Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree’s Difficulty Changes Are a Perfect Middle-Ground

Although many players are enjoying Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, a significant portion of the fanbase has chastised it for being too difficult. These frustrated players have cited issues like unreasonable enemy damage, too-long combos from bosses, and ineffective damage negation as criticisms of the expansion, resulting in Shadow of the Erdtree getting a ‘mixed’ review rating on Steam—something virtually unheard of for a modern FromSoftware title.

FromSoftware has heeded these complaints, recently issuing a patch that makes Shadow of the Erdtree noticeably easier. Although the DLC’s detractors have been vocal in their criticisms, they don’t make up the entirety of the playerbase; many others have been able to enjoy the expansion in spite of, or specifically due to, its difficulty. So, when news of this patch broke, players fitting into this latter category were understandably concerned that such a patch would nerf the game, making it too easy and excising what they enjoy about it. But these worries are mostly unfounded, as FromSoftware appears to have reached a good compromise with this patch.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree’s Difficulty Patch Keeps Its Gameplay Vision Intact

Make No Mistake, Shadow of the Erdtree Is Still Hard

Two years ago, FromSoftware made some balance adjustments to Elden Ring‘s base game, nerfing bosses like Radahn, who were initially viewed as far too overpowered by some players. Among the changes to Radahn was a massive decrease in his hitbox size, as well as his base damage. This meant that, no matter where a player was at in terms of power and experience, Radahn was easier following the update.

But this does not appear to be the case with Shadow of the Erdtree’s patch, which takes a decidedly different approach to difficulty tuning. Its effects, per the patch notes, are as follows:

• The attack and damage negation has been increased for the first half of the maximum amount of Blessing enhancements, and the second half will now be more gradual.
• The attack and damage negation granted by the final level of Blessing enhancements has been slightly increased.

Rather than a flat decrease in overall enemy damage output or behavior, the patch has only impacted the DLC’s new progression system: players now grow more powerful through the first handful of Scadutree and Revered Spirit Ash upgrades. This should be extremely helpful for those struggling with Shadow of the Erdtree’s early boss fights, which have served as roadblocks for many.

Shadow of the Erdtree’s Balance Patch Doesn’t Change Its Core Features

Ultimately, if someone feels that the patch has made things too easy, they can simply choose not to upgrade their Scadutree or Revered Spirit Ash Blessings, modulating the challenge as they see fit. If these players have already upgraded their Blessings to the maximum, or find the DLC too easy for another reason, they now have more room to experiment with the different build variety offered by the expansion.

Thus, Shadow of the Erdtree’s post-launch difficulty balancing seems like a nice middle-ground. It’s still interesting, however, to look at the context of this patch. Regardless of the current state of the DLC, it’s likely that players will be debating the merits of its difficulty and overall design. Now that they can more easily overcome Shadow of the Erdtree’s biggest challenges, its detractors may look more favorably on it, or they may maintain that it has design issues in spite of balance tweaks.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

Shadow of the Erdtree is the first and only DLC expansion for FromSoftware’s groundbreaking Elden Ring. It takes players to a whole new region, the Land of Shadow, where a new story awaits the Tarnished.

Released

June 21, 2024

Developer(s)

FromSoftware

Multiplayer

Online Co-Op , Online Multiplayer

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence

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