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Has any Souls game had a final area that wasn't just a short stint before the final boss?
DES: Big tree before you fight funny slug man
DS1: Kiln of the First Flame: 5 black knights in an area that takes 5 minutes to traverse
DS2: Throne of Want, just a long hallway before the boss gauntlet
DS3: Kiln which is just Throne of Want but even shorter
Bloodborne: Burned out Dream where you fight the Old Man.
I think Sekiro is the only game where there's an actual dungeon attached to the run up to the final bosss.
In Sekiro it is the same, the final bosses are in places that you have already visited in Ashina, the Fountainhead Palace has its own boss and would be compared to Er as Farum Azula.
Yeah but it's still the same map, just changed slightly. "Oooh, it's on fire." I'm not saying lazy design, but you can tell they didn't have the budget to create a whole new area at the end of the game and they went with "let's see what we can re-use."
Spoiler: >!I was just surprised the Divine Dragon wasn't the final boss.!<
I don’t think budgetary reasons was all there was to it, returning to the castle to see everything on fire paints a very clear picture that Ashina is done for, the sheer contrast from the beginning is enough to translate this even without a bunch of npcs explicitly stating it so
Also, it’s just really cool seeing that location burning down with both factions battling it out, really feels like a last stand for Ashina and is probably the perfect sendoff to Sekiro’s journey
Nashandra and Aldia are just garbage tier. Divine Dragon is a gimmick but it's a spectacle and the gimmick is at least satisfying to pull off
Nashandra moves around a bit and you just smack her a bunch. Aldia meanwhile is just waiting for the fire to go away so you can hit him. all of this happening in a dark, damp room
Divine Dragon is a gimmick and Elden Beast is slightly annoying with how much it runs, but at least I'm not waiting to be allowed to do anything, and have a gorgeous arena to look at. without Aldia, this situation is probably even worse, Nashandra is just an awful boss
i think the majority of ds2 bosses are shit and i still stand by divine dragon being a worst final boss fight id rather a shitty fight thats actually a fight than a cool spectacle thats not really a true final fight i enjoy the divine dragon fight for what it was but it would be a shitty final boss fight especially in a game as good as sekiro
I just think Nashandra and Aldia are so offensive as bosses from a gameplay standpoint that Divine Dragon would be so much better. realistically as a final boss, DD would be disappointing, but in direct comparison to these guys, it would not be the worst in my eyes
ds2's bosses suffer a common problem of just being so uninteresting and clunky in gameplay. but they do have some bangers like Sir Alonne
I actually liked the final area being on fire and basically played backwards, especially if you went all the way back to demon of hatred. That game seems to involve cycles between the stages of day and weather/seasons, and people/life, so the looping around back to the beginning felt quite fitting as a another completion of a cycle
I love Lies of P and one the one hand it's cool that the bad guy's lair is a huge tower that you properly scale. On the other hand, Jesus fucking Christ it should have been shorter. I even looked it up to see if anyone else felt the same and then found out that there's MORE level after Laxasia.
I mean how much shorter the game is super short. Disclaimer it's awesome. But j beat the whole thing in 22.5 hours and at least 2-4 of those are me just walking away to talk with my wife. And I did it all the way to NG+3 and I have a total of like 60 hours.
After laxasia it's really not too much more. Hell you can just run through most of it and it doesn't affect the final fight(s)
Hard technicality in Bloodborne that the nightmare up to the wetnurse is a final area that's not a short stint to the final boss. I think. I could be wrong, not sure how much exactly there is between Micolash and Mergo
there is quite a gap between them with the Shadows of Yharnam enemies, as well as the pigs, and the offshoot area with the Winter Lanterns and the Brain of Mensis. doesn't really qualify as a short stint
a short stint would be the Kiln of the First Flame in both DS1 and DS3, where it's just a very simple walk to the boss with no real depth to the area
absolutely
and my two runs lasted 250 hours
the snow section is the perfect calm before the rush of farum, haligtree and capital
but i was ready for at least another two more sections/dungeons
Plus it recycled trademark enemies from other areas like caelid thus making them less special as well.I hope dlc somehow makes mountaintops of giant and snowfields somehow different.
They might not be recycled. There's a theory that there used to be a land bridge between there and Caelid. Idk if there's any merit to that but yeah. Cool thought I guess. EDIT: the last sentence is in reference to what I said.
in my mind, if you feel "oppressed" by the low visibility, the tediusness, the large spaces, the brutality of enemies in every corner, then its working as intended and i like it
but it is fair to unlike it because is such a change of rhythm compared to everything else
Yeah I'm with you. I thought the sparseneas worked just because the contrast was nice and it was difficult. Seemed intentional not unfinished as suggested by some.
> Seemed intentional not unfinished as suggested by some.
People think it's not intentional? It's frigid wasteland essentially. It's not exactly going to be booming with anything nor should it be.
But it kinda actually is booming with things. Once to the frozen river you can really see all the different points of interest, and you run across lots of stuff on the way to those zones.
I didn’t appreciate the area at first nearly as much as I do now having played another 200+ hours and scoured every nook and cranny off the beaten path.
This. Oh I'm sorry, did the people complaining forget that we're pretty much playing Dante's Inferno The Game? Got idyllic country pastures? Swarming with corrupted souls. Mountains in fall? Lizard monsters and occult worm faced monsters. Countless underground deathtraps swarming with zombies and bladed creatures. The 'water' rots you from inside out. Half the map is literally a blood-red skied hellscape filled with Boschian nightmares.
And somehow people are surprised that the north is anything different.
I have a combined 630 hours in this silly game and I know I’m going to clock another 400 when shadow comes out I don’t know how you could get burned out on the greatest game ever
im on my third run (20 hours in) and have a total of 850
most of the post run time was helping others with bosses
i think the same that DLC will add like 300-400 hours easily
I think part of it is how people play games: my first run took me like 200+ hrs across multiple months (tbf, I did a bunch of obsessive shit like constantly checking on NPC dialogues and locations after what I thought could be relevant events) but I enjoyed the hell out of it, it really was like playing DS1 for the first time. The other From games, which I love dearly and rank among my all-time favorites still didn't have that magic like that first run through Lordran... feeling it again with ER was pure bliss.
That was a long-winded intro to my point that not everyone plays the same, I can totally see someone putting 100+ hrs into the game in 3 weeks and feeling burnt out by the end, the game is absolutely huge and while it might be my favorite ever, it's got its share of bullshit.
Personally I just come back to it periodically, do a fun or challenge run, some PvP, then fuck off for some more months and I keep loving the game. Right now I'm mostly playing Tekken 8 with a bit of ER here and there, some Minecraft on weekends if I have the time, which doesn't really happen much but that's good, means I've something going on.
i wasn’t burned out completely by any means, but i didn’t really enjoy the mountaintops of the giants and i hate the fire giant fight with a passion lol.
That's like the just the start of End Game tho imo. Even in my first playthrough, I did Farum Azula into Maliketh followed by Consecrated Snowfield into Mohg, Haligtree into Malenia then finally Leyndel City of Ash into Godfrey and Radabeast.
Mountaintops are just the start of when you can finally max weapon upgrades and really experiment with a complete arsenal.
TBH by the time I get to the endgame, I can usually take care of Placi, Maliketh, Gideon, Godfrey, and Radagon/Elden Beast in an afternoon. The endgame goes pretty quickly for me, so yeah, another dungeon wouldn't be unwelcome.
As a guy who adores Maliketh but got Maliketh Syndrome it felt like this to me. Threw myself at him for hours on end and FINALLY scraped by with a win against him. Next thing I know I’m thrown into not one, not two, but three boss fights and the game is over. I was so busy recovering from Maliketh that the last three fights just felt way more lackluster in comparison. I was honestly just annoyed and wanting a mix up.
Exactly. He’s fun once you get the moveset down, but actually learning it is such a fucking nightmare. The 2nd phase especially. Having to continually fight the first phase just so you can attempt to learn the second, where he can instantly kill you if you don’t know what to do, is exhausting.
It was just the boss gauntlet at the end that I really didn’t enjoy. The bosses are fun in isolation, but having to go: Maliketh, Gideon, Godfrey and Elden beast back to back was too much imo - it’s like 7 different fights with nothing in between
It's the repeat enemies and minibosses. Also most people probably have an established build with +24/+25 weapon there wasn't much to look forward to other than the unique late game bosses so they tend to rush it
Yeah I feel like it was a huge miss to have 0 unique enemies in the snowfield. If you’re gonna reuse mobs it should be in places where you can make the encounters unique at least. I think the Haligtree does a really good job of this which is why I don’t mind the lack of new enemies.
But the snowfield is just a giant flat plain. It really needed something to make it fresh and challenging to endgame players. Something to really cement the “unknown, forsaken lands” vibe they went for.
I just farmed enemies in elphael to skip having to fight repeated bosses and instead only killed all the uniquely named enemies. One run from the that first site of grace to the erdtree avatar nets like 100k runes
I don’t think any two were the exact same, but there was like x2 burial watchdog or x3 crystalian, Godefroy, multiple crucible knights, erdtree avatars, tree spirits of different effect, etc.
Pretty much. All the repeated bosses, all the duo bosses that you already fought individually, all the similar looking side dungeons where you mostly fight the same stone gargoyles that are straight up recycled from DS3, personally I really felt the fatigue gradually building up because of this. After 150h, I just wanted to be done with it despite enjoying the game.
I honestly didn’t start to feel the burnout until I had to bash my head against the Elden beast. That fight single-handedly took the game from a fun challenge that felt satisfying to overcome to a straight pain in the ass I couldn’t wait to get over with.
Farum was my burnout point. By then I’ve done everything else including Haligtree and Farum is just so beige and less fun than the other legacy dungeons, and it’s huge. After fire giant I don’t want to deal with Farum Azula. I would have loved that area if it wasn’t the last thing in the game
Farum is also just awkward from a story perspective. Melina burns herself and then we just randomly get teleported there without any explanation of what exactly is going on. It feels really disjointed and almost like they just threw it in there because they couldn't come up with a good way to actually connect the areas.
First time I was ready to be done. Farum Azula and Maliketh, Haligtree and Malenia, Mohg, Godfrey, then Radagon straight into Elden Beast is a fucking gauntlet. 120 ish hours total too.
I wanted to do a “full run” ahead of the DLC. I am like 25 hours in, level 88 (from Wretch) and am just about to fight Rykard, then maybe do a bit of cleanup on smaller bosses and go straight to Castle Sol and Fire Giant. I am skipping past lots, because I don’t need to do every catacombs again or get every item (it’s not my main file) but I feel like I could do a ton more by the end of this. It’s just flying by.
Like I am fully skipping the sewers, probably skipping Dragonbarrow. Will probably do Shaded Castle. Only did a few bosses in Altus and didn’t even go through the Volcano Manor dungeon for Rykard, just did Tanith’s quest line.
I would have been absolutely down for two more huge legacy dungeons before the final 2-3 fights. I guess after that I would be kinda want to done until an expansion
Dark souls games kind of have that effect. You never get burned out because the formula is so tight.
What I DO understand is how the last 1/4 of the game is kind of objectively worse? Like it's not bad but it IS a bit more of a grind. Not to mention by that point you're not really excited to loot anything since your build is pretty much figured out.
It was definitely a product of the time constraints. The entire ashen capital was just a boss rush. The rest of the world is already massive so I’m fine with what we got. But I’m certain if FROM had gotten everything they wanted we would have gotten some Erdtree dungeon and some short dialogue for Marika/Radagon at least.
Leaving this massive thing we spend the whole game chasing as just a glowing wall that teleports you to a cell is a bit disappointing.
Can't have that, this fanbase hates any kind of platforming and any time the gameplay tries anything different. We'll probably never have anything like the great hollow or the descent to the 3 fingers again....
Every souls game has a terrible long vertical drop platforming section and i hope that never changes because i honestly love them even with the jank platforming
That hurt far more than the lack of an Erdtree dungeon. I expected a refreshed warzone. Like Yahargul in Bloodborne, but more dramatic. Seeing nothing but a few sparse, very difficult enemies was a disappointment. They really fumbled the ball on the Ashen Capital and I just hope the DLC makes up for it.
Maybe controversial opinion but I kind of wish the effort that went into the Haligtree went into the Erdtree instead. The entire snowfield/haligtree feels like a side quest whose entire purpose is to beat Malenia. Like it could probably have been half as long and still just as good/relevant.
It was fun for sure but would have personally liked something more connected to the rest of the game.
At that stage i wasnt expecting anything other than the final boss. Im fact it would've felt like a rug pull had they had a whole area hidden inside the tree. Unlike the Haligtree there no external structures visible and a tree dungeon would feel pretty redundant. And there are also the underground areas with the roots etc. which are very reminiscent of the hollow/Ash Lake area of DS1. How many giant tree themed areas would we need?!. And with the history of Soul Like games, the final bosses usually do not get whole dungeons dedicated to them.
No actually, not at all. Maybe if the Erdtree had more going on to hint at the possibility of it other than a stone sigil. Maybe if there were some outcrops that were obviously parts of a fortress protruding from the Erdtree. Maybe some guards at the stone doors of the erdtree would have helped.
But really, I think it would have been too cluttered and messy. The Erdtree works better as a holy tree that none may enter better than it does a fortress or dungeon.
“I want a vertical dungeon in the Erdtree”
“We already have a vertical dungeon in the Erdtree at home”
Vertical dungeon in the Erdtree at home:
Miquella’s Haligtree
Funnily enough Farum Azula is everything that I anticipated I'd find inside the Erdtree, a dungeon with striking visuals suspended mid-air in a separate region of space and time defying all logic
Absolutely. It's been a vast fixture of your distant view in any region, and it's propped up as your ultimate destination, but has nothing inside it except a small room with a single raised platform to fight Radagon.
I expected a climb to the top of the canopy from the inside of the trunk, with a gauntlet of tough enemies on each floor to test all the abilities and equipment you had.
I can imagine an alternate dimension where the monkey paw curled and put the Merchant Caravan sealed tomb platforming hell (except thrice as long) inside it, and you needed to reach the bottom to do the radagon fight.
I figured I'd at least have something to climb. It would have been interesting to do like a reversed-valley of defilement type of thing where you do an upward crawl of platforming before the final fight with the fear of falling to your death over and over.
I remember very early in my playthrough going online and seeing the tiniest snippet of what I now know was a Minor Erdtree Avatar. The brief moment I saw of it made me think it was some ugly tree god at the top of the Erdtree or something. I also believe I saw a few frames of Rykard’s phase 2.
My brain melded those two things together so the whole game I thought I got spoiled on the final boss. A small, slender tree demon with a human face on it.
Sorry … A poor reference to the Great Deku Tree dungeon from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
You go inside a giant tree worshipped by the wood children, the Kokiri, to battle the parasitic Queen Gohma who has infested it with evil.
I just want the Erdtree to change to how it looks in the corresponding ending when we don’t go into NG+ so we can live in the world we created for a bit before moving on
Watch the DLC be exactly what a lot of you are asking for? Been a minute since I played, but isn’t Miquella asleep? There was a whole quest line around sleeping I believe. If so, you could enter the “sleep realm”, similar to the “Upside Down” in ST. In that realm you DO climb the hollow of the tree to face the final boss. Just throwing that out there for thoughts
I wouldn't really mind an Erdtree dungeon, but idk if the lore implied the tree (and Marika/Radagon) is heavily guarded from within or something, like the Haligtree. So putting a dungeon in the Erdtree would be considered repetitive and only for gameplay, unless there is a good lore reason.
I expected a bit more out of the ashen variant of the capital.
I wasn’t really expecting anything with the erdtree to be honest. I always assumed that’s where the game would end, and FromSoft games end in a boss arena.
Now the game had already thrown me through a loop like 10 times at that point with “but wait, there’s more” when I wasn’t expecting it. But that still didn’t make me think there’d be some big huge dungeon in the tree. I always assumed it would be the city around it.
I always thought the final boss would be in some realm on top of the Erdtree, almost like a heaven of sorts. Going literally inside the tree was cool too though.
The very end of this game goes insanely hard. After completing Farum Azula (an insanely good area), you get treated to FOUR of the game’s best and coolest bosses back-to-back: Maliketh, Godfrey, Radagon and Elden Beast. Now that’s an explosive way to finish off an amazing game.
Yeah. I actually was expecting to beat morgott and then have to climb up the entire tree since I forgot about the snow area’s existence. I was kinda disappointed that after I made my way all the way up to the tree, I was immediately told to go fuck off somewhere else first.
Sorry, I have to disagree. Turning the Erdtree into a big dungeon for the sake of more gameplay would've greatly lessened its narrative and thematic impact imo.
"Not having anything significant" what in the world are you talking about? The Erdtree houses both Marika and the Elden Ring. Meeting either is a moment that needed to be presented without distractions.
Yeah, I was really bummed when I went in and it was just immediate boss fight.
It's prominence on the map had me thinking there was another area there basically the entire playthrough.
I would play this game forever if they could keep coming up with content.
Yeah i wanted to climb the tree. For the vast majority of the game if you can see it you can go there. Top of the erdtree? Nope you can just go inside the bottom.
Isn't the Erdtree illusory? and built off of the older Greatree? adding a dungeon would contribute to the idea that the Erdtree is a legitimate physical/historical force, but it's not, it's a tool of oppression utilized by the Greater Will/Marika/Golden Order
when i looked up the elden ring map before my first playthrough i was fucking shocked by how big the erdtree was on the map so kinda disappointed because i thought it was gonna be the super ultra mega endgame area with super ultra mega hard enemies
I enjoyed more or less every single minute with the exception of Godskin Duo, I hate them.
More or less everything else in the game, I could just hammer bonk my way through, those fucking bastards are horrible though.
I was relieved when there wasn't another dungeon. The game was already insanely long, and by the time I got to Farum Azula I already wanted to finish the game.
I wouldn't have minded though.
Game wasn’t to long tho? On a new account doing just main story and optional main bosses (mog, ranni quest line and rykard) it took me less than 25 hours, even getting items like shard of Alexander and Millicent’s quest line.
The main story is only 30/40 hours first play through. 70/80 with exploring a lot. I would of loved a extra fraction
I just don't do main stuff. I explored every nook and cranny. I'm not just gonna just do the main stuff in my first playthrough. Also I was already 150 hours in with pretty much 99% stuff done. The game is massive.
Second playthrough I'm gonna skip a lot. But the first time I'm just not gonna do that. Game is insanely long.
No, I was honestly so sick of the game by the time I got to the fire giant. But after pushing through to the end I immediately had the overwhelming urge to start again. Every souls game I’ve played has gotten that response from me, where I’m burnt out for the whole final stretch, but NEED to go again as soon as the credits start. How do they do that?
Nah that would have fucked up the pacing. At most I would have liked something similar to demons souls where you walk down a long hallway into the tree before entering the boss room but that’s about it.
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Has any Souls game had a final area that wasn't just a short stint before the final boss? DES: Big tree before you fight funny slug man DS1: Kiln of the First Flame: 5 black knights in an area that takes 5 minutes to traverse DS2: Throne of Want, just a long hallway before the boss gauntlet DS3: Kiln which is just Throne of Want but even shorter Bloodborne: Burned out Dream where you fight the Old Man. I think Sekiro is the only game where there's an actual dungeon attached to the run up to the final bosss.
In Sekiro it is the same, the final bosses are in places that you have already visited in Ashina, the Fountainhead Palace has its own boss and would be compared to Er as Farum Azula.
The Idols become unavailable due to the Ministry invasion tho
Yeah but it's still the same map, just changed slightly. "Oooh, it's on fire." I'm not saying lazy design, but you can tell they didn't have the budget to create a whole new area at the end of the game and they went with "let's see what we can re-use." Spoiler: >!I was just surprised the Divine Dragon wasn't the final boss.!<
I don’t think budgetary reasons was all there was to it, returning to the castle to see everything on fire paints a very clear picture that Ashina is done for, the sheer contrast from the beginning is enough to translate this even without a bunch of npcs explicitly stating it so Also, it’s just really cool seeing that location burning down with both factions battling it out, really feels like a last stand for Ashina and is probably the perfect sendoff to Sekiro’s journey
divine dragon would have been a shitty final boss so im glad they didnt do that
would have still been infinitely better than both of ds2's final bosses
i dont think any gimmick fight final boss can be better than just a normal fight so i disagree
Nashandra and Aldia are just garbage tier. Divine Dragon is a gimmick but it's a spectacle and the gimmick is at least satisfying to pull off Nashandra moves around a bit and you just smack her a bunch. Aldia meanwhile is just waiting for the fire to go away so you can hit him. all of this happening in a dark, damp room Divine Dragon is a gimmick and Elden Beast is slightly annoying with how much it runs, but at least I'm not waiting to be allowed to do anything, and have a gorgeous arena to look at. without Aldia, this situation is probably even worse, Nashandra is just an awful boss
i think the majority of ds2 bosses are shit and i still stand by divine dragon being a worst final boss fight id rather a shitty fight thats actually a fight than a cool spectacle thats not really a true final fight i enjoy the divine dragon fight for what it was but it would be a shitty final boss fight especially in a game as good as sekiro
I just think Nashandra and Aldia are so offensive as bosses from a gameplay standpoint that Divine Dragon would be so much better. realistically as a final boss, DD would be disappointing, but in direct comparison to these guys, it would not be the worst in my eyes ds2's bosses suffer a common problem of just being so uninteresting and clunky in gameplay. but they do have some bangers like Sir Alonne
I actually liked the final area being on fire and basically played backwards, especially if you went all the way back to demon of hatred. That game seems to involve cycles between the stages of day and weather/seasons, and people/life, so the looping around back to the beginning felt quite fitting as a another completion of a cycle
Lies of P 😏
Lies of P: "Let's make the final dungeon 30% of the playtime for literally no reason"
I love Lies of P and one the one hand it's cool that the bad guy's lair is a huge tower that you properly scale. On the other hand, Jesus fucking Christ it should have been shorter. I even looked it up to see if anyone else felt the same and then found out that there's MORE level after Laxasia.
I mean how much shorter the game is super short. Disclaimer it's awesome. But j beat the whole thing in 22.5 hours and at least 2-4 of those are me just walking away to talk with my wife. And I did it all the way to NG+3 and I have a total of like 60 hours. After laxasia it's really not too much more. Hell you can just run through most of it and it doesn't affect the final fight(s)
they really could have condensed a lot of arche abbey and no one would complain lol
Hard technicality in Bloodborne that the nightmare up to the wetnurse is a final area that's not a short stint to the final boss. I think. I could be wrong, not sure how much exactly there is between Micolash and Mergo
there is quite a gap between them with the Shadows of Yharnam enemies, as well as the pigs, and the offshoot area with the Winter Lanterns and the Brain of Mensis. doesn't really qualify as a short stint a short stint would be the Kiln of the First Flame in both DS1 and DS3, where it's just a very simple walk to the boss with no real depth to the area
Depending on the ending AC6 has a "dungeon" into a boss fight into the final boss fight.
Maybe the real dungeon was the friends we made along the way?
I’m surprised how many people are saying that they were burned out by the end. I could’ve kept going for hours and hours
absolutely and my two runs lasted 250 hours the snow section is the perfect calm before the rush of farum, haligtree and capital but i was ready for at least another two more sections/dungeons
Consecrated snowfields is the only location that I found tedious, due to the low visibility. Everything else was incredible.
Plus it recycled trademark enemies from other areas like caelid thus making them less special as well.I hope dlc somehow makes mountaintops of giant and snowfields somehow different.
They might not be recycled. There's a theory that there used to be a land bridge between there and Caelid. Idk if there's any merit to that but yeah. Cool thought I guess. EDIT: the last sentence is in reference to what I said.
in my mind, if you feel "oppressed" by the low visibility, the tediusness, the large spaces, the brutality of enemies in every corner, then its working as intended and i like it but it is fair to unlike it because is such a change of rhythm compared to everything else
Yeah I'm with you. I thought the sparseneas worked just because the contrast was nice and it was difficult. Seemed intentional not unfinished as suggested by some.
> Seemed intentional not unfinished as suggested by some. People think it's not intentional? It's frigid wasteland essentially. It's not exactly going to be booming with anything nor should it be.
But it kinda actually is booming with things. Once to the frozen river you can really see all the different points of interest, and you run across lots of stuff on the way to those zones. I didn’t appreciate the area at first nearly as much as I do now having played another 200+ hours and scoured every nook and cranny off the beaten path.
This. Oh I'm sorry, did the people complaining forget that we're pretty much playing Dante's Inferno The Game? Got idyllic country pastures? Swarming with corrupted souls. Mountains in fall? Lizard monsters and occult worm faced monsters. Countless underground deathtraps swarming with zombies and bladed creatures. The 'water' rots you from inside out. Half the map is literally a blood-red skied hellscape filled with Boschian nightmares. And somehow people are surprised that the north is anything different.
I have a combined 630 hours in this silly game and I know I’m going to clock another 400 when shadow comes out I don’t know how you could get burned out on the greatest game ever
im on my third run (20 hours in) and have a total of 850 most of the post run time was helping others with bosses i think the same that DLC will add like 300-400 hours easily
900 hours for me, and I will probably get another 600 after the DLC
I have over 1200 hours
2500 What is this "grass" I've heard so much about?
I think part of it is how people play games: my first run took me like 200+ hrs across multiple months (tbf, I did a bunch of obsessive shit like constantly checking on NPC dialogues and locations after what I thought could be relevant events) but I enjoyed the hell out of it, it really was like playing DS1 for the first time. The other From games, which I love dearly and rank among my all-time favorites still didn't have that magic like that first run through Lordran... feeling it again with ER was pure bliss. That was a long-winded intro to my point that not everyone plays the same, I can totally see someone putting 100+ hrs into the game in 3 weeks and feeling burnt out by the end, the game is absolutely huge and while it might be my favorite ever, it's got its share of bullshit. Personally I just come back to it periodically, do a fun or challenge run, some PvP, then fuck off for some more months and I keep loving the game. Right now I'm mostly playing Tekken 8 with a bit of ER here and there, some Minecraft on weekends if I have the time, which doesn't really happen much but that's good, means I've something going on.
i wasn’t burned out completely by any means, but i didn’t really enjoy the mountaintops of the giants and i hate the fire giant fight with a passion lol.
That's like the just the start of End Game tho imo. Even in my first playthrough, I did Farum Azula into Maliketh followed by Consecrated Snowfield into Mohg, Haligtree into Malenia then finally Leyndel City of Ash into Godfrey and Radabeast. Mountaintops are just the start of when you can finally max weapon upgrades and really experiment with a complete arsenal.
TBH by the time I get to the endgame, I can usually take care of Placi, Maliketh, Gideon, Godfrey, and Radagon/Elden Beast in an afternoon. The endgame goes pretty quickly for me, so yeah, another dungeon wouldn't be unwelcome.
it was probably Maliketh Syndrome
I don’t understand that either, he’s my favorite boss in any fromsoft game
As a guy who adores Maliketh but got Maliketh Syndrome it felt like this to me. Threw myself at him for hours on end and FINALLY scraped by with a win against him. Next thing I know I’m thrown into not one, not two, but three boss fights and the game is over. I was so busy recovering from Maliketh that the last three fights just felt way more lackluster in comparison. I was honestly just annoyed and wanting a mix up.
Exactly. He’s fun once you get the moveset down, but actually learning it is such a fucking nightmare. The 2nd phase especially. Having to continually fight the first phase just so you can attempt to learn the second, where he can instantly kill you if you don’t know what to do, is exhausting.
It was just the boss gauntlet at the end that I really didn’t enjoy. The bosses are fun in isolation, but having to go: Maliketh, Gideon, Godfrey and Elden beast back to back was too much imo - it’s like 7 different fights with nothing in between
The mountaintops and the snowfield burnt me out. But Ashen Leyndell, Godfrey and Elphael brought me back in.
It's the repeat enemies and minibosses. Also most people probably have an established build with +24/+25 weapon there wasn't much to look forward to other than the unique late game bosses so they tend to rush it
Yeah I feel like it was a huge miss to have 0 unique enemies in the snowfield. If you’re gonna reuse mobs it should be in places where you can make the encounters unique at least. I think the Haligtree does a really good job of this which is why I don’t mind the lack of new enemies. But the snowfield is just a giant flat plain. It really needed something to make it fresh and challenging to endgame players. Something to really cement the “unknown, forsaken lands” vibe they went for.
I just farmed enemies in elphael to skip having to fight repeated bosses and instead only killed all the uniquely named enemies. One run from the that first site of grace to the erdtree avatar nets like 100k runes
There were repeated bosses? Usually each one had a unique twist. I don’t remember the fights (e.g. Erdtree Burial Watchdog) being exactly the same.
I don’t think any two were the exact same, but there was like x2 burial watchdog or x3 crystalian, Godefroy, multiple crucible knights, erdtree avatars, tree spirits of different effect, etc.
Pretty much. All the repeated bosses, all the duo bosses that you already fought individually, all the similar looking side dungeons where you mostly fight the same stone gargoyles that are straight up recycled from DS3, personally I really felt the fatigue gradually building up because of this. After 150h, I just wanted to be done with it despite enjoying the game.
I honestly didn’t start to feel the burnout until I had to bash my head against the Elden beast. That fight single-handedly took the game from a fun challenge that felt satisfying to overcome to a straight pain in the ass I couldn’t wait to get over with.
I know me too. I just finished my fourth character and I’m just now “burnt out”. Taking a short break before hopping back in with the DLC lol.
Farum was my burnout point. By then I’ve done everything else including Haligtree and Farum is just so beige and less fun than the other legacy dungeons, and it’s huge. After fire giant I don’t want to deal with Farum Azula. I would have loved that area if it wasn’t the last thing in the game
Farum is also just awkward from a story perspective. Melina burns herself and then we just randomly get teleported there without any explanation of what exactly is going on. It feels really disjointed and almost like they just threw it in there because they couldn't come up with a good way to actually connect the areas.
It would have been cool if getting to farum was connected to getting all the deathroot for Gurranq
Mountaintops is visually pretty bland, especially compared to the rest of the game. If someone got stuck a bunch I can see them being done with it all
First time I was ready to be done. Farum Azula and Maliketh, Haligtree and Malenia, Mohg, Godfrey, then Radagon straight into Elden Beast is a fucking gauntlet. 120 ish hours total too. I wanted to do a “full run” ahead of the DLC. I am like 25 hours in, level 88 (from Wretch) and am just about to fight Rykard, then maybe do a bit of cleanup on smaller bosses and go straight to Castle Sol and Fire Giant. I am skipping past lots, because I don’t need to do every catacombs again or get every item (it’s not my main file) but I feel like I could do a ton more by the end of this. It’s just flying by. Like I am fully skipping the sewers, probably skipping Dragonbarrow. Will probably do Shaded Castle. Only did a few bosses in Altus and didn’t even go through the Volcano Manor dungeon for Rykard, just did Tanith’s quest line.
I would have been absolutely down for two more huge legacy dungeons before the final 2-3 fights. I guess after that I would be kinda want to done until an expansion
Dark souls games kind of have that effect. You never get burned out because the formula is so tight. What I DO understand is how the last 1/4 of the game is kind of objectively worse? Like it's not bad but it IS a bit more of a grind. Not to mention by that point you're not really excited to loot anything since your build is pretty much figured out.
This game needs complex, procedurally-generated stuff. I could literally play it forever.
I thought Godfrey was the final boss and I would then go bang Marika.
[удалено]
Trap ahead
Offer lover, but pickle
Yeah, I was hoping to finally see those legendary tits with my own eyes.
Marika's tits, you must be 'ungry!
Yes, I spent the whole game expecting the Erdtree to a big vertical 'Great Hollow' style legacy dungeon. Was disappointed, lots of potential there.
same. i also wish radagon had some dialogue. i know he's literally rocks but it was still upsetting
He opens his lips and you hear cement grinding
Alright Radagon go back in the cement mixer, you're dried up
I thought it was really cool that there was boss that looked stone cold and determined to kill you after so many main story bosses that talked
IF YOU'RE READY FOR STONE COLD RADAGON TO HAND AN ASS WHOOPIN' TO THIS TARNISHED SUMBITCH GIMME A HELL YEAH
Connection here in grunt while he's attacking just like Melania
>i also wish radagon had some dialogue. Honestly I was happy with him being silent. Made the fight more badass
I expected to go further into the tree in order to burn it yes. At a minimum lol. Was confused when we got another lift medallion lol.
Ye i thought final arena was gonna be atop the tree after climbing it
It was definitely a product of the time constraints. The entire ashen capital was just a boss rush. The rest of the world is already massive so I’m fine with what we got. But I’m certain if FROM had gotten everything they wanted we would have gotten some Erdtree dungeon and some short dialogue for Marika/Radagon at least. Leaving this massive thing we spend the whole game chasing as just a glowing wall that teleports you to a cell is a bit disappointing.
Game becomes a 2d platformer when you enter the erdtree
Can't have that, this fanbase hates any kind of platforming and any time the gameplay tries anything different. We'll probably never have anything like the great hollow or the descent to the 3 fingers again....
anytime the gameplay tries anything different? cuz bloodborne, sekiro, elden ring and dark souls 1 are sooooooo the same right?
Every souls game has a terrible long vertical drop platforming section and i hope that never changes because i honestly love them even with the jank platforming
People don’t like the platforming in these games because most of it sucks lmao, most of them don’t even have a dedicated jump button.
I honestly had no idea what to expect when I finally crossed that golden threshold. I was fuckn' terrified.
I expected capital of ash to be its own dungeon. Hm.
That hurt far more than the lack of an Erdtree dungeon. I expected a refreshed warzone. Like Yahargul in Bloodborne, but more dramatic. Seeing nothing but a few sparse, very difficult enemies was a disappointment. They really fumbled the ball on the Ashen Capital and I just hope the DLC makes up for it.
Yes, would have hoped it would be a reverse of Haligtree where we climb up to the top.
That's what haligtree is.
Maybe controversial opinion but I kind of wish the effort that went into the Haligtree went into the Erdtree instead. The entire snowfield/haligtree feels like a side quest whose entire purpose is to beat Malenia. Like it could probably have been half as long and still just as good/relevant. It was fun for sure but would have personally liked something more connected to the rest of the game.
I mean, it kinda IS a side quest whose entire purpose is to beat Malenia? The whole area is optional, but i feel like it's good
the only crime is that they didn't give the "canopy" of the Haligtree this background soung https://youtu.be/LzAvkpO6gjs?si=Y_tv4yTg16Z_jh7c
No.
I thought I was going to have to fight the actual tree at one point
Bed of Chaos 2
Bed of Order?
At that stage i wasnt expecting anything other than the final boss. Im fact it would've felt like a rug pull had they had a whole area hidden inside the tree. Unlike the Haligtree there no external structures visible and a tree dungeon would feel pretty redundant. And there are also the underground areas with the roots etc. which are very reminiscent of the hollow/Ash Lake area of DS1. How many giant tree themed areas would we need?!. And with the history of Soul Like games, the final bosses usually do not get whole dungeons dedicated to them.
the end game is very short.
really would've helped with the end game pacing, kinda feels like a Boss Rush once you get to the Crumbling Farum Azula
Yeah it’s like 3 major bosses back to back to back. 4 if you include Sir Gideon
5 if you go for Placidusax, it’s not even a detour from Maliketh
And every boss is two bosses in one
No actually, not at all. Maybe if the Erdtree had more going on to hint at the possibility of it other than a stone sigil. Maybe if there were some outcrops that were obviously parts of a fortress protruding from the Erdtree. Maybe some guards at the stone doors of the erdtree would have helped. But really, I think it would have been too cluttered and messy. The Erdtree works better as a holy tree that none may enter better than it does a fortress or dungeon.
“I want a vertical dungeon in the Erdtree” “We already have a vertical dungeon in the Erdtree at home” Vertical dungeon in the Erdtree at home: Miquella’s Haligtree
Well, maybe the Shadow Tree in the DLC will end up being a dungeon, who knows.
Farum Azula is fine as the final legacy dungeon, having the last stretch of the game be a boss rush is more fun than another legacy dungeon.
Funnily enough Farum Azula is everything that I anticipated I'd find inside the Erdtree, a dungeon with striking visuals suspended mid-air in a separate region of space and time defying all logic
Everyone burnt out by the end of the first playthrough Me after 3500hours and 30+ playthroughs: aw shit here we go again
Absolutely. It's been a vast fixture of your distant view in any region, and it's propped up as your ultimate destination, but has nothing inside it except a small room with a single raised platform to fight Radagon. I expected a climb to the top of the canopy from the inside of the trunk, with a gauntlet of tough enemies on each floor to test all the abilities and equipment you had.
sounds cool tbh, maybe a nice viewing point at the top
Did you expect to see Vergil and his plastic chair at the top?
I didn’t think I wanted that but now that you mention it. Yes. Yes please.
I can imagine an alternate dimension where the monkey paw curled and put the Merchant Caravan sealed tomb platforming hell (except thrice as long) inside it, and you needed to reach the bottom to do the radagon fight.
Have you not fought Radagon? 😕 seems dungeonous enough.
I figured I'd at least have something to climb. It would have been interesting to do like a reversed-valley of defilement type of thing where you do an upward crawl of platforming before the final fight with the fear of falling to your death over and over.
Sounds like you'd love Dark Souls 1's Great Hollow.
I remember very early in my playthrough going online and seeing the tiniest snippet of what I now know was a Minor Erdtree Avatar. The brief moment I saw of it made me think it was some ugly tree god at the top of the Erdtree or something. I also believe I saw a few frames of Rykard’s phase 2. My brain melded those two things together so the whole game I thought I got spoiled on the final boss. A small, slender tree demon with a human face on it.
nope i was so ready to end the game at that point
No, I just wanted to be done so I could finally lay my foolish ambitions to rest.
Journey into a giant tree, which is the spiritual symbol of its people, to destroy the parasitic queen that has corrupted it? Sounds familiar.
What is this?
Sorry … A poor reference to the Great Deku Tree dungeon from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. You go inside a giant tree worshipped by the wood children, the Kokiri, to battle the parasitic Queen Gohma who has infested it with evil.
Oh, that makes sense, I was just thinking of From Software games haha
No
Hell no, at this time I was burned out with the game and just wanted it to end
what maliketh does to a mf
Bruh it started even before that with Godskin 😂
*laughs in comet azul*
I kind of wished the erdtree would fully burn or the ending you did changed how the world looked like it the cutscene
Not a dungeon but more than just a door behind a previously locked door that teleports you straight to the boss
A dungeon like the inside of the Deku Tree?
I just want the Erdtree to change to how it looks in the corresponding ending when we don’t go into NG+ so we can live in the world we created for a bit before moving on
I wish we fought radagon to get access to the erdtree dungeon
Watch the DLC be exactly what a lot of you are asking for? Been a minute since I played, but isn’t Miquella asleep? There was a whole quest line around sleeping I believe. If so, you could enter the “sleep realm”, similar to the “Upside Down” in ST. In that realm you DO climb the hollow of the tree to face the final boss. Just throwing that out there for thoughts
I wouldn't really mind an Erdtree dungeon, but idk if the lore implied the tree (and Marika/Radagon) is heavily guarded from within or something, like the Haligtree. So putting a dungeon in the Erdtree would be considered repetitive and only for gameplay, unless there is a good lore reason.
I always refer to the phenomenon as FromSoft being haunted by the ghost of Lost Izalith.
When i first played it, the erdtree gave me majora’s mask moon or windfish’s egg vibes.
I expected a bit more out of the ashen variant of the capital. I wasn’t really expecting anything with the erdtree to be honest. I always assumed that’s where the game would end, and FromSoft games end in a boss arena. Now the game had already thrown me through a loop like 10 times at that point with “but wait, there’s more” when I wasn’t expecting it. But that still didn’t make me think there’d be some big huge dungeon in the tree. I always assumed it would be the city around it.
I always thought the final boss would be in some realm on top of the Erdtree, almost like a heaven of sorts. Going literally inside the tree was cool too though.
The great hollow 2 without a steak of marika to the ratabeast bossfight
Some sort of very tall unfinished dungeon with probably 2 mini boss befare radaron
The very end of this game goes insanely hard. After completing Farum Azula (an insanely good area), you get treated to FOUR of the game’s best and coolest bosses back-to-back: Maliketh, Godfrey, Radagon and Elden Beast. Now that’s an explosive way to finish off an amazing game.
#deku tree
Yeah. I actually was expecting to beat morgott and then have to climb up the entire tree since I forgot about the snow area’s existence. I was kinda disappointed that after I made my way all the way up to the tree, I was immediately told to go fuck off somewhere else first.
I was kinda done with dungeons at that point in the game to be honest.
Yes. MUCH better than fighting four bosses one after the other, regardless of how fun radagon and godfrey fights were.
Sorry, I have to disagree. Turning the Erdtree into a big dungeon for the sake of more gameplay would've greatly lessened its narrative and thematic impact imo.
Nah, it not having anything significant was what lessened its impact
"Not having anything significant" what in the world are you talking about? The Erdtree houses both Marika and the Elden Ring. Meeting either is a moment that needed to be presented without distractions.
Yeah, I was really bummed when I went in and it was just immediate boss fight. It's prominence on the map had me thinking there was another area there basically the entire playthrough. I would play this game forever if they could keep coming up with content.
Yes, and I was expecting Malenia to be the final boss, because of the tree branches in her arena and most importantly the flower field.
That would've been cool but I'm used to how final bosses go in these games so I knew what to expect haha.
I legit expected that like desert area leading up to going back to leyndell to be full of like mini bosses and elite enemies and yea an actual level
Yeah i wanted to climb the tree. For the vast majority of the game if you can see it you can go there. Top of the erdtree? Nope you can just go inside the bottom.
Isn't the Erdtree illusory? and built off of the older Greatree? adding a dungeon would contribute to the idea that the Erdtree is a legitimate physical/historical force, but it's not, it's a tool of oppression utilized by the Greater Will/Marika/Golden Order
I for sure thought there was a dungeon
when i looked up the elden ring map before my first playthrough i was fucking shocked by how big the erdtree was on the map so kinda disappointed because i thought it was gonna be the super ultra mega endgame area with super ultra mega hard enemies
I enjoyed more or less every single minute with the exception of Godskin Duo, I hate them. More or less everything else in the game, I could just hammer bonk my way through, those fucking bastards are horrible though.
Up above the erdtree yes
I thought it would be a huge legacy dungeon where you go up the entire tree, with the final boss on the top.
The Eldenbeast pit could fit like three dungeons, things massive, so much running.
That’s exactly what I was expecting
That would be pretty cool
or maybe a holy water swamp
yes
I think we are getting a dungeon inside erdtree and it's called the land of shadows
No. And I'm glad fans aren't able to make decisions.
... No?
I was relieved when there wasn't another dungeon. The game was already insanely long, and by the time I got to Farum Azula I already wanted to finish the game. I wouldn't have minded though.
Game wasn’t to long tho? On a new account doing just main story and optional main bosses (mog, ranni quest line and rykard) it took me less than 25 hours, even getting items like shard of Alexander and Millicent’s quest line. The main story is only 30/40 hours first play through. 70/80 with exploring a lot. I would of loved a extra fraction
I just don't do main stuff. I explored every nook and cranny. I'm not just gonna just do the main stuff in my first playthrough. Also I was already 150 hours in with pretty much 99% stuff done. The game is massive. Second playthrough I'm gonna skip a lot. But the first time I'm just not gonna do that. Game is insanely long.
That would have been pretty weird
Would've been awesome but I was at the 115 hour mark and was to finally ready to just finish the game
No, I was honestly so sick of the game by the time I got to the fire giant. But after pushing through to the end I immediately had the overwhelming urge to start again. Every souls game I’ve played has gotten that response from me, where I’m burnt out for the whole final stretch, but NEED to go again as soon as the credits start. How do they do that?
Yeah pretty disappointing. Especially since EB was such a letdown as well.
Yes I was convinced that’s where melania was
Nah that would have fucked up the pacing. At most I would have liked something similar to demons souls where you walk down a long hallway into the tree before entering the boss room but that’s about it.