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Divine Beast Dancing Lion part two and the Scadutree Avatar are the best new music. Metyr's also really fits the fight but it's not one I'd listen to outside of it.

For so many of the bosses, the run that finally beat them didn't really feel like I had mastered them, or even that it was a close fight, their AI just sort of decided not to do any of the hard attacks and just stood there being hit a lot. I don't know what was up with that.

The new weapon types are really cool but I hate that you can't get any of them until the DLC, and you can't start the DLC without doing some end game shit. I'd love to use Milady with wing stance, or some backhand blades or a dueling shield before the end of the game.

Great finally having a reason to use Malenia's great rune though.

I enjoyed most of the DLC, I think I came in at level 160-70ish with a straightforward strength build, so I started feeling really strong when I got some shadow fragments. I tried to be thorough, and ended up finding all but 3 before looking up the map and they were all on hidden paths that I missed. I ended powering through most bosses, so I can't pass judgement on them. I died to Rellana like twice. I thought there was some really cool or even just funny equipment out there, when my seamless coop buddies reach the lamenter I think we'll have a fun time with the transformation. Verdigris armor is the first super heavy tier that isn't atrociously ugly. The great sword from crossbow guy became my main weapon. Heavy Backhand Blades ended up being really powerful, I used them on Radahn and Melania in base game.

Radahn is atrocious, not fun for reasons everyone knows. I did have an easier time with top tier defensive talismans, which I had to go back to base game to get the Dragon Greatshield Talisman, but this does not fix the fight.

I went through most of the DLC not meeting the things I disliked about the base game, like big bears as normal enemies, until I suddenly did. I am always annoyed by FromSoft npc quests as well, the lack of ability to reload sucks when you accidentally kill a forager or are unsure about a choice or miss some obscure content. I killed Messmer first try, and the Hornsent's summon sign doesn't show up the first time.

Enjoyed it for the most part, but I didn't like how exploration was handled. So many places to go that had absolutely nothing. Fully exploring the finger ruins or frenzy woods felt very bad for how much area there was to cover vs amount of rewards for exploring.

Idk how they would fix this though as then they'd either have to make even more unique dungeons to avoid the copy paste complaint of the base game or litter about even more crafting items.

Fuck furnace golems as well

Many spoilers:

My overall thought is that it had some of the best boss fights I've ever experienced (Bayle, Messmer) and some of the worst (Radahn, that stupid moon lady). It felt like they relied heavily on phase change full room instagib attacks to make it hard and I thought that was lazy. Radahn especially with his final phase change, took me a while to learn how to spot him and where he was going to land. Felt way different than his OG fight. His second phase attacks are dodgeable of course but you won't have any stamina left to attack him and by the time you get it back he's back on his bullshit. Very very few openings means it was an EXTREMELY long and tiring fight without summoning. I did it but I won't pretend like I had fun doing it.

Once I killed one furnace golem I just ignored the rest. Absolutely ridiculously boring to kill. Just horse jump and smack their legs for 5 minutes wow so engaging much gameplay.

I agree the level scaling was weird but I understand why they did it, they kinda backed themselves into a corner by capping scaling and having the base game balanced around hitting at least some of those caps. It would have been cool to just up the scaling but that probably makes the end of the base game too easy. Which is also a thing I wish they would get away from, as someone who has thousands of hours across the souls games, who cares if it's too easy.

The world itself was beautiful but the pacing was so weird. You have entire areas that were an absolute joy to run around PACKED TO THE BRIM with things to do and then you have entire areas with nearly nothing (the finger ruins were egregiously empty). Why make this interesting beautiful areas and then put literally nothing inside them.

It felt to me like they had some ideas and they wanted to try them out. Some of those ideas were super cool...there are some seriously cool bosses, enemies, weapons, spells, etc. But some of those ideas had me scratching my head. Also spirit ashes still blow chunkies even if you use mimic tear and even if they're maxed out. For something that's supposed to act as a crutch they needed to fix their late game issues and they just didn't. All of them die hard on all of the instakill phase change attacks which I find very funny.

I hope this DLC was more of a play test for Elden Ring 2....a way for them to try some new stuff and see what folks like and what folks don't. Overall I enjoyed it but I'm a die hard fan of the series. I don't think it's for everyone who liked Elden Ring.

Still playing but I decided to make a new character and arrived there at like SL60 and got crushed by most things. Haven't been any bosses that were worse than Mohg was trying to speedrun there once I started getting my vit up to 50 and had a couple of fragments. Was interesting to see that they added lines about the DLC for Gideon though.

The aestetic and attempts at making the NPCs more active are welcome.

Some of the new weapons and bosses are fantastic and fun, but overall the scaling isn't great and the balance is all over the place.

LOVED the dlc, did not love the last boss. it was a nightmare, even though i was a greatshield build to begin with. that annoying one shot mechanic kept getting me when i had the boss at <20% hp

agree with a lot in this thread. I enjoyed the bosses a lot. the map being so obtuse to explore pissed me off, could have more or less been fixed by doing multiple map layers like in the base game imo. "how do I get down there" was in the base game once as an intentional puzzle (the Caelid chasm) but it got really tiresome having that feeling over and over again in the DLC. I'm not a patient gamer, blundering around the map doesn't interest me as much as just getting to the next Thing so I ended up looking up various routes pretty quickly. collecting the upgrade materials is pretty boring and formulaic. I had an intentionally OP build going in so the difficulty overall didn't bother me that much, felt in line with going to the DS3 DLC. overall it did not enthrall me as much as the DS1 or DS3 DLCs. I think that kinda goes for the game as a whole though I can say now in hindsight.

The constantly re-used bosses is definitely the weakest point of Elden Ring to me.

I've been thinking of going through all the bosses in the game and counting how many of them are actually unique creatures.

I loved it. Some areas are a bit empty, bosses are balanced wierd sometimes, yes, but it didn't seem any harder than the hardest parts of the main game, but I also explored as much as possible before tackling bosses so I was pretty powerful at that point, and I use summons at every opportunity just to draw the fire of the hard bosses because I don't like having to dodge perfectly for five minutes just to get a couple hits in, and then be one shotted by an AoE attack in the second phase.

I had a great time just slowly and carefully exploring most of the DLC. Making it to the cerulean coast was just . I really enjoyed the haunted woods, too, even though it turns out to be a pretty small area with not much in it as a reward.

I loved pretty much all of it. Exploring and finding fragments was very fun, the bosses were a nice challenge mostly. Heading south and finding the cerulean coast was amazing. Almost missed the southeast frenzy forest because I missed a single ladder in shadow fortress. Overall it was just superb.

The only boss I struggled with was of course radahn who I spent about 2 hours figuring out how to beat. Thankfully I love summoning for fights so I don't struggle like people who try to solo bosses like insane people. But finding a summon who wouldn't die instantly basically left me with the mimic tear, so mimic it was. Still took an hour of learning the dodge timings and hoping to get a good block on the instant death move. And learning to force him to fight me in phase 1 while letting mimic hold aggro in phase 2 while I blast him with a ranged weapon special. Endurance management ultimately is what wins the fight though. Especially since I use just a medium shield and was only at about 35 endurance. Probably won't fight him ever again.

But what a journey it was.

I enjoyed all of it, despite the big empty areas. Just the final boss that soured it for me, they really have to start considering how much they want to lean on the hard gaem git gud side of soulslikes. Also the fact that it is 100% separate from the main game is pretty stupid.

Overall pretty positive, though it's definitely soured by the ending.

I think the skibidi scaling works as intended if you go straight for Dancing Lion, then Rellana, then Messmer, but breaks down after that as the world opens up and you become too powerful, right up until the final boss where the difficulty spikes into the stratosphere and you have to go find more. I made it to the final boss at SB level 10 and stood no chance despite first-trying the boss immediately prior, went and fucked off to explore, fight every other boss, and got up to SB 17 before I beat it (went back a few times to grind my face into the wall in the interim to little success). Also I guess it's worth noting that he attacks your PC directly which made it annoying.

Revered Spirit Ashes are way worse, because even with all of them, everything but mimic tear dies ridiculously fast to the final boss. On the subject of DLC spirit ashes, mimic tear is still just the best and from what I've seen none of the new ones are even Tiche-tier.

Some of the new weapons/armors are neat, while others are just pointlessly bad. Like eg the perfumer weapons are fun, but the madness one is just bad because every enemy in the game except NPC invaders is immune to madness. I switched my UGS out for a different one for the final boss but otherwise didn't really try out other stuff. Blue Blessed Dew talisman fucking slaps and should have been in the base game.

All the low level upgrade materials or crafting materials for pots (which I won't use because they're terrible) were pointless, and while it was nice to get some more max level upgrade materials, I think they could have accomplished the same thing by just making a bell bearing for them.

The experiment with more verticality is neat, but frustrating at times when the map just doesn't show you anything helpful. This is compounded by areas like Abyssal Woods and Dragon Mountain where the map just doesn't show you anything at all. Having fewer, longer dungeons was also a fun changeup.

The NPCs and their storylines were interesting and made an astonishing amount of sense for a fromsoft game, due to events happening while you were playing as opposed to long in the past.

I'm echoing your thoughts, almost exactly. It's the base game, with many of its best and worst aspects cranked up to 11. It's best parts are its fantastic boss fights.

Rellana was BRUTALLY difficult (at least, at the BL I was at) but I loved every moment of it.

Midra was visually stunning, and EXTREMELY clean to play, while still being a solid challenge.

Messmer was just a solid fight, all around.

Scadutree Avatar initially had me annoyed, but by the time I got through it, it was one of my favorites. Very unique.

Romina needed a massive buff, my goodness. I barely had a chance to DECIDE if I like the fight or not.

The Furnace Golems were a really cool concept, but in gameplay are just tedious and annoying, and had way too many "fuck you, there is no counter to this move, except to abandon the fight for the next 30 seconds" noves that they can just spam repeatedly.

Promised Consort Radahn is also BRUTALLY difficult, but ultimately learnable, like Rellana, but unlike Rellana is 0% fun to fight. One of those bosses that crosses the line from "learnavle because you get more skillful" to "learnable because you figure out how to metagame it".

Radahn, Consort of Miquella can actually die in a fire. "Let's take the design concepts that ruined Malenia, even though they were a minority of the fight, and build an entire fight around them, exclusively." I.E. it's and entire fight made of Waterfowls. It's every combat concept that was a step backwards for FromSoft, across the entirety of Elden Ring, rolled up into one. Seriously, guys, your job as devs is to make difficult but learnable challenges that an average gamer can overcome, with enough effort, within the rules that the rest of the game has established, not to engage in an arms race against speedrunners and hitless runners. They are not your core audience.

Overall, an experience thst mostly improves on the base game, but was disappointing due to a few VERY significant lowlights. But it's still Elden Ring, so still an excellent game.

Git gud.