Elden Ring's first DLC Shadow of the Erdtree has been out for ten days, but after initial praise, the Steam reviews have now been bombed into "mixed reception" by players who think the game is unfairly difficult. FromSoftware has reacted with an emergency patch, adjusting the difficulty for the game's first half.
Blood, Sweat and Tears! These words best express the FromSoftware gaming experience for most of the fans. But despite the difficulty and countless deaths, I keep coming back to Elden Ring.
And after two years of waiting and over 500 hours of playtime, the Tarnished may rise again!
The expansion Shadow of the Erdtree is finally here. But, after the initial hype, reviews were lower than expected.
One of the reasons for this is, that many players had complaints about the game's difficulty. Which lead to FromSoftware launching the Emergency Balance Patch.
Shadow of the Erdtree Balance Patch Makes First Bosses Easier
The Fans have spoken, and Miyazaki responded. In the new Emergency Patch, the scaling of Shadow Realm blessings has been adjusted to help players in the early part of the game.
The increase of power from Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes is now more effective for the first ten upgrades. After that point, the curve flattens a bit, so that the late game challenges aren't affected as much.
In addition to those changes, the damage and damage negation increase of the last Shadow Realm Blessing has been slightly increased as well.
Should FromSoftware Have Given In To The Community?
At the DLC's launch, Miyazaki stated that turning down the difficulty would break the game. So now that the difficulty has actually been lowered a tad, is the game broken? I don't think so.
The patch hits just the right point between helping struggling players and not making the game too easy for people who want a harder challenge. The only thing that bugs me is the hypocrisy of the fans. They praised the base game for not holding their hand and are now the ones who criticize the DLC for being too hard. But, all the resources for making the subjective experience more enjoyable were already in their reach.
The difficulty of the game should incentivize players to scour the Land of Shadow for new weapons and upgrades. Also, there is no shame in using Spirit Summons or looking up the weaknesses of bosses you're struggling with. All I can say is, we should be glad that the game has not been made too easy. We are still playing a FromSoft title after all.
What do you think? Is the DLC actually too hard? Or are the players overreacting? Let us know!