The first bosses of Elden Ring : Shadow of the Erdtree made you crazy? You can now return to the game with more peace of mind thanks to the new update. Following the launch of the famous DLC on June 21, players quickly found themselves taken aback. For many, the difficulty of the title seemed to have been raised too much. If this feeling can be attributed to a lack of practice more than 2 years after the release of the initial title, Shadow of the Erdtree has indeed amplified the power of its creatures in a significant way. This return to merciless confrontations after an open-world adventure more lenient than the previous Soulsborne was not to the taste of the entire community. A shame for these Sans-Eclats who advocated the philosophy of “go good” just a few years ago.
Following waves of negative comments, the latest patch 1.12.2 d’Fire Ring deployed by FromSoftware adjusts DLC balance. The developers have taken care to leave the clashes as they are but to bring some additional bonuses to the famous Splinters of the Occult Tree. These objects introduced in Shadow of the Erdtree allow to increase the character’s statistics via the Blessing of the Shadow Realm and therefore stand out as an essential tool to ensure victory in this new adventure.
The attack and defense boosts provided by Splinters are now more substantial in the early stages of the game. So this is what you need to survive to get stuff, experience and get back up to speed. However, the buff will decrease depending on the progression in the story in order to maintain the difficulty of more advanced stages. As good news never comes alone, this gameplay improvement is also accompanied by stability fixes on PC. The bug that forced the use of ray-tracing is nothing more than ancient history. If the game still gives you problems after applying the update, know that modders have thought of you.
A mod for even more ease
Console gamers have to grit their teeth while PC gamers can take off a little extra pressure. On Nexus Mods, Sans-Eclats in difficulty can download Easy Shadow of the Erdtreea mod that – as its name suggests – aims to make the adventure easier by reducing enemy damage. There are four versions of this same mod to suit everyone’s needs:
- 15% less damage
- 25% less damage
- 32.5% less damage
- 40% less damage
While there’s no shame in making these kinds of changes for your own comfort (and sanity), we’d recommend testing the power of the new Splinters before committing to this mod.
Surprising sales despite criticism
The percentage of positive reviews on Steam is not the only statistic to benefit from positive dynamics: DLC sales are too. FromSoftware has just announced that Shadow of the Erdtree has already sold 5 million copies. In comparison, the extension Phantom Liberty of Cyberpunk: 2077 had taken just over three months to achieve this feat despite acclaim from the press and the public. As such, the developers of Elden Ring perhaps did not need to be lenient to avoid negative comments.
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