I don’t think this is true for NPC or Ash summons. Bosses get beefed up when you summon another PC.
I just steamrolled Renalla Twin Sword. Same rush down strategy. I’m really surprised so far.
I struggled with Renalla a couple of times when I first found her; came back a while later and found the fight very easy (with a summons). I had enough health to stay in melee and avoid the AOE attacks.
I’m too slow for the boss fights, so my strategy has been to over-level. I like to explore and find all of the treasures so it works out well for me.
I think I’ve finished most of the DLC this weekend. I’ve still got to fight Messmer and the last furnace golem.
I’ve really enjoyed the DLC. There’s a lot more content than I expected and some interesting new skills and monsters.
The world is much more vertical and there are some fun puzzles to work out. The areas are all unique and look great; although the big area where you can’t use Torrent was a bit of a pain. I like that monsters drop more smithing stones than junk to sell. It streamlines the economy without spoiling it.
I’ve had a couple of minor bugs; fortunately nothing as bad as @sohvan (that must have been really frustrating).
Why do games like this insist on one save slot that constantly re-writes? This is exactly why I love it when games let me have multiple save slots. No risk of any errors or, you know, having your kid delete a save accidentally.
Uh, not no risk. Just not as big a deal of my entire game. I just played Tales of Vesperia and while it only took 40 hours, I had a new save going every 2 hours or so. I actually did have a glitch that cost me some progress. I had to re-do 30-40 minutes maximum.
If it had been the entire game, nope. I would have quit.
When you say summon are you including ashes?
Oh yeah, I meant spirit ashes. I play offline although I sometimes invite the NPC summons if I think it will further their story.
I usually use the mimic tear, but will mix it up if it’s not working or occasionally if it’s getting to easy.
I can’t think of anything more frustrating than a corrupted save. If it happened to me I would likely quit for good.
That said I like the how liberating it is to not deal with saved games. I’m never thinking “should I save now?”. Plus death has some meaning since you can’t just go back to an old save. You launch the game, press enter twice and you’re back where you were last.
Because that’s part of the challenge. Otherwise you’d save before a big fight and restore from it if you fail. Instead they want to force you to go risk getting your XP back if you die.
Just about all Souls-like games work that way. It’s a feature of the genre.
True for NPC summons, not for ashes, per the wiki. I’ll actually verify it tomorrow with the debugger and report back. I’m sure I have a save near a boss with an NPC summon somewhere.
Have you finished the Ruins of Rauh yet? Otherwise, you’ve got a good chunk to go. Messmer is only second or third of the four required bosses, depending on how much you explored before fighting him.
I’m slightly disappointed in the final dungeon so far. It’s an absolute maze with so many levels, but I was led to believe the second-to-last fight would be brutal, and it just…wasn’t. Avatar, Rellana, Senessax (so far), and the Putrescent Knight all gave me significant difficulty - less than Malenia, more than Mohg. I haven’t done the last fight, but DS3 gave me Midir, and Lies of P had Laxasia and Simon Manus, depending on the ending. Absolutely brutal fights before the hell of the last bosses, Gael and the Nameless Puppet.
The difficulty has been all over the place. Part of that is probably doing things out of order, which is to be expected from an open world game, but still feels wonky.
Yep. It’s possible to save scum any Fromsoft game I’ve played, but it’s tedious as hell, and generally pointless. You don’t actually lose progress, because you know you can get to the point you died, and there’s a decent chance you opened a shortcut. And in the end, runes/souls/ergo are meaningless, and you don’t lose your inventory. Kill some peons again on your way to the location of your untimely demise, and you even come out ahead.
Oh, and fuck furnace giants. Haven’t killed one yet, despite spending over an hour trying to kill a specific one.
I did stumble into the deep cave where the Jar enemies are made. It was a pretty cool concept having people stuffed into them and sealed in.
Yep, I skipped Messmer and many of the bosses the when I found them, then came back to them when I was in the mood.
I’ve found all of the areas that I have access to; although I needed the solution for the Hinterlands.
I have one more painting, one furnace golem, Messmer, and possibly a tree boss before moving on.
These get progressively harder so I suggest working through them in order. For melee characters I think the strategy is to focus on minimizing damage so you live long enough to knock then down twice.
The last one I have is a solo golem that has iron shoes. Not sure how to defeat him yet.
Definitely one of the creepiest parts of the DLC. Changes the tone of Alexander and Jarburg, though.
Made me question the Jar Bairn quest from Jarburg even more. Are the smaller jars actually children of adult jars? Or do they just have less people stuffed in there? Or are they made from children?
The jars in The Lands Between are a noble race of warriors, and the jars in the Land of Shadow are simply prisons for the worst criminals around.
Kinda like the reverse of the Horned, though both still hate Tarnished Murder Hobos.
Thanks, that makes sense. I completely that distinction.
I finished everything expect the last boss battle. I tried it a bit, but gave up and will probably skip it. I don’t think I want to grind though all 3 phases.