Seems like there aren't a lot of typical Elden Ring dungeons, just overworld stuff and then bigger dungeons for the more important bosses. Performance is really bad so far.
Died to the Parade Lion while it was at 1HP, Freja secured the kill just before I timed out, hell yeah, I'll take it.
I've played most-ish? of the way through at this point. I'm not really a fan of the fragment rune system they added. I understand why they did but it feels very unbalanced right now. Like either you're wayyy underpowered or wayyy overpowered and there's no in between and it's really noticeable between dungeon enemies and then the bosses. Once you get to level 5 or whatever you're pretty much nuking everything that isn't a boss.
There's also no clear progression for this system. Why should I go to any of the side dungeons when the fragments are all over the place in the overworld or in the main legacy dungeons? What do I get from doing the side dungeons besides spending 45 minutes trying to navigate a catacomb only to get shit on by the Nameless King because I'm doing an unintentional SL1 attempt. Idk. feels like they are not really respecting my time with the way it's setup currently. I wouldn't have gone through that dungeon if I knew I was going to get shit on by the boss at the end because I wasn't high enough level.
There are also other kinda dumb things that are clearly meant to make things take longer. Like why do I need to unlock spirit springs now? The rock to smash to enable it is 100 yards away but you're having me look for it for what reason?
The bosses are pretty fun though. Except the hippo. They made it too goddamn big.
I don't disagree, I'd really like to see how the numbers actually break down to make sense of what a difference it's making. I've noticed that usually I'm able to rush bosses down fast enough that it's never an endurance slog like Elden Beast, but every hit I take is doing like 50% of my HP and I'm wearing heavy armor.
Oh, is that how those work. Noticed it was broken and figured it might have just turned on later.
Re: progression, I just beat
spoiler
Mesmer at blessing level 10, and I'm getting the impression that the main story is coming to a close but there's still like 3 entire areas of the map I walked into and just turned around so maybe there's lots of side stuff?
ive been watching it as i level up, it looks like its between 4-5% increase to your defense and attack power every level. So you should have something like 1.5x your normal damage at level 10.
you should also grab the dragoncrest shield talisman from the haligtree if you dont have it already, it's another 20% to your physical defense. There is also a talisman that boosts defense in the expansion but i can't remember where i found it. It will stack with the dragoncrest shield talisman. So between that and the fragment levels the bosses are hitting me like dark souls 3 bosses. I've found that all of the bosses so far have been pretty easy to stance break with a great hammer which has made things much smoother for sure.
Huh, that's a lot more than I thought. Honestly an even more bizarre choice to include it at all if it's just linear growth.
And yeah, already running the dragoncrest (and usually whatever resistance talisman is best), great jar arsenal, and erdtree's favor +2. Everything still hits like a truck, idk. I, too, am playing ungabunga (ruin greatsword), and I usually get 2+ full staggers per fight.
FYI due to a bug you can use Margit's or Mogh's Shackle to open the spiritstone rocks without having to hunt down the second rock stack. Make use of it before it gets patched out!
pretty sure the design purpose behind that is that they don't want you to be able to jump down from wherever to the spirit spring. which makes sense considering how much more vertical the layout of this map is.
i dont know im not a fan, i kinda hate trying to figure out how to get places but turns out you have to go find a hole half way across the map and then travel there underground along a river full of bugs. Did I need to see the river full of bugs, Miyazaki? Was that important to you?