sulfurousacid

I'll be here when it all gets weird

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Pauline-Ragny
@Pauline-Ragny

So many user reviews of Shadow of the Erdtree are really pissed at the idea of gaining power by collecting a specific kind of item hidden throughout the world and I genuinely do not understand why that is such an issue. It seems like such a basic video game thing to me. Why would this be somehow unacceptable in souls? Would you really rather have to GRIND? The thing everyone says is boring about RPGs???


Pauline-Ragny
@Pauline-Ragny

I've seen people argue that the devs buffed the blessing soon after release in a patch so clearly they admit that the DLC was too hard. However if you look at what they actually did, I would argue it's more revealing of the player base and gamer psychology than proof that the DLC was unbalanced. Let's look at the actual numbers, shall we?


I'm only gonna talk about the player attack multiplier because the math is simpler to parse with that one. Numbers are taken from this reddit post.1

On release, the multiplier for the damage you deal is increased by .05 consistently every time you level up the Scadutree Blessing from level 1 to level 20. It caps out at 2.00.

After patch, the multiplier for the damage you deal is increased by:

  • .10 for level 1 and 2.
  • .05 for level 3, 4 and 5
  • .075 for level 6 and 7
  • .05 for level 8 and 10
  • .10 for level 11 and 12
  • .025 from level 13 to 20
    It caps out at 2.05.

DO YOU SEE? DO YOU SEE WHAT THEY DID? Now the damage increases are bigger in the first half and smaller in the 2nd half. They didn't really buff it so much as they shifted some of the overall amount you get down to the first levels. You can interpret this as an admission that the DLC starts out too difficult but I think they did this because the whiny motherfuckers weren't exploring as much as the devs were hoping and bashing their heads against bosses instead. Yes, technically they buffed it overall by .05 at level cap. It seems like a rather insignificant increase to me. I honestly believe they did this so players would see the patch notes say "the blessing was buffed" and conclude "number go up."


  1. I know, it's reddit, so grain of salt and all but I don't have the PC version. I don't have the ability to check the regulation.bin files myself and other places I checked seem to more or less agree with these numbers so I can only hope they're accurate. Fextralife has a similar table but they seem to round up to the second decimal for whatever reason.


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in reply to @Pauline-Ragny's post:

in reply to @Pauline-Ragny's post:

On top of power/difficulty curve stuff I think the scadutree blessings do a really good job of recreating one of base Elden Rings greatest strengths, that if you are struggling with a boss or area you can go somewhere else and come back stronger. That said I don't think the system is without issues.

Each fragment has no in game way of distinguishing it from the others, this makes keeping track of what you've already found rather annoying. A minor issue but one that does compound with the odd placement of some of them in random pot guys who don't stand out from the various random shadowmen you ride past enough compared to say scarabs in the base game. This feels especially odd when none of the catacombs end with a fragment, which in turn can leave the rewards from those otherwise excellent little dungeons feeling rather underwhelming.

I feel like if they took the same approach as the golden seeds in the base game it would help quite a bit. That is if there were just more fragments to collect than you actually needed to hit max level.

Sorry if this comment got a bit long.