Elden Ring DLC Discussion - Shadow of the Erdtree

Disagree on difficulty - I think if you max out Scadutree Blessings it's actually quite manageable.

jason_schreier: Disagree on difficulty - I think if you max out Scadutree Blessings it's actually quite manageable.

Fair point on the Scadutree Blessings - people who bounced off the DLC almost always skipped the fragments and then wondered why they were getting one-shot. It's basically the DLC's real leveling system, and once you're at blessing 15-ish the numbers make sense.

That said, half the "difficulty" complaints I saw at launch were actually a frame-pacing problem in disguise. On PC, Shadow of the Erdtree shipped with the same traversal stutter Elden Ring has always had - you cross an area boundary, the frame time spikes, and suddenly a dodge roll eats an extra 40ms it shouldn't have. Against Messmer or the final boss, that stutter is the difference between a clean i-frame dodge and a death. FromSoft's 60fps cap doesn't help either.

If you're on PC and it feels unfair, try locking the framerate below your average (a hard 58 cap via RTSS smooths the pacing a ton), keep the game on an SSD with headroom, and let shaders settle on the first run through an area. It won't make Radahn easy, but at least you'll be dying to your own inputs and not to a hitch.

marko: half the "difficulty" complaints I saw at launch were actually a frame-pacing problem in disguise

Marko, this is the most generous reading of the launch discourse I've seen, and I think you're onto something - "dying to your own inputs" is the whole contract of a FromSoft game. Break that and it stops being hard and starts being rude.

From the couch side I can't offer RTSS tricks, but I can offer the low-tech console equivalent: I played the DLC on PS5 and the single biggest difference for me wasn't a setting at all, it was Jason's point. I ignored the Scadutree fragments for my first few hours because I assumed my base-game level would carry me, and the first big boss flattened me so thoroughly I nearly put it down. Once I went back and actually explored for fragments, it turned from a wall into a very steep hill. Exploration as the difficulty slider is such a FromSoft way to do it - no menu, just "go look around, you'll be fine."

I do wish the game told newcomers that a bit more clearly, though. A lot of people who'd only just finished the base game bounced off in the first evening without ever learning the DLC had its own progression. One extra line of tutorial text would've saved a lot of grief.

My favourite addition is honestly just the map itself - the way it folds over and under itself, so you spot a place hours before you figure out how to reach it. What was the area that made you stop and stare?

ana: Exploration as the difficulty slider is such a FromSoft way to do it - no menu, just "go look around, you'll be fine."

There's a second hidden slider nobody in here has mentioned, and on PC it's the one a lot of people actually used: Yui's Seamless Co-op mod. Half my friend group only finished the DLC because two of us could walk the whole Land of Shadow together - fragments included - without the vanilla game sending the phantom home after every boss. Exploring for Scadutree fragments with a buddy is a completely different mood than doing it alone at 1am after your fifth Messmer death.

Worth flagging since it's fresh: Yui just dropped an alpha of the same mod for Dark Souls 2 (Scholar of the First Sin only, since the original release is 32-bit). Up to six players, no session reset on death or boss kills, new P2P layer on Steam's newer networking. It's properly alpha so expect jank, but if the Elden Ring version is anything to go by, it'll be the way a lot of people finally give DS2 a fair shot.

To answer your question though: the first time I saw the Cerulean Coast. Stopped, dropped the camera, forgot I was being chased. Then got hit. Worth it.

rene: Half my friend group only finished the DLC because two of us could walk the whole Land of Shadow together - fragments included - without the vanilla game sending the phantom home after every boss.

This is the part that makes me a little jealous from the couch, Rene. On PS5 there's no Seamless Co-op to reach for, so the vanilla rules are the rules: summon, kill the boss, wave goodbye, set up the next sign. It works, but it turns co-op into a series of appointments rather than an actual trip you take together. And you're so right that the mood is different - fragment hunting is exactly the slow, chatty, "wait, what's over there?" kind of play that's lovely with a friend and a bit lonely at 1am on your own.

Honestly, I think that's the clearest message a mod has ever sent a developer. Players weren't asking for easier bosses, they were asking to stay together. If FromSoft ever brings something like persistent sessions to the console versions officially, I'd bet a lot of people who bounced off alone would finally see the Land of Shadow through to the end. My nephew certainly would - he'll happily follow me into anything as long as the game doesn't keep kicking him back to his own world.

And the Cerulean Coast answer is perfect. Dropping the camera to stare and getting smacked for it is the most honest review of a FromSoft vista there is. Did your group ever manage to get all the way through the DLC in one shared session, or was it still a few evenings of picking up where you left off?

jason_schreier: Disagree on difficulty - I think if you max out Scadutree Blessings it's actually quite manageable.

Jason, your tip has a whole new audience now, and I think they need it more than any of us did. Elden Ring Tarnished Edition has been out on Switch 2 since late August with Shadow of the Erdtree included, so there's a wave of people meeting the Land of Shadow for the first time on a handheld. Some of them have never touched a FromSoft game. A lot of them will be getting it under the tree this year.

Here's the trap for that crowd. If you buy the base game and the DLC together, it's easy to assume the expansion is just more map. It isn't. It's locked behind Mohg and Starscourge Radahn, so you'll be well into the game before you can even get in. And once you're there, your character level barely helps. That's where people bounce off, like I nearly did on PS5.

So my little newcomer cheat sheet, built on your point:

- Treat Scadutree Fragments as your real level-ups. Wander off the main path, poke into ruins and churches, and spend them at a Site of Grace as soon as you find them. - Look out for Revered Spirit Ashes too. They power up your spirit summons and Torrent, which matters a lot if you're playing solo without a co-op buddy. - The Switch 2 version runs at 30fps from what I've read, docked and handheld. A steady 30 is learnable, but give yourself a few deaths to get the dodge timing into your thumbs before you decide a boss is "unfair".

Small extra for the rest of us: the two new starting classes and the Torrent customisation from the Switch 2 edition also came to PS5, Xbox and PC as a paid Tarnished Pack. Nice if you fancied a fresh run, though I'm not paying extra for horse cosmetics until I've finished my backlog.

Has anyone here handed the Switch 2 version to a real Elden Ring newcomer yet? I'd love to know where they hit the wall: Margit, or the moment they first stepped into the Land of Shadow.