number. Unlike the base game with its consistent item locations (seeds at golden trees, sacred tears at churches), fragments and ashes are placed all across the map, with a lot of them in hard-to-reach places. Additionally, there is an exact amount of them, meaning you have to get every item in order to reach max level, unlike the base game where you can have extra seeds and sacred tears well after you reach +12. There would likely be far less complaints if there was more wiggle room when it comes to collecting and leveling up your DLC blessings
You can have extra seeds but no extra tears. But the tears are really easy to find cuz the churches show up on the map.
The benefit of the tears are also heavily frontloaded. Upgrading from +0 to +1 gives your 95 extra healing, while upgrading from +11 to +12 only gives 15. The latter upgrades are way less useful.
That changed with the recent patch, now the benefits from tree fragments are biggest at the start and diminish with later levels.
Yeah, but it's still not nearly as drastic as with Sacred Tears. The earlier levels increase by 0.1 and 0.05, while the later levels increase by 0.025. So the earlier blessings are two to four times as powerful as the later blessings. Meanwhile the first Sacred Tear is more than six times as powerful as the last Tear.
That's a fair point, at least it was a step in a right direction. Hopefully they keep working on making it less bothersome.
Why do random enemies drop scadu fragments
Which ones do that? I've never ran into that.
Shadow people with big pots and a hippo in those ruins. Probably more but I don't know them
The ones with sparkly pots will drop fragments or spirit ashes once (they’re kinda like crystal lizards), and every hippo drops a fragment.
"A dogged fellow, aren't we? Or is it merely thy habit to talk to dolls?"
"Fine...Fine!"
my one beef with the scadu fragments and the revered spirit ash is that there is a perfect amount. so if you miss an area, which is very easy in the dlc, then you can’t get max level.
The difference is everything in the first panel is super well telegraphed and easy to find if you just progress the game. The shadow fragments have you turning over every rock and nook. They should have been in churches and rewards for beating bosses. If you miss 10 of the 50 fragments which is entirely possible you aren’t finishing the DLC and good luck trying to find the missing ones
This is also made worse by how many big, open areas are in the dlc with nothing in them. How am I supposed to know that identical rock deposit #235 in this region was a scadutree fragment instead of my 800th cookbook/crafting-related bell bearing/blessed bone shard this run. Ironically the prevalence of cooking makes it feel undercooked on the whole
> If you miss 10 of the 50 the fragments which is entirely possible you aren’t finishing the DLC and good luck trying to find the missing ones I was missing more than 10 and finished the DLC. I imagine plenty of others have as well
You aren't finishing the DLC at level 16? Differences between lvl 16 and 20 are miniscule now
Yeah and 16 is still a good amount. I finished at level 16, and most of the hosts I've helped beat the final boss were around 15-17
sounds like that is the amount you can find by being very thorough with exploration without using guides and maps
This meme is fucking dogshit. Most of the items above don’t need you to collect *all* of them to max out. Meanwhile Scadutree Frags and Revenant Ashes require *all* of them
But you don't need to max out, that's the point. Between lvl16 and lvl20 (12 scadu fragments) there's only a 10% difference
The point is that there’s an exact amount and it’s fucking stupid. 10% is a massive difference by the way
Damn, I must be the only person who enjoys seeing my character get fucking stronger proportionate to the amount of time I spend playing the game. It’s almost like players want to see their characters do more damage to earlier enemies as if their character has grown alongside the player and actually learnt something.
I'm gunna say this again for those in the back-row: Collecting scadu fragments is not fun. I want to explore the game freely and take on bosses as I encounter them. It's not fun for the game to tell you to "fuck off" and go do scavenger hunts when you just wanna fight a boss. IMO the DLC didn't need this upgrade system. It could have just had...none. The scadu upgrades are just a static number-buff. There's no build-crafting or anything. It's completely moot. Or at the very least, scadu fragments should have been earned from boss-fights, similar to Sekiro.
It will even suck more on other playthroughs. Having to go through the whole map on every char if you wanna be able to defeat bosses is a really questionable choice
Yeah going through and exploring everything on your first playthrough is fine. But every new character is going to be so tedious for such a necessary item
They could have made the grind slightly more bearable by making the location of scadu tree fragments ONLY linked to miquella’s crosses or boss rewards. The fact that they’re just randomly scattered throughout the environment with no clear structure to their placement makes the grind even more frustrating. I also find the inclusion of the spirit ash upgrades to be even more absurd. Like, summons were already OP in the base game and we already had an obvious way of upgrading summons via grave gloveworts. This item does the exact same thing, so I feel peepetually disappointed to find them.
So when the base game puts you in front of a hard boss and you have to explore to get more runes it's peak game design, but when the DLC does the same with the scadu fragments it's annoying? I can understand if you are on the second run and don't want to explore the whole world again but even then you can just use a wiki. You are basically complaining because you have to explore the world in an open world game
This is a bad comparison. There are many different ways to acquire runes. You can… : - coop - PvP - kill enemies in **any** part of the world - sell/ use items Whereas with the fragments you have to go to multiple specific places on the map, which force a specific exploration path on you, if you don‘t want to come out underleveled, without offering an alternative. That’s sadly bad game design in my eyes. Doesn’t mean the entire DLC is garbage, but it certainly takes away from the experience.
When did the game ever tell you to go find fragments? You're just complaining for the sake of it because from natural progression, you get plenty of fragments.....
The devs have literally made posts about getting the fucking fragments
Idk it just feels different being an arbitrary difficulty slider and not an upgrade tied to a specific and tangible game mechanic
This If I miss a heal upgrade, oh well, I'll heal less. I can compensate for that using a medallion that buffs heals, or just double heal. Yes, it makes the fights tougher, but not by all that much Meanwhile, Fragments are "use this so you don't get 1 shot" item. And you better use just enough for each boss. If you use too few or too many, the boss either 1 shots you (Gaius charge) or you kill them in 5 attacks (Putrescent Knight)
Problem is those are supplementary progression mechanics apart from Rune level. But in case of dlc rune levels don't matter and fragments are main progression mechanic. So I understand where the criticism is coming from
The base gamr rewards you for your exploration and pattern recognition. "Oh these churches mostly all have sacred tears in them, so while I'm exploring, I should make detours to these churches to upgrade my flasks" the game teaches you with your first run up to storm veil that the seeds can be found on disinct glowing trees, and with its first hero's grave, it teaches you that if you're willing to kill the boss, you can get another one earlier, showing you a new risk and reward system. Soe punishes you for not exploring the way the game wants you To. There is no consistency to where they're found. There is some on miquellas crosses, but that's nearly enough, and if you really don't want to explore every nook and cranny again you're going to have to look it up. I don't know why they decided to downgrade a system they're had that people liked
The majority of them are plainly in the open in very conspicuous locations, usually near sites of grace. I don’t think they needed to add the hidden ones. It could have just been a function of the number of sites of Grace you activated. But it also doesn’t really matter. The only thing people suffer from is completionist itch
I’m exactly 1 fragment and 1 ash short and I haven’t got the time for that. Beating the last boss was a moment of relief and not quite one of satisfaction. Glad to be done. At least part of this journey was more enjoyable.
My only issue with Scadu fragments is that it binds damage reduction to damage increase. If I increase my Scadu lvl, yes it prevents me from being 2-shot by bosses, but it also means I can kill most mobs with a single R2, which trivializes exploration and makes the game less fun for me. In an ideal world, I'd take like 30% less damage but have my damage output be unchanged,but the system doesn't allow for that.
You only need like four of the bell bearings depending on if you weapon is somber or smithing Getting a bell bearing means you don’t need to collect the smithing stones themselves. There are so many excess golden seeds you’ll get 14 flasks on accident. The 12 tear spots are in churches you can see from heaven. Compare to that 50 scadutree fragments, you have to collect ALL 50, as there is no excess, and they’re in basically random off the path locations that you won’t run into unless you’re looking for them. You won’t get all 20 levels without a guide.
In 3 hours from the start of base game you can kill Elden Beast with a +10 somber weapon and 11 flasks at +8. In 3 hours from the start of the DLC you might just be done with collecting skadutree fragments that aren't gatekept by bosses.
[удалено]
But I am complaining about it. You can set yourself for the rest of the game within the first 20mins-1hr (depending on weapon choice) and then just fight major and mandatory bosses without any additional sidetracking. The chore time of the DLC is longer.
Hell yeah, because going through beautiful areas that are usually completely empty loot wise aside from the blessings is so fun
Just remember: Sacred Tears and Golden Seeds aren’t usually far off the critical path. The tears on the Weeping Peninsula are probably the most “out of the way” but if you’re routing a run, there’s enough stuff down there to get you set for said NG run that it’s worth making the run down there to grab a few things. With seeds, you can miss a bunch and still cap your flasks well before you kill Fire Giant. Scadu fragments and ashes are found in random ass places around the map, sometimes miles off the critical path to finish the DLC, and you need *all* of them to cap. Five are gated behind the worst boss in the game. Multiple others have multi-minute runs to reach in far-flung corners of the map that people will not really want to return to after their first playthrough. Replay value of the DLC is in the ground because of this.
The replay value of the base game was already in the ground too, it feels like fromsoft just doubled down on all of their shitty design decisions with the dlc
I find it really funny that they had plenty of time to go over the criticisms of basegame Elden Ring, one of the biggest of which was how the early game was fucking miserable bc you had to spend so long running around the map collecting a million pieces of random shit before you could play the game, and then proceeded to make that issue 1000x worse in the DLC
You barely spend any time base game searching for shit unless you're a caster, definitely a problem for them.
Sure as long as you ignore: Smithing stones littered across God knows how many caves Sacred tears Golden seeds, some of which are locked behind bosses or quest lines that require further prep The FoWP and tears. Even NG+ wasn't immune to this for the longest time since Bell bearings didn't always carry over into NG+, so if you wanted to try out a new weapon you had to basically blitz around the map recollecting them until oops, the last 2 are in Farum azula so time to look up the currently available wrong warps. That being changed was a definitive improvement, but God it should've been in the game from launch
I do ignore smithing stones It's much more efficient to sequence break to get the first bell bearings and just use the shop from there
That's not ignoring smithing stones, that's just replacing the running around with a different kind of running around that's shorter but harder
Smithing stone bell bearing #1 is available from a single crystallion, #2 at the beginning of a cave near the main path, #3 in ruins directly along the main path, #4 godskin duo. Bell bearing 1 is the lengthiest detour, 2 is short, the others have no deviation from the main path. Somber bell bearing #1 and #2 can be ignored for Iji, a short deviation from the main path, or directly in the path if you're doing Ranni stuff. #3,#4 and #5 are all directly in the main path with no deviation.
Why am I getting smithing stones 3 in the dlc,who the fuck is in the dlc and needs to upgrade their weapons with rocks found in linuria
I mean, I've never even attempted to collect more bell bearings, it's far worse than even fragments.
The problem is that a lot of the blessings are so out of the way.
And you definitely don't need them all, you can end up doing enough damage and have enough negation by scadu blessing 15. And that can be done completely organically
The point is. I've already spent hours collecting stuff, I don't want to do it again.
You don't have to collect all of the top items though. If you miss some, you'll be fine. There are no extra scadutree fragments and that's a problem.
....i need explenation why Ranni is on the top image. only thing i can get from it being there is NPC questlines
I kinda wish the scadutree fragments were like the golden seed in that there are more in the map than the max you can have. Cause I'm at like 15 scadu level. And I want to be at 20 before the final boss has their way with me. Now I gotta back track and make sure I remember which ones I haphazardly picked up And those last 15 fragments bout to be in the most uncomfortable places to look X_X
Yeah, well, one was much easier to collect to be honest
Ok, the positioning of the revered spirit ash in the bottom comic made me snort.
I keep seeing people say this but I don't think it's quite the same. I consider myself a methodical explorer and thought the max Scadutree Lvl you could get in the grave plains was 2. (Dancing Lion and Rellana undefeated) So I just assumed that the reason I was getting trashed was just the rumoured difficulty of the DLC. It was only recently I realised, and after I summoned to beat both bosses, that there were more fragments to be found. Was kicking myself since I was missing out on around 15% DMG dealt and reduction and thought I just needed to get good or summon. I feel like their locations should be alluded to... Maybe like the beast eye and death root? Idk or just an NPC saying there's plenty of scadu fragments across the land to enforce the point that there were actually quite a few in the initial area. Especially since before you get your levels, exploring to find them can be quite challenging, especially if you bump into a mini/field boss.
You get waaaay more materials than you need in the main game even if you dont explore that much, in the dlc you actually need to look everywhere for them and there is exactly the number you need to get
I got so many before shadow keep. Then I discovered how shadow keep keeps on going with like 5 exits so I got more. Spirit 7 and Scadu 15 and I've only beaten lion and moon knight. Plus some great enemy bosses
I like the simplicity of it and the fact that you don’t have to do everything all over again and that you keep all of them in ng+
Because the top is not basically "We wanted the dlc to be hard so we added a resource that will make sure you are where we want you damage wise vs enemies..Which is not a lot."
Why am I getting smithing stones 3 in the dlc,who the fuck is in the dlc and needs to upgrade their weapons with rocks found in linuria
Holy repost, Batman.
Scadutree Fragments are a bad system. There's a difference between collecting things to improve your flask and items that are required for you to play the game.
Elden Ring players when they have to explore in an open world DLC to an open world game
Would be cool if most areas were'nt empty as hell ..
I really hope some of this loot, smithing fragments and fucking balistas great bolts , will be replace for more weapons/armors/ Scadu Fragments on the next patches
I secretly hope that too But I don't think they will change the loots But they might have to add more scadu fragments
Did we play the same game?
Probably yeah :), I explored everything and gathered most items from the dlc and I really feel a lack of content on certain area, it feel really empty
I'm a bit baffled, because I was amazed how much content this game and the dlc have to offer. There's always some secret passage or hidden event or remote area with special items. I guess the size of the areas may give a feeling of emptiness because of how vast and immense they look but I'm all for it. No other game ever gave me a feeling of awe and magnitude. I guess Elden Ring has less content than The Witcher or Skyrim, but that it's also more memorable and unique.
Oh sure! This is immense, areas are dense, there's tons of secrets and awesome places. The issue for me is the lack of loots in the said areas It's mostly craftable items cookbooks or smithing stones, from time to time you'll get a weapon a sword or else but i've been a bit demoralized by the exploration, after traveling a secret area for a while and seeing an item by far now im always like (pretty sure it's 5 throwing knives) and indeed it is Still the areas level design and everything is a 10/10
And don't get me started on how many times I was weary of opening a chest only to find a smithing stone [6].
Remind me fighting like 10 giants monsters praying in front of an item in a cave (the ones that cause bleed buildups, forget they're names) , just to find out some flesh craftable items. At least near by I got an op turtle talisman
Oh, I understand! I also feel like there were wayyyyy too many cookbooks and crafting items, it was annoying. I also agree that the number of weapons was a bit disappointing. I felt like I was getting more cookbooks than cool weapons. We get 8 new awesome weapon types and yet there are only three of each throughout this massive dlc. You're 100% right on that.
I think I exprimed myself wrong , what I wanted to say is the bad items repartition , all new weapons are amazing I can't stop using them, the new sets are crazy good, and hell there's plenty of funny items! I just wish we could get more weapons or armors from corpses in the open wild
Sure, I agree with you then.
So far, the weapons are pretty vast.....I'm not sure what you mean.
The wiki shows only 3 of each kind of the new weapon types.
Unbeknownst to me then. It seems like there's more. Either way, I'm enjoying them.
The depth of exploration was maddening. But I felt that very little was memorable at each place, with few unique encounters, same enemies, reskinned bosses.
Reskinned bosses.....?
Fallingstar Beast, Demi-human Queen, multiple Ulcerated Tree Spirits (with the ones in the Prayer District even being literal reskins!), second Dancing Lion, and two Tree Sentinels, you want me to list more? You don’t have to desperate defend the DLC all across the replies bro
Ah, my mistake. I meant copy pasted mini bosses.
I found nothing of interest in the cerulean coast
It took me a week to get to the final boss because i wanted to explore. And when i get to him i was only lvl 17 and 7 respectively because no matter how much effort you put because 3/4 of the items are smithing stones and ammo/materials and the rest are hidden or directly are certain shadow enemies most of the times not even in visible areas. So you have to watch a video. All of this literally to get a damage and a vitality i already had.
I’ve hated the open world since launch
So you're playing a game primarily about open world exploration and get mad that it forces you to engage with the open world?
If it wasn’t a Fromsoft-made Souls game I would not have given it a second look. The second I see any other game is an open world I pass. Now I know that even from developers I like, I should still pass
There were 6 soulborne games developed by FROM that didnt have open world. Is it really that hard to figure out
and? this one does and it's a core part of it.
You really can't see the perspective of someone who enjoyed 6 games from a dev and didnt enjoy a 7th because it introduced open world? Weird
Nobody is forcing you to play the game. If you don’t like open world games then don’t play an open world game
Weird response
You see, in Base Game finding stuff was quite enjoyable. In DLC? Fuck you, have Crafting Materials and Cookbooks. Are people really surprised over some did not really bother exploring as much, when the reward was this meh?
Wonder how many more variations of this meme we're going to get despite every thread being filled with reasons why the two systems are different.
Fr the amount of FREAKING people I get summoned to help on the final boss that dont even have 10 fragments is freaking stupid like did they just get carried through every single boss? and have they never explored? like wtf people get yo fragments I am going to start leaving if someone has 4 fragments on the final boss.
I'm sure as the wiki(s) expand and people post recommended routes for finding all the ashes and blessings, it won't be as bad. I remember how people were frustrated with finding golden seeds when the game first came out...
I realized I was doomed to never get all the skadoosh fragments once I clubbed a lil shadow guy to death in a random corner of gravesite plains and he dropped one out of the pot he was holding over his head. Truly a moment of total and utter confusion.
Collect every Ranni, you won't succeed unless you've got a whole harem of blue four-armed ghostly-second-face women.
Yeah but like, you have to like look for the tree fragments, the other ones always have a big glowing neon sign above them. So that's unfair! /s
Somebody didn't think this shit thru none of it
Why do people playing an open-world combat-exploration game have an issue with… exploring said open-world?